Montana Green Bulletin

Green Solutions - October 27-Nov 3, 2008

2008-11-04T06:19:00.000-08:00

GREEN SOLUTIONS by Paul Stephens, CasCoGreens

November 3, 2008
Where is Montana's Bernie Sanders?

http://sanders.senate.gov/

I was reading an old Smithsonian Magazine the other day from 1999. There was a story about the "Good News Garage" in Burlington, VT (no relation to NPR's millionaire "car guys" who've made a fortune off of your pledges). Some of the recipients of this public interest co-op's generosity in providing low-income people with serviceable vehicles were Bernie Sanders' supporters when he was running for Congress.
I admit, I haven't followed Sanders' career as closely as I should have, but he is now a U.S. Senator, and always ran as an "Independent Socialist". In "conservative, rural" Vermont, he typically gets 70% or more of the vote. Why can't we have a senator like that? There's one good reason: Montana has always been dominated and controlled by the corrupt Democratic Machine. We've had our share of Bernie's in days gone by - many of whom were Republicans or Progressive Independents of either party. Jeanette Rankin (R) would certainly lead the list, as the first woman from anywhere elected to Congress, but Democrats Burton K. Wheeler and Lee Metcalf were in the same tradition. Rankin just happened to be there for the declarations of war in 1917 and 1941. In the latter case, she was the sole dissenter from the carefully-orchestrated reaction to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, promoted and provoked by the Nationalist Chinese, War Democrats, Bolsheviks, and Zionist Lobby.
Bernie Sanders, instead of being more subdued or "dignified" by being elevated to the Senate, has redoubled his anti-corporate and pro-people activism.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/billions-for-bailouts-who_b_127882.html

Although John Driscoll has much in common with Sanders, he seems to think that he must "run to the right" in order to get elected, here. Just because the right wing is powerful and destructive in Montana, why do "liberals" think they have to pander to them? And what's the point? If you want to win, you've got to present a real alternative, and show no mercy to the Establishment which got us here. It's the stupidest thing: we all blame Bush, Cheney, Reagan, Burns, Racicot, and their ilk for the present malaise. Yet, the Democratic strategists refuse to point a finger, or if they do so, they do it in such a way that the Republicans look good - for opposing "tax and spend," for favoring "anti-terrorism," more military spending, "defending our national interests in the Middle East," supporting "de-regulation" and globalization, while opposing universal health care, gay marriage, environmental protection, etc. Democrats seem to take "the lesser of two evils" literally. They can't imagine being "the good guys" and winning because they have the best candidates and the best policies.
If the best the Democrats can do is to raise more money from the same corporate interests, and try to out-promise and out-attack the Republicans in their own stupid, failed rhetoric and policies, who will vote for them? No one would, except that the Democrats have managed to destroy, drive out, or disenfranchise everyone to the left of them. They always claim it is a "struggle" between the two corporate parties of Wall Street - not between citizens and working class people and the global corporate fascists. And that is why they have attacked and destroyed the Green Party instead of the Republicans. In league with them, Democrats are cheerfully "bi-partisan" - "reaching across the aisle" to consolidate what amounts to a one-party police-prison-garrison state.
The Greens (they thought) can't fight back. We can be easily silenced and discredited. But we're the only ones with a sound program or real solutions to the very real problems which the Republicans in league with the Democrats have caused. And that's why we need a Bernie Sanders - not necessarily a Green, but someone who will speak the truth independent of Democratic Party control. I'm sure that 70% of Montanans would vote for him - especially if he really were a Democrat. We're a "Red State" only by default - because the Democrats have historically been even worse than the Republicans. - Paul Stephens

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October 27, 2008

What do people think elections (and political parties) are for?
Each time, as an election draws near, I go into an acute depression. What could our political leaders possibly be thinking? Why do they insist on running meaningless, stupid, lying campaigns, hoping only to "win" regardless of the consequences to themselves, their communities, and the nation? I asked this when I was a Republican, a Libertarian, and closely allied with Progressive, environmentalist, peace and justice Democrats. It just didn't make any sense to me.
Finally, a political party comes into being which is supposed to represent "a different kind of politics" - one with peace, social justice, grass roots democracy, sustainability, and a government created and maintained to improve the human condition rather than make things worse - to be "the solution" rather than "the problem." Like millions of other Americans, and even greater numbers in other countries and parts of the world, I embraced the Green Party and its program enthusiastically. At last, I wouldn't be wasting my time and my votes on liars, cheats, war-mongers, and capitalistic exploiters. I would be defending individual freedom, constitutional government, a sound economy, and a clean and healthy environment. Surely, almost everyone I knew would agree with this and support the Green Party and our candidates.
No such luck. I remember Birdie Dundee (great-great grand-daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson) saying, in 2000, that supporting Ralph Nader's bid for the presidency was "a no-brainer." She was the first person here in Great Falls to sign up for the campaign. We began circulating petitions, which were co-ordinated from Billings and Missoula. In Missoula, there was an office with several hundred volunteers and party members. They sent us boxes of campaign literature, bumper stickers, and the like. Richard Wachs and others came over several times and helped us during the campaign. Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke got more than 1200 votes in Cascade County, and nearly 20% of the vote in Missoula. Yet, within two years, the Green Party was effectively dead in Montana. How could this be?
In 2002, I ran for public office as a Green, since we still had ballot status as a result of the success of the Nader campaign in 2000. I ran for Cascade County Commissioner, and although I raised more than $1000 and campaigned hard, I still got the same 1200 votes. I scheduled many meetings and presentations. Not more than 15 people ever attended, and it was mostly the same 5 or 6 - none of whom ever joined the GPUS or became a Green Party activist. I still knew hundreds of people, state-wide, who had supported the Green Party in their role as environmental or peace activists, labor union members, etc. When I first began publishing the Montana Green Bulletin in April, 2002, I sent it to all of them. Very soon, most of them asked me to stop sending it to their work addresses, or to quit communicating with them entirely. It became clear that it was the Democratic Party, and particularly the Baucus campaign staff, who were behind this. There was much discussion about how anything having to do with political campaigns could not be sent to public employees or officials. I refuted this false information over and over, again, and continued sending the Bulletin to those public officials who were involved in Green issues. The attempts to suppress the Green Party are endemic, well-organized, and far-reaching.
I had always assumed that Montanans, at least, would defend their rights to free speech, following their conscience and best judgment in carrying out public policy and in being advocates for the public good. I thought they supported free elections, and political freedom, generally. I thought they would strenuously resist any attempts by political "authorities" to enslave them, and make them serve corporate or special interest agendas. This proved to be almost entirely mistaken. The competition for government jobs is probably the most vicious of any competition in Montana. Public employees, whether teachers, environmental administrators, public health employees, police, prison system employees, etc., have very strong unions, and an almost pathological obedience to and fear of those "in authority."
As a life-long libertarian and "free thinker," I simply couldn't believe that all of these people working for the government, universities, the public schools, etc. would have absolutely no concept of free inquiry, political dissent, or indeed, any sort of "divergent thinking" or desire to find the truth, live it, and establish a "truth-based" government with the best understandings of the issues in order to implement sound public policy. In some sense, I still can't believe it, and this is one of the issues I always discuss with my long-time friends and colleagues.
What do they think this is? A Stalinst dictatorship? What are they afraid of? Why are they afraid to write or speak what they know to be the truth? And why do they end up, in every election cycle, mindlessly supporting, working for, and contributing their own hard-earned money and other resources to what is basically nothing more than a criminal conspiracy? Of course, each major party blames the other, and claims that "they did it first." But that is something we teach our children at a very young age to avoid. No teacher or responsible parent is going to let some children bully others, or lie about who is responsible for doing wrong. Wrong is wrong. If we support the bullies and criminals rather than those opposing them, public order rapidly dissolves, we lose our freedom and other rights, and live in a condition of perpetual fear and oppression. Welcome to Brave New World, 1984, the Thought Police, and all the devastating consequences we are experiencing, today.
I suppose that psychologists and sociologists have theories and explanations for all of it. During the 1950's and '60's, there were many writers and social critics who became famous for dissecting "the consumer economy," "planned obsolescence", "the men in the gray flannel suits," "the waste-makers," "the status-seekers," "the True Believers," and all sorts of other social pathologies. Soon, the "cultural revolution" with psychedelics, "tune in, turn on, drop out" ideas of Timothy Leary and other social gurus would make a huge impact on the social fabric. The senseless and tragic Viet-Nam War became a focus for this "new thinking," and by the time it was over, we thought we were living in an entirely different country - dedicated to individual freedom, peace, justice, racial and cultural diversity, community enrichment and development, and protection of the environment. Again, no such luck.
Montana held a Constitutional Convention in 1972, producing what would become the most progressive and far-sighted state constitution in the country. People like Bob Kelleher, Arlyne Reichert, my Highwood neighbor and long-time teacher and counselor Bob Woodmansey were all elected delegates to this Convention. Leo Graybill, a leading attorney and Democrat from Great Falls, chaired the Convention - serving in the same role as Benjamin Franklin in the U.S. Constitutional Convention in 1787. Historian K. Ross Toole was a leading influence, and it was Bob Campbell who doggedly insisted that we include "a right to a clean and healthful environment" as one of our basic rights.
How could this have all gone down the tubes in only 30 years? Well, it has, and the Democrats and Republicans are entirely to blame. They have put their own political and economic interests far ahead of the common good. They have voted for ever more prisons, more environmental degradation, more centralized control of our public institutions, every sort of corporate boon-doggle, subsidies, and bailouts, and fought dissenters and critics with a fierceness which is beyond comprehension.
We Greens are not giving up. We are not going to let these demagogues and politicians destroy what has taken a lifetime to create. We're not going to allow the petty cliques and in-fighting prevent us from cleaning up the public sector, establishing locally-owned and controlled public media, schools, and universities which have some sense of what it means to serve the public interest instead of the political bosses. Stay tuned!
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The election
I've heard nothing back from Jonathan Motl, the author of I-155 - the state-funded SCHIP insurance scam for "low income" children (for families making up to $60,000/year, and costing taxpayers some $3000 for each child "covered.") This money doesn't go to health care providers, local clinics, school districts, or whatever. It goes to private insurance companies, and my contention that half or more of it will probably be spent on the "drugs in the schools" programs to force low-income students to take Ritalin or other amphetamines or anti-depressants hasn't been refuted, either. I suspect that Motl, apparently a very sound public interest activist, was paid to write this legislation by the Secretary of State (and insurance industry clone) John Morrison, who is its strongest advocate. So, I'm voting NO on I-155. "Hell, no!" would be more like it.

HEALTH CARE DOLLARS FOR HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS -- NOT INSURANCE COMPANIES AND CORPORATE PROFITS http://www.pnhp.org
- Paul Stephens
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Missoula
LIGHT Productions presents a NEW show with Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips, author of Witness to a Crime: A Citizens' Audit of an American Election upcoming on MCAT ...
WHO: Richard Hayes Phillips
WHEN: Airs Wednesday, October 29, 2008 from 4:00pm to 6:00pm and Rebroadcast Sat, November 1, 2008 from 9:30 pm to 11:30pm
WHERE: MCAT Cable 7
Shows produced and directed by Rick Gold/Nan Cohen c2001 - 2008
For copies or other information please contact Rick and Nan at lightproductions(at)gmail.com 541-0016
On Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at University of Montana, Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips, author of Witness to a Crime: A Citizens' Audit of an American Election, spoke about the rigged election process in Ohio 2004. Dr. Phillips presented evidence of ballot tampering, ballot substitution, ballot box stuffing, ballot destruction, and shifting of votes from one candidate to another, in addition to old-fashioned techniques of voter suppression. He presented this evidence, and described how it was obtained. He also described how citizens audits can help insure election integrity in the future. For more informationabout his book, go to http://www.witnesstoacrime.com/
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The Baucus Problem
If you want to blame someone for the current Wall Street collapse and world financial crisis, I have an excellent candidate. Senator Max Baucus, D-MT, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and one of "the hundred most powerful men in America" - and by extension, the world. He is a personal friend of Robert Rubin, now an advisor to Barack Obama, and we in Montana blame him and Goldman, Sachs for destroying the Montana Power Company and confiscating our clean, cheap, renewable hydropower in order to force us to build more coal-fired power plants.
But it looks like Mad Max is finally losing his grip. In a recent poll, the results were so bad that it was pulled, with the claim that there was some sort of "mistake" or flaw in the collection and tabulation of the polling data. Max might actually lose to one of the worst-prepared and least - supported opponents in living memory. And for good reason.
If you can't bring yourself to vote for Bob Kelleher, you can always write in your dog's name, your favorite comedian, superhero, movie star, football player, or whomever. JUST DON'T VOTE FOR BAUCUS. Do not waste your precious vote on this corporate criminal. If Kelleher wins, he might have to resign for health reasons or whatever, but Gov. Schweitzer can appoint a suitable Republican replacement - say, John Bollinger or Sam Kitzenberg. It will be a great gift to Montana and the nation. - PHS
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WHY BILLIONAIRES SUPPORT BAUCUS (AND NO ONE ELSE SHOULD )

[I reprinted the following story from The Nation in February, 2007. Here it is, again - or the most relevant excerpts from it. If you are a loyal Democrat, this account should convince you that Max isn't one, and has nothing in common with the Democratic Party tradition. In fact, he has almost single-handedly destroyed the Montana Democratic Party. If you are a Republican or Independent, you probably already know how rotten and evil Max Baucus is, and has become. Please vote for Bob Kelleher, who ran as a Green against Baucus in 2002, and actually won the primary this time as a Republican. Whatever it takes to get Baucus out of the Senate is time and effort well-spent. - PHS]

K Street's Favorite Democrat by Ari Berman http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070319/berman

Green Solutions July 21 Obama, Wolves, American Gangster, Amory Lovins on Nuclear Power

2008-07-22T13:22:00.000-07:00

Montana Green Bulletin
July 21, 2008 Volume VII, Number 29
Paul Stephens, Editor and Publisher 406.216.2711 greateco@3rivers.net

GREEN SOLUTIONS by Paul Stephens, CasCoGreens
What is Obama thinking (if anything)?
I subscribe to the New Yorker, so I got to read the "inside" stories about him as well as the now-notorious cover depicting he and Michelle as some sort of Islamic militants with an American flag burning on their hearth (that part was unnecessary, unless the intention was really malicious). This "drawing" (as the New Yorker calls its cartoons) actually has a title: "The Politics of Fear", and is by one Barry Blitt, who is identified as an illustrator for a children's book, "What's the Weather Inside?" Perhaps McCain will give it away next Christmas to the children of all his campaign workers. What writers and artists will do to promote their work and careers!
I asked a high school student friend who works in the local coffee shop what she thought of it. Her comment was a question, "Why would they do something like that?" I told her, "Probably because they're Republicans, and they want Obama to lose." Half or more New Yorker readers might well be Republicans, and a cover like this might "resonate" with them. However, most of them probably wouldn't "get it," anyway, and like McCain himself, would publicly denounce it.
My problems with Obama go much deeper. Like the preceding two Democratic nominee losers, Obama doesn't have that primary requisite of a "player" - a strong desire to win. He can no more imagine himself being President of the United States than I can. But unlike me, he can imagine himself as a "team player" whom the "coaches" (party power brokers) have selected to "win the game" for them. He is a puppet, a front-man, and thus the only kind of candidate the Democrats will select and support these days.
Most rational, public-spirited people quit the Democrats long ago, or maintain a tenuous relationship with that party based on supporting its candidates whenever a much greater evil is the alternative. This didn't work even against a George W. Bush, who was obviously the stupidest, most corrupt, most oblivious candidate the Republicans have ever run - pledged to fail, and like Reagan, prove that "government is the problem, not the solution." How is this supposed to work against a former POW, outspoken opponent of torture, a "maverick," and genuine hero to most God-fearing, patriotic Americans? Obviously, it isn't. And yet, the charade of Obama pretending to be more "pro-war" and "anti-terrorism" than a war hero continues.
The Democratic Party is, in effect, controlled by Wall Street, the Military-Industrial-Complex (expanded to include labor, education lobbies, the corporate media, and "for profit" healthcare). It is not "democratic" and it is not a "political party" in the usual sense of the word. It is a junta of powerful special interests, whose only goal is to keep the corporate elites in power. There are no policies, principles, or other substantive public interest goals, and those few they still claim to maintain are entirely negative - e.g., to oppose whatever the Republicans are doing, now - good, bad, or indifferent. And to keep the Republicans from appointing "pro-life" Supreme Court justices, I suppose. That sure worked well, didn't it, with many Democratic Senators (including Baucus) voting to approve some of the most reactionary Justices in history. To hear them tell it, any particular issue is just one small part of the overall "deal", and you win some, you lose some. But the oil and coal junta, the nuclear lobby, Big Pharma, and the prison system always seem to win. If they suffer any reversals, they're bailed out at taxpayer expense so that there isn't any money left for "welfare" or "foreign aid" - except aid in fomenting civil wars and genocide.
I must say, I've never seen a Democratic Party strategist or campaign manager I liked or respected - not, at least, since T.J. Gilles here in Montana (and he remains a loyal Democrat to the present day, in spite of what they did to him). Usually, Democrat activists begin as students or other volunteers with a lot of enthusiasm for a variety of causes - most often they are anti-war, anti-corporate, for better public education, universal health care, and against "tyrannies" such as a domestic police state, the War on Drugs, the Prison-Industrial-Complex, etc. But by the time they are paid staff, working in campaigns, or even running for office, themselves, they have dropped all this "excess baggage."
I can't help but think that the Democratic Party is even more concerned with "thought control" for its own members than the Republicans are. In fact, the Bush White House is probably the first Republicans to maintain this sort of "iron discipline" over its own people. Before Reagan (where there were lots of dissenters - e.g., David Stockman), the Republicans supported "good government" by the people best-qualified and with the best ideas. It was Republicans who first supported Women's Suffrage, an Equal Rights Amendment, most of the original environmental laws, etc. And they were the "Isolationists," against American involvement in foreign wars.
When there was a strong labor movement, Democratic candidates often supported worker protection and union-protection laws, but that basically ended with Taft-Hartley, which passed over Truman's veto. It has been a long time since any Democratic candidate has promised to repeal Taft-Hartley, and Obama is no exception. Since unions now represent mostly higher-paid and public employees rather than "the working class" as such, nearly as many of them vote Republican as Democrat. The Democratic Party as a force for reform and change is all but non-existent. They don't even use the word "working-class" except derogatorily. "Working class" is now equated with "welfare" and even "criminal under-class." It's "tax cuts for the middle class" - a perennial Republican position - which the Democrats have now adopted as the centerpiece of their economic "vision." The working poor and dispossessed will be forgiven for voting Republican or Green, since the Democrats now seem to be the party of "capital" and "middle class values."
Bill Greider (in "Who Will Tell the People?") made a compelling case pre-1992 that the Democratic Party was "owned" by the K-Street lobbyists and bill brokers who channel special interest money to those campaigns which are pledged to serve their interests. Since I have never been a Democrat, I extend this analysis back to World War I, at least. It took a lying Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, along with a British Fifth Column, to get the U.S. involved in World War I (then called "the Great War"). This, I believe, was directly responsible for the Holocaust, World War II, Stalinism, the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, as well as the present situation in the Middle East. Quite an accomplishment for one puppet former President of Princeton University! It must have been "pre-destination" or something.
A century earlier, Andrew Jackson was supposed to have been the first "populist" Democrat, but he was also responsible for "Indian removal" and a lot of other corrupt and genocidal policies (a reason, I suppose, why the Democrats still don't take Native American rights and interests seriously). Even though today's Democrats claim Thomas Jefferson as a founder as well, his party (such as it was) went by the name "Democratic Republicans." It was a "unity party", which soon gave rise to the "Federalists" as an opposing force. It was the banner of Federalism (along with Manifest Destiny) which the Republicans would later use to consolidate their power during the Civil War. The Federalists wanted a strong central government, a central bank, tariffs to protect domestic industry, and other policies to facilitate capital accumulation and the New Industrial State. The Jeffersonians were for state's rights, free trade (since most of their agricultural products were exported), expanding the number of eligible voters, and what we would now call "investments in human capital" - education, skills, and broader cultural enrichment for all - not a small elite. And they continued to support slavery up to the Civil War, and Segregation afterwards, right up to the present time.
Neither party was in any way "socialistic". Socialism had hardly been invented except for a few utopian religious communities. All believed in personal freedom, limiting the size and scope of government, and encouraging people to accumulate wealth controlled by individuals and families, not corporations. And all were opposed to war, standing armies, and "tyrannical" rule by monarchs and dictators - policies which neither major party seems to take the slightest interest in, today.
And so, there simply aren't any "good guys" within "the two-party system of denial and blame." The Libertarians recognized this 30 years ago. The Reform Party tried to buck the two party system in 1992, resulting the smallest minority President (Clinton) in history. We Greens thought we could do it again in 2000 with Ralph Nader. But Nader had a lot of "baggage" of his own, and the Democrats were ready for him, preferring to lose and blame the Greens, than challenge the fraudulent election and win. That pattern continues to the present day.
Greens all over the country will be fearing for their jobs, reputations, and even safety if they oppose Obama and support Cynthia McKinney. And this is especially true if they are Black or other minorities. Even so, the emerging consensus on the Left is that we don't want to help someone like Obama get elected. Call it a "protest vote" or a real opportunity to "grow the Green Party." Most of us will be voting, writing in, and campaigning for Cynthia McKinney and Green Party values. If Obama wants our vote, he will have to support our agenda, and that's obviously just not going to happen - this time, next time, or ever. -- PHS
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Spoiled Rotten
A point we haven't addressed recently, but which is extremely important for the Green movement, is the idea of "spoiling." This has been the great (and really the only) objection to the Green Party growing and flourishing as a political force in the U.S. And we Greens think it is totally fallacious. If you're really for change and reform, and a sustainable environment and economy, you must support those position, not waste your votes and intellectual/political capital on candidates who pander to (and are supported by) the most vicious elements in society.
It's interesting, too, that it is mostly people with Marxist backgrounds who think that "objectively, Ralph Nader put George Bush in the White House, and is directly responsible for everything that's happened, since." This is absolute dogma among 90% of "liberal Democrats" and various Trotskyist, accomodationist groups. It seems to hinge on the Marxist concept of "objective" - i.e., what the real "facts" are, independent of any spinning or sophistical arguments against it. And this is something which less sophisticated, working class people can easily grasp. The same arguments are used against environmentalists, like: "They are anti-labor and thus anti-working class. They are elitists, who want to take away your jobs and put everyone on welfare. They are socialists. They want to control your lives and personal choices, Etc."
And there is good evidence for this position. The Greens do support an expanded public or non-profit sector. They're against "for profit" education, healthcare, etc. They support negative economic and population growth. Those happen to be issues where not everyone agrees with the platform (which we are allowed to do, so long as we're willing to discuss it openly, with intellectual honesty).
We are also "feminists" and advocates for gay rights - hence "pedophiles" and "anti-family" to those who would attack us. We are appalled that the U.S., with 5% of the world's population, should use a quarter of its energy and natural resources, and produce a quarter of its pollution. And have a quarter of its prison population. (We lock up 5-15 times as many people, per capita, as any other "free" country). But to campaign against prisons, torture, and police states is believed to be political suicide. It's like being "pro-Jewish" in Hitler's Germany.
We believe in participatory democracy and participatory economics - self-governing collectives characterized by a maximum of personal freedom and diversity. But they are not STATE collectives - they are communities of choice and values, and all would be allowed to coexist peacefully. (What about Mormon polygamists? To the extent that it's a coercive religious cult, I'd say no. To the extent that everyone has a choice and experience of alternatives, like the Amish and Hutterites, I'd say it's OK).
Greens, I believe, are half or more libertarian in their thinking - in the sense of the classical liberalism of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill (which also includes Hayek, but not Friedman and the Chicago School of Gangster Capitalism). So it is very confusing to understand what we believe, and what the political (as well as economic) consequences of our policies might be.
Many Greens joined us in order to "reform" the Democratic Party, or be a sort of drag or anchor, making sure that the Democrats didn't sell out the people in their quest for power and influence. We've hounded most of these "Demo-Greens" out of the party. We are not Democrats, and don't wish to "enable" the Democratic Party in any way. The Democratic Party leadership are fundamentally dishonest and sociopathic. They are much more interested in harming people and causing problems (in order to blame the Republicans and fund more programs) than they are in solving them. If I were to prioritize the parties according to "truth value" and public-interestedness, it would be Greens, Libertarians, Republicans, and Democrats. The doctrinaire socialist parties are practically non-existent in the U.S. (which is why a lot of Leftist-socialists have joined the Greens - to our mutual discomfort, in many cases), and less than 10% of Democrats are still "labor" or "social democrats" as those policies would be understood in the rest of the world as promoting an egalitarian, peaceful society. (The British "Labor Party" is now actually to the right of the pre-Thatcher Tories, and most social democratic parties embrace more centralized "state power" as the answer - including military build-ups).
A third or more Republicans will actually support the best policies - peace, environmental sustainability, anti-monopoly policies, taxing away unearned income (economic rents), rewarding good behavior rather than "punishing bad people," etc. But as a party organization, they, too, are fundamentally interested in harming people and making the rich, richer, and the poor, poorer. They have sold out to a different set of bill brokers and influence peddlers. They are "Social Darwinists", and an extreme form of it at that. I call them "sociopaths," as well. And like the Democrats, they are absolutely dominant in Great Falls and Montana politics. The "leadership" elements in both the Democrats and Republicans have made a common cause to suppress and eliminate anyone who challenges "the dominant paradigm" of rule by a corporate gangster elite - the "military-industrial complex", the "national security state", plantation slavery, or whatever you want to call it.
The Democrats are also Stalinist and extremely dishonest in all sorts of ways. Each major party has evoked the worst behavior from the other. It more or less reflects Jerome Frank's "image of the enemy" theory. A real reformer or independent, even when electable, is simply not willing to take the risks or bear the costs of running for and holding office. And that is really too bad. The "system" has moved beyond the point of being "fixable." But we can change the rules and change people's thinking. That is the purpose of this Bulletin, not to support partisan political campaigns.
Maybe we should call ourselves "the Green Non-Partisan League," because the Greens stand clearly above all this. We are the Peace Party. We are the real democratic republicans. We have no other agenda except saving the world, the environment, our civil society, and our humanity, beginning with our own local communities. We're not interested in "jobs", government contracts, influence-peddling, or getting our "cut of the loot." The Libertarians used to be "the party of principle," but that ended long ago. They have been taken over by right-wing, socially conservative Republicans! And so, I'm afraid we stand alone, against the madness, the lies and destruction, the force and fraud that our "public institutions" have become. -- Paul Stephens
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FILM
American Gangster a film by Ridley Scott starring Denzel Washington
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0765429/

This film is based on a true story - how black American gangs took over the heroin trade from the French Connection (from Turkey) with "Golden Triangle" opium from Southeast Asia, transported by the Air Force in coffins from the Vietnam War. According to Ridley Scott's Commentary on the DVD, it's all true. He interviewed both Frank Lucas, the drug boss (Denzel Washington), and Detective Ritchie Roberts (Russell Crowe) in the process of writing the script and preparing to make the film. The portrayals are as accurate as he could make them with these two superlative actors.
The first time I heard about this was in the book and lectures of Bo Gritz, who was said to be "the most decorated soldier" in the Vietnam War. Several fictionalized versions of his attempts to free POW's were also made into films. He spoke in Great Falls more than once, and was a favorite of militia people and radical Vietnam Vet's groups. He also mediated a standoff between the FBI and some militia people in Idaho - the Weaver family, I think it was. That didn't end well, however.
But apparently he had it right about the heroin trade (plus the fact that many or most of the addicts being served here were also Vietnam vets who had begun using when they were in Vietnam.)
It's a very good film - as good as any "gangster film" ever made - understated and very believable in nearly all respects. And very much in the tradition of films like Ragtime and The French Connection. Don't miss it. - PHS
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Ignorance does not justify omnipotence - a word from our friendly, neighbourhood Cyborg

I believe I've identified a common epistemological disorder among people in Great Falls, and one which has deadly consequences for public policy, education, the economy, the environment, and other "objective" decision-making. Those who claim to know or understand anything are disqualified from participation for that very reason. Either they "work for" someone or some organization, and are thus required to maintain whatever "consensus" that organization supports (or can be coerced to support), or they are "self-interested" or "self-supporting" and thus have no rightful say in public decisions. They must also have political loyalties to one or the other major party. Being a Green, Libertarian, or other independent gets us no respect at all.
Originally, I thought the plea of ignorance should be restricted to women and other "oppressed" or lower-class people, and those lacking higher education and understanding. Thus, when I disagreed with a relative or neighbor, they would often say, "I don't know", "Nobody told me that" or some similar statement to defend their right to disagree or oppose whatever I had said or proposed, without having to justify why they thought that way, or why they disagreed with me. It's a version of "God told me to do it" or "The Devil made me do it" - neither of which holds up in a court of law. It's what's called "the argument from authority," although a very weak form of it, because they didn't claim to be acting under orders or in obedience to an authority. That was taken for granted. It was more like they were claiming that I wasn't in accord with the imagined "authorities," "superiors" or bosses, and therefore whatever I was doing and saying was suspect - it was not something they understood or agreed with, so I was "on my own" with that, whatever it was.
"You're not my boss" was the formulation of a similar principle I often heard in domestic relationships. Had I been their boss (or in some cases, husband), they might have done what I said. But the bottom line was that since I wasn't any sort of "authority", they felt no need or obligation to even consider what I said, let alone obey or agree with it. This, I suppose, is "working class consciousness" at its finest.
It turns out that very few people believe in "free will" or self-determination, let alone individual freedom or a "live and let live" attitude of mutual respect among a wide variety of peaceful and self-sustaining communities. They think everyone should have a boss, and be obedient to someone or something - to an organization or collective. I've been watching some of the Star Trek films and episodes involving the Borg, where this theme is played out endlessly. Just last week, I saw for the first time the beginning of the 4th year of "Star Trek Voyager", where the Borg woman, "Seven of Nine," is rehabilitated to have human thoughts and emotions, and finally to act like a human, albeit a very superior kind of human. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112178/ It turns out she is played by the same actress, Jeri Ryan, who plays James Woods' boss on "Shark." Borgs and prosecutors seem to think along similar lines, so it is a good fit for her.
I've long wondered who "the Borg" are supposed to represent. In a political and epistemological sense, they are "collectivists" - they have no value as individuals, and their every action, thought, and impulse is to expand and enhance the collective. And, of course, they are "cyborgs" - half machine and half human. They are something like the clone soldiers in Star Wars, except that they aren't mass-produced to be identical. Instead, each is an individual "assimilated" from one of several different humanoid species. Should we take them to be some sort of political "techsters" as well? It would seem to be so.
In the Star Trek "Next Generation" series, Jean-Luc Picard is "assimilated" by the Borg and later reclaimed and "de-programmed" from the Borg technology. This characteristic plays a big part in the film "Star Trek: First Contact," which is mostly set in Montana at an old Minuteman missile silo in the 2060's, following an all-out nuclear war, and the threat of it starting up again. An alcoholic rock music fan named Cochrane (James Cromwell, in one of his very best roles - he's also played William Randolf Hearst, Jr. and Prince Philip) has invented the warp drive, and the first test of it attracts the attention of a passing Vulcan ship, thus initiating "First Contact" with an alien species. But the Borg and Enterprise E, from the 26th century, have come back in time - to try to prevent it, in the case of the Borg, or to prevent the Borg from preventing it, in the case of the Enterprise E. It makes a very good story, indeed, with lots of futuristic economics and social philosophy woven into the plot.
Perhaps the best way to understand who the Borg are and what they represent is to think of them as robot, cyber-technology as a whole. What have computers and other robots done to our minds, our culture, our freedom, our economy, and even our spirituality (not to mention our bodies)? All of these themes are repeatedly examined in the various Star Treks and other science fiction literature. At first, the opposition to "artificial intelligence" was so great that many authors postulated future societies where robots and sophisticated computers would be banned entirely. This was the case in both Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" series, as well as the "Dune" novels by Frank Herbert and the films based on them. Both are of the highest quality and rank with H.G. Wells and Robert Heinlein in the annals of science fiction classics. Yet, so quickly has cybernetic technology advanced that these works from the 50's and 60's seem hopelessly outdated, today.
Indeed, no science fiction prior to the 1950's had even begun to imagine the complexity and sophistication of our present cyberculture. Star Trek was indeed visionary, in that many of the technologies first described there on screen have come to pass - especially the hand-held "flip phone" communicators, matter-anti-matter propulsion systems, and faster than light drives which, although often imagined, were not very well explained in terms of known science before Star Trek. The story "The Fly" (originally a short story in the June 1957 Playboy by George Langelaan, a British writer raised in France) is, of course, the prototype for the "transporter" technology in Star Trek. Whether or not some of this more advanced technology will ever be built and used on an everyday basis is open to question - particularly with the continuing threat of nuclear war, alien invasions, artificially constructed plagues, as well as the potential religious backlash against all higher technology as such. Just remember: people and their well-being come first.
Enjoy it all, but just don't tell me that because you know and understand less than I do, you have the right to block me out. It should be the other way around. My values include perpetuity, truth and enlightenment, as well as human freedom, survival and well-being. I am not "in it for the money," or because I am someone's slave or puppet. I am here to serve, in accordance with Asimov's original "Laws of Robotics." - PHS
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OF WOLVES AND MEN

Perhaps it's just because I'm a descendent of many generations of livestock breeders and small family farmers. Or maybe it's because I came to the Green Party from the conservative tradition, rather than radical, revolutionary politics. But I've always had problems with "protecting" predators like wolves or even grizzly bears - at least outside of public land and other designated wilderness and conservation reserves. If I'm a rancher, and a wolf or grizzly is attacking my livestock, or even just "trespassing," I'm going to shoot it whenever I have the opportunity to do so, and whether or not I tell anyone about it, later.
A hundred years ago or more, the federal government paid a bounty on wolves. There's even a picture in my grandparent's family photo album of the last wolf pelts from the Highwoods nailed up to dry on the side of a log cabin. My grandfather had an old .45-70 single-shot army rifle, and one of the family stories was about him seeing a wolf feeding on a carcass. It was so far away that he could barely see it, but just for the hell of it, he set the sights at 1100 yards and took a shot. When he finally arrived at the scene, thinking he had missed because there was no wolf there, he was surprised to find that he had killed the wolf, and it had collapsed inside the rib-cage of the dead steer it was feeding on.
Wolves are very hard to eradicate, once they get a foot-hold. While grizzlies really are endangered, and are not prolific breeders, wolves can increase from a few dozen individuals to thousands in only a decade or two. There are now estimated to be 1500 wolves in the Northern Rockies Ecosystem. They do good service in controlling deer, elk, rabbit, and other populations. They will also have some effect on controlling the bison population in the Yellowstone herd, which seems to be a problem with no solution, otherwise.
My main concern is the knee-jerk reaction of "environmentalists" to always protect the predators and other "bad guys" against the people who are trying to make a living off of the land. I won't second-guess Judge Molloy's decision (see story below) because I'm not an expert, but politically, it is disastrous for the environmentalist cause, and one of the reasons why no Democrat in Montana will proudly claim to be an environmentalist. It has become political suicide for them to do so. Which may have been the point all along. And why we need a Green Party which will support the economy as well as ecology - the "Greateco" which I use for my blog name.
A good ruling would allow any farmer or rancher to kill wolves on private land. Whether or not those with grazing permits on public land should be able to protect their herds with lethal force is another question. That's where the dogs and llamas come in, I suppose. How about tranquilizer guns? -- PHS
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Judge restores wolf protections
By EVE BYRON - Independent Record - 07/19/08 http://www.helenair.com/articles/2008/07/19/top/65st_080719_wolves.txt
Gray wolves once again are under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, after federal court Judge Donald Molloy ruled late Friday that state management plans in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming will irreparably harm the species’ reintroduction.
In particular, in his 40-page decision the judge pointed toward the 1994 reintroduction document that discussed the need for genetic diversity among the wolf populations. Molloy said genetic testing of wolves in Yellowstone National Park, where wolves were reintroduced in 1995, showed that few if any new wolves were moving into the area from northern Montana and Idaho. He and others fear that low genetic diversity will lead to inbreeding that will diminish reproduction.
"Dispersal between the Great Yellowstone core recovery area and the northwestern Montana and central Idaho recovery area — a precondition to genetic exchange — is rare," the judge wrote. "Only four to 12 wolves have dispersed beyond the core recovery areas in the 13 years since wolves were reintroduced.
"The reduction in numbers that will occur, based on wolf hunts and state depredation control laws, will lessen the population making genetic exchange less likely."
Molloy added that the federal government seemed to be casting its earlier genetic diversity argument aside in its delisting decision earlier this year and focused instead on wolf population numbers as one of the main criteria. He noted that in the 1994 document, the federal government warned against doing so.
Wolf numbers have multiplied much quicker than what initially was expected, with more than 1,500 wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains.
Molloy could lift the injunction if the defendants in the case, including federal and state agencies, prove to the judge that Montana, Wyoming and Idaho have sufficient safeguards in place to perpetuate wolf populations.
Representatives from some of the 12 conservation groups that filed the lawsuit seeking to reverse the gray wolf’s removal from the list of threatened or endangered species applauded Molloy’s decision.
"This injunction is necessary to prevent the states from implementing management schemes that have the primary purpose of eliminating, rather than conserving, wolves," said Michael Garrity, executive director of the Helena-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies.
Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity in New Mexico added that the injunction will "give wolves a fighting chance...."

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Amory Lovins: Expanding Nuclear Power Makes Climate Change Worse

We speak with Amory Lovins, the cofounder, chairman and chief scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado, who has been described as "one of the Western world's most influential energy thinkers."Listen/Watch/Read

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/16/amory_lovins_expanding_nuclear_power

(transcript)
AMY GOODMAN: There’s one issue President Bush and presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama all agree on: expanding the use of nuclear power. President Bush addressed nuclear power at a news conference Tuesday and hailed it as a way to reduce American dependence on oil and protect the environment.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: This is just a transition period. I mean, all of us want to get away from reliance upon hydrocarbons, but it’s not going to happen overnight. You know, one of these days, people are going to be using battery technologies in their cars. You’ve heard me say this a lot, and I’m confident it’s going to happen. And, you know, the throwaway line, of course, is that your car won’t have to look like a golf cart. But the question then becomes, where are we going to get electricity? And that’s why I’m a big believer in nuclear power, to be able to make us less dependent on oil and better stewards of the environment. But there is a transition period during the hydrocarbon era, and it hasn’t ended yet, as our people now know. Gasoline prices are high.
AMY GOODMAN: And this is presidential hopefuls Barack Obama, beginning with, though, Senator John McCain, on nuclear power.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA: I actually think that we should explore nuclear power as part of the energy mix. There are no silver bullets to this issue. We’ve got to develop solar. I’ve proposed drastically increasing fuel-efficiency standards on cars, an aggressive cap on the amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted. But we’re going to have to try a series of different approaches.
SEN. JOHN McCAIN: My dear friends, nuclear power must be part of any equation that leads to addressing climate change and also leads to addressing reduction of our dependence on foreign oil. You know, we always love to imitate the French. The French, 80 percent of their electricity in France is generated by nuclear power. We either got to reprocess it or store it.
AMY GOODMAN: Senator John McCain, and before that, Senator Barack Obama.
Well, the debate over nuclear power is back in the news with the admission of Energy Department official Ward Sproat on Tuesday that it would cost taxpayers $90 billion to open and operate the nation’s first nuclear waste dump. Speaking after a congressional hearing, Sproat added the dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada would open only in 2020. It was originally estimated to cost $58 billion and open in 1998.
Well, our next guest has been described as "one of the Western world’s most influential energy thinkers." He’s also a leading opponent of nuclear power. Amory Lovins is co-founder, chair and chief scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado. He is a consultant physicist, MacArthur Fellow, and recipient of numerous awards, including the Right Livelihood Award. Lovins advised the energy and other industries in countries around the world, including here in the US. He invented the hybrid Hypercar in ’91 and has written twenty-nine books, including Soft Energy Paths, Natural Capitalism, Small Is Profitable, and Winning the Oil Endgame. Amory Lovins joins us here in our firehouse studio.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
AMORY LOVINS: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Well, talk about nuclear power. Why do you feel it’s not an option, given the oil crisis?
AMORY LOVINS: Well, first of all, electricity and oil have essentially nothing to do with each other, and anybody who thinks the contrary is really ignorant about energy. Less than two percent of our electricity is made from oil. Less than two percent of our oil makes electricity. Those numbers are falling. And essentially, all the oil involved is actually the heavy, gooey bottom of the barrel you can’t even make mobility fuels out of anyway.
What nuclear would do is displace coal, our most abundant domestic fuel. And this sounds good for climate, but actually, expanding nuclear makes climate change worse, for a very simple reason. Nuclear is incredibly expensive. The costs have just stood up on end lately. Wall Street Journal recently reported that they’re about two to four times the cost that the industry was talking about just a year ago. And the result of that is that if you buy more nuclear plants, you’re going to get about two to ten times less climate solution per dollar, and you’ll get it about twenty to forty times slower, than if you buy instead the cheaper, faster stuff that is walloping nuclear and coal and gas, all kinds of central plans, in the marketplace. And those competitors are efficient use of electricity and what’s called micropower, which is both renewables, except big hydro, and making electricity and heat together, in fact, recent buildings, which takes about half of the money, fuel and carbon of making them separately, as we normally do.
So, nuclear cannot actually deliver the climate or the security benefits claimed for it. It’s unrelated to oil. And it’s grossly uneconomic, which means the nuclear revival that we often hear about is not actually happening. It’s a very carefully fabricated illusion. And the reason it isn’t happening is there are no buyers. That is, Wall Street is not putting a penny of private capital into the industry, despite 100-plus percent subsidies.
AMY GOODMAN: Why?
AMORY LOVINS: It’s uneconomic. It costs, for example, about three times as much as wind power, which is booming.
Let me give you some numbers about what’s happening in the marketplace, because that’s reality, as far as I’m concerned. I really take markets seriously. 2006, the last full year of data we have, nuclear worldwide added a little bit of capacity, more than all of it from upgrading old plants, because the new ones they built were smaller than the retirements of old plants. So they added 1.4 billion watts. Sounds like a lot. Well, it’s about one big plant’s worth worldwide. That was less than photovoltaics, solar cells added in capacity. It was a tenth what wind power added. It was a thirtieth to a fortieth of what micropower added.
AMY GOODMAN: What’s micropower?
AMORY LOVINS: Again, it’s renewables, other than big hydro, plus co-generating electricity and heat together, usually in industry.
In 2006, micropower, for the first time, produced more electricity worldwide than nuclear did. A sixth of the world’s electricity is now micropower, a third of the new electricity. In a dozen industrial countries, micropower makes anywhere from a sixth to over half of all the electricity elsewhere. This is not a fringe activity anymore.
China, which has the world’s most ambitious nuclear program, by the end of 2006 had seven times that much capacity in distributed renewables, and they were growing it seven times faster. Take a look at 2007, in which the US or Spain or China added more wind capacity than the world added nuclear capacity. The US added more wind capacity last year than we’ve added coal capacity in the past five years put together.
And renewables, other than big hydro, got last year $71 billion of private capital; nuclear, as usual, got zero. It is only bought by central planners with a draw on the public purse. What does this tell you? I mean, what part of the story does anybody who take markets seriously not get?
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, well, the media clearly in this country doesn’t get it, because it is raised over and over again by the candidates. I mean, it seems that Senator McCain has a favorite number: a hundred years in Iraq, also hoping for a hundred more new nuclear power plants. He had said something about, he doesn’t want to lose the knowledge of building, since the last one was built more than thirty years ago; the people are dying who had built it, so we’ve got to rush and build them now.
AMORY LOVINS: Well, you could say that’s already been lost, in the sense that most of a nuclear plant built now in the US, if there were any, would have to be imported, which, by the way, means we buy it in weak US dollars, which is part of the incredible cost escalation we’ve seen. Moody’s latest number is $7,500 a kilowatt. That’s, again, as the Journal said, about two to four times the numbers that were being bandied about just last year by promoters.
AMY GOODMAN: And Barack Obama, while he hasn’t laid out a plan for building, he has a big campaign contributor, Exelon, and has supported the expansion of nuclear power. And, of course, we heard what President Bush has to say.
AMORY LOVINS: Actually, I thought what Senator Obama said was "explore", which is different. And you will find major environmental groups saying something like "explore" or "consider", but they will also say very carefully it has to be competitive, it has to be cost-effective. And clearly, that doesn’t even pass the giggle test.
A new nuclear plant, according to Moody’s, would send out electricity for about fifteen cents a kilowatt-hour, which is half, again, as much as the average residential rate. And that doesn’t even account for delivering it to your house. And I think if nuclear plants were built, which I don’t think is likely, you would see incredible rates shock and a big political reaction.
AMY GOODMAN: Environmentalists like Stewart Brand and James Lovelock are pushing nuclear power.
AMORY LOVINS: There are actually four individuals involved in the world who are prominent environmentalists who had that view, and you’ve named two of them.
AMY GOODMAN: Who are the other two?
AMORY LOVINS: Patrick Moore was active in founding Greenpeace back in the ’70s, now works for industry; and Peter Schwartz, who used to be on my board, who used to run group planning for Royal Dutch/Shell, is of the same view. But I can’t think of any others. There are no actual environmental groups who favor nuclear power.
AMY GOODMAN: What is your answer to them, and why have they arrived—these are your old colleagues?
AMORY LOVINS: Well, yeah, a couple of them are old friends. Well, I think they haven’t done their homework. And I keep asking for their analysis and not getting it, because I don’t think they have one. But they somehow form the view that because nuclear doesn’t emit carbon, it must be a good thing. Well, that’s not good enough.
You need a source that doesn’t emit carbon—nuclear emits a little bit in the fuel cycle and in building plants, and so on. But you need one that doesn’t emit carbon and is faster and cheaper than other ways to do the same thing. You see, renewables don’t emit carbon. Efficiency doesn’t emit carbon. Cogeneration based on recovered waste heat you were throwing away anyhow doesn’t emit carbon, because you already paid for the carbon in making the useful part of the heat in industry. And these sources are a great deal cheaper and faster than nuclear. So if climate’s a problem, we need to invest judiciously, not indiscriminately, to get the most solution per dollar, the most solution per year. Otherwise, we’re making things worse.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Amory Lovins. He is co-founder, chair and chief scientist at Rocky Mountain Institute, which is based in Aspen in Colorado?
AMORY LOVINS: Old Snowmass.
AMY GOODMAN: Old Snowmass. Nuclear power is one of the issues that is being posed as an alternative to reliance on foreign fuel, and this is also an issue we addressed yesterday with Naomi Klein on Democracy Now!, the issue of expanding oil drilling, offshore and onshore. You’ve been looking at this.
AMORY LOVINS: Well, we seem to be wanting to drill in all the wrong places. For example, over fifty times as much oil as might be under the Arctic Refuge at very high prices can be saved at very low prices by using the oil efficiently. Also many times faster. So, my wildcatters have been drilling lately in the Detroit formation. That is, making efficient cars is equivalent to finding an all-American Saudi Arabia under Detroit, about eight-and-a-half million barrels a day, inexhaustible, climate-safe and costing about twelve bucks a barrel. Now, altogether, there is about 14 million barrels a day of oil savings, averaging twelve bucks a barrel cost. And we know exactly where the oil is. There’s no doubt that it’s there. It’s under Detroit, Seattle, and so on. That’s out of twenty-or-so million barrels a day we’re using. So if you’re an oil company and you go to the ends of the earth and drill for very expensive oil that might not even be there, wouldn’t it be embarrassing if somebody else meanwhile found all that cheap oil under Detroit? Shouldn’t we drill the most prospective place first?
I’ve tried this formulation lately on the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the American Petroleum Institute, and they found it pretty persuasive. You know, I’ve worked for major oil companies for about thirty-five years, and they understand how expensive it is to drill for oil. Take the Arctic Refuge as an example. You might think that at today’s oil prices, it would be clearly a great deal to go drill there. Well, it wasn’t before, when oil was in the twenty-odd dollar a barrel range instead of $140. And that’s why the oil companies weren’t interested. Guess what. They’re still not interested. Why not? Well, because their costs of drilling have gone up more than the oil price went up. If you talk to people who run exploration in major oil companies, they’re still not excited about the Arctic Refuge, because practically any other place in the world they could drill would be cheaper and less risky than that extraordinarily remote and hostile environment.
AMY GOODMAN: So why is Bush pushing it?
AMORY LOVINS: Who knows? But it doesn’t make any economic sense. There’s no business case for it. And the real showstopper, interestingly, is national security, which you would think that he and Senator McCain and so on would be concerned about. Jim Woolsey, a not-hostile-to-oil, per se, Oklahoman, former— AMY GOODMAN: Former CIA director.
AMORY LOVINS: —former CIA director, has actually testified against Arctic Refuge drilling on national security grounds. There’s a very simple reason. There’s only one way to get the oil south: it’s through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which is the most vulnerable part of our energy infrastructure, the biggest terrorist target in our energy infrastructure. It’s what he calls Uncle Sam’s "kick me" sign.
So, think about it. You’ve got an 800-mile pipeline, mostly above ground, mostly accessible by road or by floatplane. And if the flow through it is interrupted in the winter for about a week, 900—well, nine million barrels of hot oil congeals into the world’s largest Chapstick, a big candle. Then you can’t pump it anymore. Could this happen? Well, actually, yes, if certain points on the pipeline, pumping stations and so on, were attacked—
AMY GOODMAN: We’ve got five seconds.
AMORY LOVINS: —or stuff at either end. And has that happened? Well, let’s see. It’s been sabotaged, almost blew itself up on occasion through mismanagement. It’s been incompetently bombed twice. It’s been shot at fifty times. A drunk shut it down with one hole from a rifle bullet. And the scariest thing to me is around Y2K, at the turn of the century, a disgruntled engineer was caught by accident about to blow up three critical points with fourteen bombs he had built and tested.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. But one answer: have we solved the nuclear waste problem even?
AMORY LOVINS: No, but I’d just come off the wagon on the economics, and then we don’t need to argue about whether it’s safe.
AMY GOODMAN: Amory Lovins, head of Rocky Mountain Institute, thanks for joining us.

Green Solutions June 16 2008

2008-06-18T12:21:00.001-07:00

GREEN SOLUTIONS by Paul Stephens, CasCo Greens

Harvard Glee Club celebrates 150th anniversary (and Father's Day) in Great Falls

A few years ago in this Bulletin, I wrote about "The Fight at Aldie Gap" about a Civil War engagement between the great John Singleton Mosby and his rangers, and "the fighting Major," William Hathaway Forbes, at Aldie Gap in northern Virginia. I had come into possession of a privately printed study of this battle by one of Major Forbes' descendents via Birdie Emerson Dundee. Other local interest includes the fact that Colonel Shaw, for whom our Fort Shaw was named (1st Black regiment, portrayed in the film "Glory", and later known as the "Buffalo Soldiers") was Forbes' cousin, and also a friend of the Emerson's.
Major Forbes married one of Ralph Waldo Emerson's daughters, and later became the first Chairman of AT&T, as well as the Burlington Railroad. Emerson, Thoreau, Forbes, and most of those "Boston Brahmins" were Harvard graduates, of course. One of the interesting sidelights to that fight was that Forbes and his bugler (the essential signal-giver in cavalry tactics) were both members of the Harvard Glee Club. After being defeated and captured, it was recorded that they sang choruses from Carl Maria von Weber's "Der Freischutz," an early romantic opera about a sharp-shooter.
Mosby went on after the war (with the assistance of Forbes' father - a major force in the Republican Party) to become Consul to Hong Kong (a British colony) and later attorney for Leland Stanford's Southern Pacific Railroad in California. In the various accounts I read, there are many conflicting stories. Some held that President Grant maintained a grudge against Mosby, while others say that they became close friends, and that Grant was responsible for Mosby's later appointments to important positions.
Here's a brief summary of the battle from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_at_Mount_Zion_Church
The Action at Mount Zion Church was an American Civil War skirmish that took place on July 6, 1864 between Union forces under Major William H. Forbes and Confederate forces under Colonel John S. Mosby near Aldie, Virginia in Loudoun County as part of Mosby's Operations in Northern Virginia. The fight resulted in a Confederate victory.
[Basically, it was a rout. Mosby's men were each equipped with 2 or more six-shot pistols, while Forbes' men didn't have side-arms (except sabers), and they weren't even trained to fire their new Spencer repeating carbines from horseback. Thus, Mosby's men could fire twelve or more shots at close quarters, before having to reload. And they had a small cannon as well, which scared the enemy's horses at the start of an engagement. I'm told that Mosby's tactics are still studied in military colleges. -- PHS]
This led me to read Mosby's own Memoirs. You can download it free from

That, in turn, led me to read Alexander Hamilton Stephens's biography (Mosby spoke highly of him, and considered him the South's true leader), which fundamentally changed my views on the Civil War and my own family history.

Suffice to say, I'm much more conciliatory, anti-war, and pro-"state-rights" ("grassroots democracy) than I ever was, before.

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An open letter to local officials about public transportation

Dear city and county officials,
It's been more than a year, now, since the clutch went out on my pickup. I haven't repaired it, and have used only a bicycle and walking for transportation since that time, with a couple of Great Falls Transit rides, as well. I am fit and able to walk several miles at a stretch, so it's been a net gain for me. However, I'm hearing more and more from elderly, disabled, and other people who are very concerned about the proposed reductions in Great Falls Transit services due to the rapid increase in the price of fuel.
Surely this is a golden opportunity to rethink our local public transportation system, and greatly expand and diversify it to meet local needs. Other cities have already done this, and there is a considerable movement statewide to re-establish bus, train, and airline systems between cities and smaller, rural communities across the state. The goal should be to make it possible for everyone to travel cheaply and reliably to most destinations without the use of a personal automobile.
This would require a vastly improved and upgraded taxi service, various shuttles and dispatched vans owned by local businesses, Aging Services, and other public entities as well as night-time transportation systems to serve the patrons of bars and restaurants, theaters, education institutions, etc. Obviously, there are no easy solutions, and I anticipate that this will be going on state-wide and nationally as well as locally. Your responsibility includes the City of Great Falls, and perhaps some regular links to outlying towns in Cascade County. Some of these can be organized cooperatively for commuters to and from Belt, Cascade, etc. There are also a number of suburban areas like Flood Road, Bootlegger, Lower River Road, Sun Prairie, etc. where a large number of the residents commute to and from town on a daily basis. Expanded public transportation to these areas could provide huge savings in fuel and vehicle maintenance to these residents.
In most cases, grants or other funding is available to cover many of the costs. Shelby and Toole County has established a service to bring people to and from Great Falls, Helena, and the Veteran's Hospitals. Other smaller towns might want to do the same.
I've pasted in a series of articles from Vancouver, British Columbia which describes various public transportation systems in other parts of the world. I don't know whose primary responsibility for this might be, but the City and County Commissioners and executive staff could form a committee to begin this process, instead of going ahead with the recently announced cuts to the Great Falls Transit system.
Thank you very much for your interest and concern.
Paul Stephens, CasCoGreens

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Fare-Free Public Transit Could Be Headed to a City Near You
By Dave Olsen, The Tyee
http://www.alternet.org/story/57802/

The time has come to stop making people pay to take public transit.

Why do we have any barriers to using buses and urban trains? The threat of global warming is no longer in doubt. The hue and cry of the traffic-jammed driver grows louder every commute. And politicians are getting the message. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has ordered his staff to seriously examine the costs of charging people to ride public transit. And Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York, recently voiced to a reporter his top dream: "I would have mass transit be given away for nothing and charge an awful lot for bringing an automobile into the city."
Consider this sampling of communities providing free rides on trolleys, buses, trams and ferries: Staten Island, N.Y.; Island County, Wash.; Chapel Hill, N.C.; Vail, Colo.; Logan and Cache Valley, Utah; Clemson, S.C.; Commerce, Calif.; Châteauroux, Vitré, and Compiègne, France; Hasselt, Belgium; Lubben, Germany; Mariehamn, Finland; Nova Gorica, Slovenia; Türi, Estonia; and Övertorneå, Sweden.
Or speak, as I have, with transit officials in parts of Belgium and the state of Washington, where fare-free transit has hummed along smoothly now for years.
read more>> http://www.alternet.org/story/57802/

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KENT MESPLAY (BLACKFOOT) GREEN PARTY CAMPAIGN for President

SUSTAINABLE ENERGY LEADS TO SECURITY AND DEMOCRACY

Kent Mesplay delegates and supporters, please come join us at Kent Mesplay for President! on Green Party Nexus:

where we'll be organizing ourselves for Chicago and beyond!

Mesplay 4 Prez!

Drew Johnson, CoCoordinator Kent Mesplay for President '08 & Kat Swift for President 08 campaigns

MISSION: To improve our security and to reform politics.

"All the energy stored in the earth's reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas is matched by the energy from 20 days of sunshine."
- Union of Concerned Scientists

Mesplay for President

We "vote" with our dollars every day. Currently we are continuing to enable Big Oil to continue to keep us addicted to oil. We and the whole planet is paying are paying them dearly for our enslavement and to prop up Big Oil and Empire America. As fellow Green Tian Harter likes to say, we need to "Stop voting for oil companies at the gas pump!"

In this David v Goliath picture how do we, the numerically overwhelmed Greens, go about breaking America's oil addiction, move towards security for America, reform American politics with Grassroots Democracy and bring an end to Empire America? By leveraging the high moral ground our values naturally give us to connect heart to heart with the vast majority of Americans who agree with our core Peace Values and by inspiring and leading a mass movement to go "cold turkey" on our oil addiction and aggressively pursue the new alternative energy technologies that are available right now today; and

There is intense collusion from both within the American political process and from the noncompetitive not-so-free markets to maintain this addition to oil. Elected officials such as Bush and Cheney are essentially just shills for the petroleum industry. They and others in public office through their actions giving tax breaks and other forms of Corporate Welfare to Big Oil actually make it more difficult for market forces to come into play. If real free market forces were allowed to operate Big Oil would naturally either die off or transform into sustainable energy producers.

We Americans are propping up Big Oil by trading the blood of American soldiers and innocent civilians for oil and empire. Blood for oil is a completely immoral trade that we Greens must spotlight and call a halt to. An honest approach to assessing the true cost of oil would include factors such as war and pollution. These costs are externalized and placed on the shoulders of American tax-payers as well as the people of the world, just so America can have its empire and Big Oil can remain artificially propped up. Is it any wonder that we American's reckless disregard for human life in pursuit of Empire America's interests-at-all-costs continue to inspire hatred around the world and deadly opposition to our Empire America? If we want security we must end this Empire America madness.

Greens can and must lead the way to a sane and fair national energy policy. Oil money helped many politicians who are now an impediment to progress get to where they are today. Waiting for those in Porkopolis D.C. to solve our energy problems is to wait for disaster. The current system of campaign finance renders politicians almost completely disabled from doing what's best for the country.

It is for lack of political will that we do not have solar and wind as the back-bone of all energy production in this nation. Now that policy-makers such as Californian Governor Schwarzenegger see the light of the value in power from the sun we are closer to achieving and maintaining a security-enhancing energy policy nation-wide, since California leads the nation in so many ways. No new power plants need to be built once we develop the mind-set of every structure becoming its own power plant (with existing power lines as back-up, of course). The existing power grid can be reduced and stabilized through distributed generation from wind and solar sources, with biodiesel, methanol and other diversified sources reducing our risk.

Nuclear power is only one-seventh as effective at keeping carbon out of the atmosphere as is conservation and improved energy efficiency. We certainly do not need more nuclear power plants. Iran and other nations are struggling to make the same mistakes our country has made by investing in nuclear power. Wind comes out on top when judging the true cost of nuclear power and its heavy subsidy, long lead times, hours of non-operation, eventual decommissioning and disposal of toxic components: costs we bear as tax-payers. Nuclear-power-and-weapons have had their day. Iran has been working on developing nuclear power for some thirty years. It would have made more sense for Iran to design architecture with appropriate thermal inertia and to invest heavily in energy efficiency and renewable energy. A world-wide ban on all uranium enrichment would be a good thing.

For real energy security we need improved conservation so that our structures don't waste well over half of the energy they use. We also need representatives in office who will sensibly support methanol over hydrogen, more fuel-cell research and development, biodiesel based upon castor beans, and generally a more integrated, systems-oriented energy design in how we live and in what we do.

An acquaintance, Jim Bell, points out how every dollar we save in the San Diego / Tijuana area by not importing energy would become another dollar available for investment in local economies. In California, those who support and take advantage of incentives to install solar panels are being patriotic and are helping us become more secure. I inspected a large facility having, in addition to other air-quality-effecting equipment, a diesel-powered emergency generator. When I asked where the generator disappeared to, the site contact pointed upwards and said, "it's on the roof in the form of solar panels," regularly providing seasonal power. The investment made good economic sense to the company, what with rising energy costs.

As a graphic depiction of the worth of photo-voltaics (P.V.), a solar array 100 miles on each side, situated in the Mojave desert could produce all the energy that we currently sloppily use in our nation. Not that we would want to "put all our eggs in one basket," ruin a desert and lose to transmission line losses, but the point is that we have the technology to phase out the petroleum industry even faster than it may want to have
happen. I want an improved political process that allows good candidates to run so that we have public officials who treat science with respect and who actually work to make us more secure rather than catering to their favorite businesses.

As I said before, we "vote" with our dollars every day. I encourage those whose finances allow consideration of installing P.V. panels to carry through and to do so, (especially in California because of the California Solar Roofs Bill, S.B. 1 and other supportive legislation). Not only does solar energy benefit the individual or business, but an eventual distributed grid of power generation makes us more secure when the umbilical cords of power lines and gas lines are severed. During our next major power outage more people will have time to reflect upon this.

To cite a specific example, in San Diego where I'm from I am opposed to the proposed Sunrise Power Link as it is a step in the wrong direction. It would be far more cost effective and less damaging and devaluing to property and natural environments for Sempra to invest in getting residents in San Diego county off the grid. We need to first conserve the energy that our buildings and lifestyles waste, then invest in p.v. panels
on our rooftops (especially schools, which should be "survival centers"), then consider locating appropriately designed factories in the remote regions to take advantage of the "green" energy production and labor available in areas with more affordable housing out in the desert.

Expend a little energy and register Green

Energy matters. So does voting. Register Green. Vote Mesplay

Green Solutions June 9 2008

2008-06-18T12:21:00.000-07:00

GREEN SOLUTIONS by Paul Stephens, CasCoGreens
Let the Reign of the Colonels Begin

Last week's primary elections, both locally and nationally, could best be described as "out of the frying pan and into the fire." Or, "out of the Coal Junta, and into the Zionist Holocaust/Nakba." The best candidates won everywhere. Unfortunately, they were all "the lesser of two (or more) evils." There weren't any good candidates running, which is the real point of all this, from the point of view of those who are fervently trying to establish a military dictatorship, and end constitutional government (along with abortion and gay marriage) in Amerika.
We had a truly bizarre Congressional and Senate primary outcome in Montana. A lifelong Progressive Democrat advocate of unicameral parliamentary government won the REPUBLICAN nomination to oppose the crypto-Republican Max Baucus, running for the umpteenth time as a Democrat. And another Progressive Democrat won the nomination to oppose the major Bush Republican sycophant Denny Rehberg for Montana's only House seat. Here's the punchline: both are Army Reserve Colonels! Most Republicans (and Democrats) in Montana are chicken-hawks - at best, they were drafted or did National Guard duty for awhile as their military "service." Only the real "reformers" are higher-ranking officers, who have actually fought in wars, and have ties with the Pentagon!
Col. Bob Kelleher, the "perennial candidate" whose only prior elected office was to the Montana Constitutional Convention in 1972, is the "One House Parliament" guy. I've known him for 20 years, and supported his cause for even longer. He is a graduate of Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and his military service was as a JAG lawyer. I'm a firm believer that the present U.S. Constitution does not allow for partisan politics, and if we're going to have parties, then we need a parliamentary government in which the leading member of Congress whose party wins a general election then becomes Prime Minister. (The President is merely a ceremonial position, and has nothing to do with creating policy or legislation). This is the French model as it presently exists, but Kelleher prefers the British model (without, apparently, the House of Lords) following the Reform Acts of 1832. He knows his stuff, and has elaborated these ideas endlessly, in numerous campaigns for everything from Governor to POTUS. This is the first time (and he is in his mid-80's) he has ever run as a Republican, and the first time he has actually won a primary. He ran twice as a Green Party candidate: for Senate (also against Baucus) in 2002, and for Governor in 2004. The fact that some of us supported him, and all abortion advocates (and Demogreens) opposed him, accounts for much of the sorry state of the Green Party in Montana, today.
Last time I spoke with Bob several years ago, we were still friends. He is a very impressive and good-hearted man. I wish him well. And I will cover his campaign in this Bulletin, and probably work for him privately, if I can find some sympathetic Republicans here to work with (and I know a few). It will require a bizarre twist in campaign tactics, to say the least, but that is nothing new in Montana.
The other Progressive Democrat running - surprise - as a Democrat but without any party support (thus far at least), is Col. John Driscoll. John has an even more impressive resume, and ran against Baucus in the primary back in 1996. He is a former Public Service Commissioner, and probably the youngest Speaker of the House of the Montana Legislature in our state's history (the other contender would be Dan Kemmis). This was back in late 1970's or early '80's. He refuses to accept any special interest money for his campaigns.
A few years ago, I used to reprint articles from John's "Steward Magazine" in the Bulletin. We tried to encourage him to run for office as a Green, but he remains a loyal Democrat. He is also a close friend of Bob Kelleher's, and since they are both Army Reserve Colonels (John isn't a lawyer, but has worked with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other high-level policy-making positions,) they could immediately be influential members of any military procurement or other military affairs committee in Congress. Both candidates abhor the pork-barrel, log-rolling traditions of Montana's Congressional delegation, and both would, I suspect, support any and all withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as repealing the USA PATRIOT Act and supporting other vital reforms or restorations of republican, constitutional government. But I will leave it to them to make their speeches and present their arguments in policy statements and debates as they unfold. Hopefully, we'll be hearing a lot from them. - PHS
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OBITUARY

Lady Barbara Ann Carne-Foster, GFHS Class of 1957

I don't often do obituaries, and if I were still writing poetry, Barb would be a fitting subject for my finest efforts. I don't know if she appeared on any Queen's Lists, but she was definitely a Peer of the Realm - several Realms, in fact, beginning with Black Eagle. Since this is a copper-toned Realm, she might have been identified as Jody Foster's cosmic fairy godmother. She and her first husband, Jack Foster, were celebrated in many ways in popular culture.
The daughter of a famous Black Eagle restaurateur, Rudy Carne, her dowry was the Italian recipes which made The Jack Club (originally a remodeled country school-house) into the hottest nightclub in town. "Be a King and take your Queen to the Jack Club" was their advertising slogan back in the 1960's.
Jack was also remembered as having the first MG-TC in north-central Montana. He and my uncle Charles were close friends, and working-class comrades in the glass business. Charles may have been the best man at their wedding. Marrying Barbara was Jack's entry into a world of higher status and respectability - surprising as that might sound to those who considered Italians, Slavs and their Black Eagle enclave (known as "Little Chicago" to themselves) a less-desirable culture and place to live. (Now it's a major superfund site because of the Anaconda Smelter, but that's another story).
As was so often the case with my father's and uncle's friends, I was never socially introduced to the Foster's, outside of having worked as a swamper temporarily for the Jack Club when I was in high school. But I heard a lot about them. More recently, I got to know Barbara very well in her later years when I was driving cab. She owned a bar, the Red Door (with probably the most diverse clientele in town), and was often in need of a ride home by the end of the night. She remembered Charles, and we often reminisced about "the good old days." She was very pleased when I ran for County Commissioner as a Green, but expressed disappointment when I came out against machine gambling and in favor of a living wage ordinance (why, I don't know. All of her employees were much better paid than that). She may have helped to get me fired from the cab company for those very reasons. If so, it probably saved my life.
I hadn't realized that she was a member of that most illustrious class in Great Falls High School history - what I now identify as "The class of Atlas Shrugged and Sputnik." Many of us in the class of 1965 had older siblings or cousins in that class, and we have been struggling to keep up or surpass them ever since. Even when we have, it was always by the standards of that earlier foundation. So, I'll count Barbara as my most recent best friend from the Class of '57, and mourn her passing. Those were Happy Days, indeed. -- PHS
Tribune Obituary
http://www.legacy.com/greatfallstribune/Obituaries.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=111132687
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FILM

The Mouse that Roared - starring mainly Peter Sellars in a variety of roles
Directed by Jack Arnold

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053084/

This is a film that came out when I was in junior high school, but I had never seen it until I borrowed a DVD of it from the library last week. One of the trailers featured there was for "Dr. Strangelove," which is appropriate. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/ (The other was an obscure Jerry Lewis film, "Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River.")
"The Mouse that Roared" is a kind of comedy version of "Dr. Strangelove," but still features a "loose nuke" and the threat of nuclear warfare as a major plotline. I checked the dates, and found that Mouse dates from 1959, while Dr. Strangelove was made five years later. Since the former is in color, and the latter in b&w, I would have thought that Dr. Strangelove was the earlier film. So far as I know, Stanley Kubrick had nothing to do with "The Mouse that Roared." It is much lighter in tone.
The Grand Duchy of Fenwick, supposedly started by an eccentric Englishman in the Swiss Alps centuries ago, subsists entirely on the basis of a single variety of wine (a reference to "monocrop agriculture", perhaps?) Unscrupulous American trade pirates in San Rafael, California, have produced a counterfeit, thus destroying Fenwick's viability. This means war, and the Fenwick army of some 30 middle-aged mail-coated knights sails for America, hoping to engage in battle, surrender, and then become the beneficiaries of U.S. foreign aid to our defeated adversaries. Quite a bit like Iraq and other "client states," actually.
Unfortunately, the plan backfires, and the Fenwickians return home with an Einstein-like nuclear scientist, Professor Kokintz, and his beautiful daughter, Helen (Jean Seaberg), along with a bomb which can destroy half of Europe. All of the major powers are at Fenwick's beck and call, hoping to form an alliance with them.
Of course, we knew in Great Falls that this movie, like most others, was really about us and our "third largest nuclear arsenal in the world" promoted by Senator Mansfield and President Kennedy right about that time. It is also a precursor to many later films besides Dr. Strangelove, including "The Manhattan Project" about a high school student who builds his own atomic bomb for a science project (with John Lithgow's assistance), as well as a later comedy about Einstein and his daughter. "The Princess Diaries" also draws heavily on this Fenwickian "history." -- PHS
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Viewer comment from the IMDb
"Although it's considered a harmless entertainment, 'The Mouse That Roared' is chock full of satiric jibes at the dirty politics, international relations, and paranoid culture of The Cold War- its just that the jokes are so quick and subtle that you might miss them if you blink (one of my favorite touches concerns a radio report of 'aliens'- actually the chain-mailed soldiers of Grand Fenwick- sighted in Central Park. Upon hearing the report amongst a crowd of shocked New Yorkers, one well-dressed, perfectly normal looking gent mutters about the supposed alien invasion: 'I knew it - it HAD to come to this!' This is the filmmakers' fairly accurate portrayal of how far some Americans had descended, by this time, into Atomic, Cold War and Space-Crazed paranoia).

It should be said that the diplomatic relations between America and the World, as portrayed in this film, are even MORE RELEVANT now than they were during the Cold War; except that the American statesmen seem so virtuous and well-meaning in comparison to some of our current ones. Rent it and you'll see what I mean."
==============
MUSIC

The Piatigorsky-Grossman Concerts, Great Falls
http://www.piatigorskyfoundation.org/Gregor.cfm
I was looking at the USC Thornton School of Music website the other day, and I see they've recruited 'cellist Ralph Kirshbaum to the Gregor Piatigorsky Chair. http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/stories/14865.html
A few weeks ago, Piatigorsky's grandson, Evan Drachman, also a 'cellist, was in Great Falls for what has become an unheralded and poorly-attended annual stop for the Piatigorsky Foundation's touring musicians. I've heard three of these ensembles, and I have yet to see any of the regular symphony crowd or even student musicians there - even though the recitals are free. Each group plays about 5 different venues locally over a week or so, many of them in very small towns, and all of them in schools, nursing homes, and even prisons. This was my first opportunity to actually meet Evan, who created the program, and thank him personally for what must be the only classical music "outreach" of its kind in the world.
In past years, I've heard an opera-singer named Erika, and a Scottish-Canadian Harp and Flute duo play here under the auspices of the Piatigorsky Foundation. Randy Barrett, the Cascade County Aging Services director and a public radio announcer on KGPR met Evan at some sort of conference, and that is why the Piatigorsky Foundation has made Great Falls a regular stop ever since. I should also mention Jeffrey Grossman, Evan's pick-up accompanist, who with only a day or two's preparation was able to do a masterful job in the Debussy Sonata as well as orchestral reductions in other works like Tchaikovsky's Roccoco Variations, playing on small, upright pianos of poor quality. I could close my eyes and imagine I was hearing a young James Levine in Carnegie Hall! A recent Harvard graduate, he is also co-founder of the Harvard Early Music Project. http://www.jeffreygrossman.com
I am probably the only person in Great Falls who actually heard Gregor Piatigorsky play live - at UCLA's Royce Hall, with the Debut Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, who was then in his early 20's. Evan resembles his grandfather, and took pride in sharing a number of anecdotes about Gregor's early career during the Russian Revolution, his objections to the Beethoven Quartet being renamed the Lenin Quartet, and his escape across the border into Poland, which was anxious to send him back, except that some of the soldiers assigned to do that were musicians, and working class solidarity prevailed.
Evan started on the 'cello quite late, and his grandfather had little hope that he would excel at it. However, no less than Mstislav Rostropovich encouraged him later on, and took Evan back to Russia after 1989 where they played several concerts, with Rostropovich conducting.
As one might imagine, Evan is not the normal up-and-coming classical music "star." In fact, he is egalitarian to a fault, and sees his mission as sharing the blessings of music with those who need it the most. I told him, as a personal aside, that his performance "made up for a year of abuse and neglect" in my own life, and that many other people here no doubt felt the same. The next time I hear someone describe classical music as "elitist," I'm going to punch him in the face. -- PHS

/\/\/\/\/\

CARBON TAXES

[Last week, the coal and oil junta, the auto industry, and their associated unions managed to defeat even the pale and weakened Senate bill to cap carbon emissions and implement carbon taxes. Do you know how your Senators voted? I'm afraid to look, but I'd give odds that both of Montana's Senators voted against it. -- PHS]

WE CAN'T AFFORD THE HIGH COST OF DOING NOTHING

By RICHARD BARRETT And THOMAS M. POWER
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200805270500/OPINION/805270306

Several American business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Council for Capital Formation, have launched nationwide campaigns to convince the public that a serious effort to limit the pollution that causes global warming would have catastrophic consequences for the American economy, while providing no significant benefits. It is hard to believe that organizations claiming to represent business interests could be so out of touch with economic and energy reality.
The target of their ire is the Climate Security Act, introduced in Congress by Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and approved by Sen. Barbara Boxer's, D-Calif., Environment and Public Works Committee. It would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent, by 2050.
Two of the opposed groups, NAM and ACCF, recently released an economic study they say demonstrates the "enormous" costs we would incur from this legislation. For instance, they claim it would lead to a "loss" of about 1.3 million American jobs. But this grossly misrepresents what their own study actually shows, which is no net job loss as a result of greenhouse gas regulation.
Actually, the study projects that job growth would slow very slightly.
Instead of the American economy creating 15.4 million new jobs over the next 12 years, 14.1 million new jobs would be added. At the beginning of 2020, there would be only about 0.8 percent fewer jobs in the economy, and by the end of the year normal job growth would eliminate even this small shortfall. What is startling is not how many jobs we will lose, but rather how many we will gain as we move towards a low emissions economy.
And even the finding of slower growth is questionable. That's because the study makes unreasonably pessimistic assumptions regarding the technical and entrepreneurial creativity and adaptability of the businesses they claim to represent. In the face of a new energy reality, in which greenhouse gas emissions carry a steep price, businesses and households will find ways of reducing them - through renewable energy, conservation and technological transformation.
We've repeatedly seen this type of rapid and pervasive adaptation and innovation, in the spread of computer technology, the rise of the Internet and the revolution in telecommunications. If public policy creates the right set of incentives to reduce global warming pollution, we'll find enormous opportunities open to us, with negligible resulting costs.
The study opposing the climate change legislation also fails to recognize the potential of increased energy efficiency. Yet national research organizations have identified many simple measures to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, such as switching to compact fluorescent bulbs.
The business groups seek to scare Americans about high electricity and gasoline prices under the Climate Security Act. But this misrepresents the way prices work. Although an increase in energy prices is needed to stimulate energy innovation, higher energy prices need not burden families and businesses because innovative energy technologies will significantly reduce how much energy they must buy.
Beyond the scare tactics, the core argument offered by the opposed organizations is that we gain nothing by acting on our own. The logic is flawless but severely limited, since it applies with equal force to those other countries - China shouldn't act unless the United States does, the European Union shouldn't act before India, and so forth.
This type of thinking points inexorably toward a "race to the bottom," resulting in global inaction and ultimately self-destruction. We need international negotiations leading to global agreements to reduce emissions, and we only gain an influential place at the negotiating table if we're prepared to take significant action. Right now, we simply discredit ourselves by whining about the costs of reducing emissions while suggesting that much poorer nations bear the burden. And finally, though the study never addresses the issue, it's ignored a huge elephant in the room - the costs of doing nothing. In fact, the former chief economist of the World Bank, Nicholas Stern, recently said that a 2006 report - estimating the adverse impacts of climate change at up to one-fifth of the world's gross domestic product - had underestimated the risks.
If we fail to act because of poorly constructed and deceptively reasoned economic arguments, we will assure changes in world climate that will fundamentally affect the America that we know, leaving behind for our children and grandchildren a dramatically diminished natural landscape, society, and economy.
Thomas Michael Power is a research professor and former chairman of the Department of Economics at the University of Montana, where Richard Barrett is an emeritus professor of economics.

/\/\/\/\/\

FROM GREEN LISTS

At Primaries' End, American Indians in Rare Focus

By Adam Tanner Mon Jun 2,

LAME DEER, Montana (Reuters) - Often paid scant attention in U.S. presidential elections, Native Americans are taking an unusually high profile in the final stretch of the Democratic primary campaign.

Both Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and front-runner Barack Obama recently have visited remote Indian reservations in the rugged Western states of Montana and South Dakota, which hold the final contests in the drawn-out state-by-state battle on Tuesday.

One Montana tribe, the Crow Nation, has ceremoniously adopted Obama, giving him a name which means "one who helps people throughout this land."

"Never before have we had such hope for a candidate, except maybe a Kennedy," said Crow Chairman Carl Venne, who said Obama was the first U.S. presidential candidate ever to visit his tribe in southeastern Montana.

In previous elections, the party's candidate has been decided long before primary voting in Montana and South Dakota. Obama is looking to wrap up the nomination in these two final contests June 3.

Just above 1 percent of the U.S. population is Native American, but the numbers rise to more than 6 percent in Montana on the Canadian border. Depending on turnout, they could represent as many as 15 percent of Montana's Democratic voters, numbers that could tip the state's outcome although Obama appears poised overall to win the national contest.

Poverty is widespread among many tribes -- especially in remote areas of the Western states -- and many Native Americans see Democrats as more sympathetic to issues important on the reservations including more jobs and better health care and education.

But should the Democrat lose in the November general election, some say Republican Sen. John McCain represents a better-than-usual second choice for Indians.

"Hillary and Obama are getting up to speed on Indian affairs, while McCain in Arizona already represents the largest Native American community in the country, the Navajos," said Clara Caufield, an assistant to the Northern Cheyenne president in Lame Deer, Montana.

McCain has twice served as the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and is knowledgeable about the complex issues facing Native Americans. Many also respect his past military service.

As for the adoption of Obama by the Crow tribe next door, Caufield scoffed: "We take our traditions more seriously than that. The Crow adopt people at the drop of the hat."

As among all voters, Indians are divided. Within her own office, Caufield's boss, Northern Cheyenne president Geri Small, has endorsed Clinton, a New York senator.

INDIAN LEADER CRITICIZES MCCAIN

One prominent Native American who has worked with McCain is Elouise Cobell, a Montana member of the Blackfeet Tribe. She is leading a multibillion-dollar lawsuit again the U.S. government, charging that tribes were cheated for more than a century out of payments made for the rights to mine, farm and graze on their land.

"He's sympathetic, but that's the problem we have here with Indian issues," Cobell said about McCain. "We really get a lot of promises, especially around election time: oh gosh, they have been treated so horrible. But then nobody does anything about it, so what good are all these words and promises?"

For Charlie Vaughan, chairman of the Hualapai nation in the wilderness flanking a 100-mile (160-km) stretch of the Grand Canyon's southern rim in Arizona, the big issue for members is the high price of gas.

"Given the remoteness of a lot of reservation lands and the tribes that live on them, and how they are impacted by rising fuel costs ... we think that a McCain presidency would be more harmful," Vaughn said. "He favors continuing the war and that's going to tend to drive up fuel prices, and it will hurt us."

Tribal members in these parched lands have a 50-mile (80-km) drive to the nearest town to buy groceries, fuel and clothes, distances not uncommon for remote reservations.

Many Native Americans, who have long suffered discrimination, also say that either Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, or Clinton, who would be the first woman U.S. president, would better understand their plight.

"We have had the same mind-set for 500 years, with white men running the country," said Ofelia Rivas, a tribal elder of the Tohnono O'odham Nation on the Arizona- Mexico border. "I prefer the idea of either a woman or a so-called minority person in the White House, so that we will have a different perspective."

(Additional reporting by Tim Gaynor in Phoenix)
============

WHY GREENS DO NOT SUPPORT BARACK OBAMA
FROM JOHN PILGER

From Kennedy To Obama; Liberalism's Last Fling
http://www.johnpilger.com/

As their contest for the White House draws closer, watch how, regardless of the inevitable personal smears, Obama and McCain draw nearer to each other. They already concur on America's divine right to control all before it. "We lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good," said Obama. "We must lead by building a 21st-century military . . . to advance the security of all people." McCain agrees. Obama says in pursuing "terrorists" he would attack Pakistan. McCain wouldn't quarrel. Both candidates have paid ritual obeisance to the regime in Tel Aviv, unquestioning support for which defines all presidential ambition. In opposing a UN Security Council resolution implying criticism of Israel's starvation of the people of Gaza, Obama was ahead of both McCain and Hillary Clinton. In January, pressured by the Israel lobby, he massaged a statement that "nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people" to now read: "Nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people from the failure of the Palestinian leadership to recognise Israel [emphasis added]." Such is his concern for the victims of the longest, illegal military occupation of modern times. Like all the candidates, Obama has furthered Israeli/Bush fictions about Iran, whose regime, he says absurdly, "is a threat to all of us".
=========================

COMMENT by Paul Stephens

Why does Obama think he has to support Zionist Apartheid? Is it only the money?
We might wishfully think that, as the Rev. Wright said, Obama is simply doing what he has to do as a politician to be elected President. And he probably supposes that he must reassure, appease, or capitulate to the Zionist lobby if he wants to win. Whether or not he has taken money from them (and apparently he has) is beside the point. They have the power to destroy his campaign in the minds of the entire "East Coast Liberal Establishment," American Zionists (including many Black Americans), as well as the Military-Industrial Complex which thrives on these Middle Eastern wars and arms build-ups.
Obama and his advisors no doubt believe that he cannot win if he doesn't unconditionally support Israel. Once he is elected President, some of them might imagine that he can then "be his own man", and do whatever he thinks is right and just, in the manner of Jimmy Carter. Unfortunately, Jimmy Carter (or any other President) was never free to act on his conscience, either - not, at least, until he was out of office. JFK may have been the last President to vigorously oppose the Zionist lobby and its nuclear aspirations after they helped (probably decisively) to get him elected. The more I read about this, the more I'm convinced that American Zionists were complicit in his death - Jack Ruby being only the final instrument of their attempts to "seal the record" on the assassination and its aftermath.
Still, we think that Obama could at least speak the truth, and stand up for Palestinian rights while defending Israel's right to exist as a free, democratic, and ethnically integrated state. He doesn't have to follow the punishing Zionist-Apartheid agenda (indeed, how could he possibly do so?) which only a third or so of Jewish Israeli's actually support. He needs to join with Ilan Pappe and the Israeli peace and reconciliation parties and movements, not the militaristic, fascist Zionists. But of course we know by now that Obama is anything but "the peace candidate." More on this, below. -- PHS

=============

FROM AL JAZEERA.NET
Arabs shocked by Obama speech
Barack Obama said he spoke as a "true friend" of Israel [EPA]
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/93FE247B-452D-4022-8374-088D8704C1DE.htm

THURSDAY, JUNE 05, 2008
Arab leaders have reacted with anger and disbelief to an intensely pro-Israeli speech delivered by Barack Obama, the US Democratic presumptive presidential nominee.
Obama told the influential annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Council (Aipac): "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided."
His comments appalled Palestinians who see occupied East Jerusalem as part of a future Palestinian state.
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, told Al Jazeera on Thursday: "This is the worst thing to happen to us since 1967 ... he has given ammunition to extremists across the region".
"What really disappoints me is that someone like Barack Obama, who runs a campaign on the theme of change - when it comes to Aipac and what's needed to be said differently about the Palestinian state, he fails."
RELATED
Reporter's diary: Divided Jerusalem
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A1BA180A-6B42-4EB2-8171-2E182F74FF4A.htm
Inside the US-Israel lobby
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/69604333-7916-439E-8919-434C76B4149E.htm
"I say to Obama ... please stop being more Israeli than the Israelis themselves, leave the Israelis and Palestinians alone to make decisions required for peace."
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, rejected the statement, saying: "We will not accept an independent Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as the capital.
"I believe that case is clear."
He said: "Jerusalem is part of the six points that are subjects on the negotiations' agenda.
"And the whole world knows that East Jerusalem, Arab Jerusalem and Holy Jerusalem were occupied in 1967."
'Hope slashed'
Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas, the largest Palestinian resistance group, also condemned the speech, saying on Thursday: "These statements slash any hope of any change in the American foreign policy.
"[They] assure that there is a total agreement between the two parties, the Democratic and the Republican, on support for the Israeli occupation at the expense of the rights of Arabs and Palestinian interests."

IN DEPTH

Israel and the Nakba
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/15D014B8-32B9-4F08-A258-8EB37B0DDF49.htm
The ancient city of Jerusalem is divided into East and West. Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and unilaterally annexed it, in a move condemned by the United Nations as illegal.
Jerusalem's status as part of Israel is not internationally recognised and remains a central issue in peace negotiations.
'Unbreakable bond'
Obama, hours after securing his party's nomination on Wednesday, had gone on to say the US bond with Israel was "unbreakable today, unbreakable tomorrow, unbreakable for ever" and drew a standing ovation.
He told the gathering of one of US politics' most influential lobbying groups that, as president, he would "never compromise when it comes to Israel's security."
He also said any deal between Israelis and Palestinians should preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state and that Hamas should be isolated and pledged to approve $30bn in aid to Israel over the next 10 years.
'Impressive speech'
Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, called the Illinois senator's speech "very impressive".
"His words on Jerusalem were very moving," Olmert told reporters after meeting George Bush, the US president, at the White House.
The Illinois senator's comments come a day after US media projected that Obama had enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination and face John McCain, the presumptive Republican candidate, in the November election.
Iranian 'threat'
Obama also had harsh words for Iran, vowing to work to "eliminate" the threat it posed to security in the Middle East and around the globe.
Obama said an "undivided Jerusalem should remain the capital of Israel" [AFP]
"There's no greater threat to Israel or to the peace and stability of the region than Iran," he told the Aipac assembly.
Calling for "aggressive, principled diplomacy" with Tehran, he also warned he would never take the military option off the table in guaranteeing US and Israeli security.
Iranians responded cautiously, but optimistically, with officials expressing hope he can bring about change in Iran-US relations.
Hamidreza Hajibabaee, member of Iranian parliament, said: "We hope that Obama turns his words into actions, helps the Islamic Republic of Iran believe that the US has given up enmity and paves the way for fair negotiations."
=============

Ilan Pappe says Israel needs to acknowledge the crime it committed against the Palestinian people

As part of Al Jazeera's coverage of the anniversary of the creation of Israel and the Palestinian 'Nakba', Israeli historian Ilan Pappe reflects upon the events of 1948 and how they led to 60 years of division between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Between February, 1948 and December,1948 the Israeli army systematically occupied the Palestinian villages and towns, expelled by force the population and in most cases also destroyed the houses, looted their belongings and took over their material and cultural possessions. This was the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
During the ethnic cleansing, wherever there was resistance by the population the result was a massacre. We have more than 30 cases of such massacres where a few thousand Palestinians were massacred by the Israeli forces throughout the operation of the ethnic cleansing.
read more>> http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5C0036C5-83C9-4720-853D-0BFA9A4E1BC4.htm

/\/\/\/\/\/\

FROM Soldier Say No / Project Safe Haven
www.SoldierSayNo.blogspot.com

Canadian Parliament votes in favor of American war resisters

Today the Canadian Parliament made a historic vote in favor of U.S. war resisters who are seeking a safe haven in Canada rather than fight in the illegal occupation of Iraq. The vote in the House of Commons was 137-110, with all the opposition parties - the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party, the Bloc Quebecois and the Green Party - voting for the motion, and the ruling Conservative Party voting against.

The Parliament calls on the minority Conservative government to create a program that will allow war resisters to immigrate to Canada, and it also calls for a halt to all deportation proceedings.

This is a VERY BIG victory for war resisters in Canada and everywhere. It will strengthen our hand considerably.

But the struggle for sanctuary in Canada is far from over. The Conservative government, a staunch ally of the Bush administration, may choose to defy the will of the Canadian people by ignoring this advisory motion.

Corey Glass, an Iraq veteran and war resister, was recently ordered to leave Canada by June 12 or face deportation.

So even as we celebrate this victory, we must step up the pressure on Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Immigration Minister Diane Finley. [See action alert from War Resisters Support Campaign, below, along with their press release and a news article.]

Yes, it does help for the Canadian government to hear from many people in the U.S. who want them to provide sanctuary for our war resisters. Courage To Resist (www.couragetoresist.org) has generated thousands of letters from people in the U.S. to Canadian government and political leaders and these have clearly helped, as have the vigils and delegations to the Canadian Embassy in Washington and Canadian Consulates around the U.S.

Project Safe Haven, a network of Vietnam War resisters who are supporting war resisters today, is calling for people to contact Canadian representatives in the U.S. this week.

* THANK the Canadian people and their Parliament for supporting our war resisters.
* CALL on the Conservative government to follow the will of the Canadian people and implement this motion.
* DEMAND an end to deportation proceedings against Corey Glass and other war resisters

You can visit the Canadian Consulate in person. In Seattle, we will have a Celebration outside of the Canadian Consulate, 1501 4th Ave. at Pike St., on Thursday, June 5, at noon. There will also be vigils and delegations in several other cities.

And you can call them, fax them, or email them.

Canadian Consular offices are in over 20 U.S. cities. Here are their addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses.

If you want to participate in visits to the Canadian Embassy or Consulates, please send an email to or call Gerry Condon at 206-499-1220.

If you are a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War or Veterans For Peace, you may want to get in touch with your local chapter or national office to let them know you want to participate, and to help organize these events.

U.S. war resisters and their wonderful Canadian supporters have won a historic victory. By acting decisively at this time, we in the U.S. can participate in this victory and help to make it an even bigger one.

Thank you for whatever you may be able to do at this time.

for peace and justice,
Gerry Condon

(206) 499-1220

Soldier Say No / Project Safe Haven
SoldierSayNo@yahoo.com
projectsafehaven@hotmail.com
www.SoldierSayNo.blogspot.com

Montana Green Bulletin 24 March 2008

2008-03-27T13:26:00.000-07:00

Montana Green Bulletin

March 24, 2008 Volume VII, Number 12

Paul Stephens, Editor and Publisher 406.216.2711 greateco@3rivers.net

THIS BULLETIN IS NOT AN "OFFICIAL" PUBLICATION OF ANY GREEN PARTY (see
disclaimers and selected resources at end)

Much of the content of this Bulletin is now being posted at
http://greateco.blogspot.com/

and http://www.myspace.com/greateco

Table of Contents:

UPCOMING AND ONGOING EVENTS

FROM Climate Crisis Coalition
Action Alert: Meeting with members of Congress over spring break.

FROM MONTANA PEACESEEKERS http://www.MontanaPeaceSeekers.org

Guest Opinion: Delegation should stop funding Iraq War
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/03/19/opinion/guest/60-warfunding.txt
By CASEY ELDER and SHANE MUNDT

FROM MAZIN QUMSIYEH http://qumsiyeh.org http://justicewheels.org

Actions and articles on Palestinian issues

GREEN SOLUTIONS by Paul Stephens, CasCoGreens

Why I am not an academic

How to drop out of school and get a real education

Prostitution reconsidered

FROM WORLD CIVILIZATIONS WEBSITE, WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY Yin and Yang
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CHPHIL/YINYANG.HTM

FROM GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

Kent Mesplay Considers Effects of Nader's Independent Run on Green Party
Convention By Babette Hogan, OpEdNews.com
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_babette__080321_kent_mesplay_conside.htm

A Discussion of Race Worth Having -- A Message from Cynthia McKinney
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/03/19/a-discussion-of-race-worth-having-by-cynthia-mckinney/

US-CANADA RELATIONS

War Dodgers
By BEN EHRENREICH
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/magazine/23wwln-essay-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=print

FROM GREEN PARTY OF CANADA

Greens protest changes to Immigration Act
http://www.greenparty.ca/en/releases/03.19.2008

Green Pary celebrates bi-election results
http://www.greenparty.ca/en/releases/18.03.2008

FROM RABBLE.CA

CLINTON AND LEWINSKY - THE SEQUEL
by Rick Salutin > http://www.rabble.ca/columnists_full.shtml?x=68830

BRING IN THE POLICE
An offer of money to a member of parliament to influence his or her
actions... constitutes a criminal offence. > by Duncan Cameron

FROM DEMOCRACY NOW!
Reproductive Rights, the Role of Religion and the History of Abortion
Activism: A Roundtable Discussion Listen/Watch/Read

Teenage Peer Counselors Attending Annual Meeting of NY Family Planning
Advocates Listen/Watch/Read
_

NADER MORE POPULAR AMONG INDEPENDENTS AND REPUBLICANS
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/032008_release_web.pdf

Nader on the Record - An interview with Ralph Nader about his presidential
platform on energy and the environment - By Amanda Griscom Little
http://www.grist.org/feature/2008/03/19/nader/index.html

An Election Without Meaning
By Peter Phillips, Project Censored

Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008
http://www.projectcensored.org/censored_2008/index.htm

FROM MAZIN QUMSIYEH http://www.qumsiyeh.org

On violent and nonviolent struggle: what about our personal responsibility?
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/thestruggle/

FROM ORGANIC BYTES http://www.organicconsumers.org/

The health care crisis in the U.S. is fast becoming a life or death
emergency. http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_10838.cfm

Heads Monsanto Wins, Tails We Lose; the Genetically Modified Food Gamble
By Robert Weissman
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2008/000278.html

ZNET COMMENTARIES

Duck and Cover
By Vijay Prashad
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2008-03/18prashad.cfm

A NOTE ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION

WEBSITES AND OTHER RESOURCES

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE GREENS SUPPORT:

HEALTH CARE DOLLARS FOR HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS -- NOT INSURANCE COMPANIES AND
CORPORATE PROFITS http://www.pnhp.org

STOP THE WARS! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW! WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION ARE
NOT A LOCAL GROWTH INDUSTRY!

COAL USE MUST BE MINIMIZED, NOT MAXIMIZED: GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL!
http://www.ipcc.ch/

END CORPORATE DOMINATION AND PREDATION: CORPORATIONS AREN'T PEOPLE, AND THEY
DON'T HAVE "PROPERTY" OR OTHER RIGHTS! http://reclaimdemocracy.org/

For an introduction to Green Party philosophy and programs, go to
http://www.gp.org/welcome.shtml

You can join the Montana Green Party at the NEW MONTANA GREEN PARTY
WEBSITE!! http://www.mtgreens.org

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

UPCOMING AND ONGOING EVENTS

GF Conservation Council meets at noon, Thursdays, at Penny's Gourmet
(Central Avenue between 8th and 9th Streets in Great Falls.)
====================

Kelpie Wilson: The Rising Price of Coal
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032108R.shtml
Truthout's Kelpie Wilson demystifies the "clean coal" myth and covers the realities of the "front and back ends of coal use: mining and waste disposal."
===============

FROM Climate Crisis Coalition
Friday, March 14, 2008

Action Alert: Meeting with members of Congress over spring break.

Dear CCC Supporters,

The Climate Crisis Coalition is collaborating with the
<1Sky"http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=zt2hwUUfhAZlfcA
5Tr17CZOMZ0itCrmg>1Sky
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=zt2hwUUfhAZlfcA5Tr17CZOMZ0itCrmg
Initiative in a push for Congressional climate action. We're emphasizing
three essential things that have to happen: millions of green jobs,
aggressive limits on green house gasses, and a moratorium new coal plants.
We're asking our supporters to arrange meetings with their members of
Congress, if at all possible, while they are home in their district offices
from March 14th-31st.

1Sky, with help from organizations like ours, already has over 400 committed
citizens from 46 states and 200 Congressional districts signed up to visit
their elected officials in district later this month. This encouraging
response shows that the movement for meaningful climate legislation is
gaining important momentum. (And it is about time!) We are now aiming to
have 500 visits lined up by next week. With help from concerned people like
you, we are hopeful of reaching this goal, and better!

Once you sign up, 1Sky will send you a packet of information that you can
leave with your Congresswoman or Congressman and a how-to guide to ensure a
productive meeting. Join the rising tide of Americans who are turning up the
heat on Congress, calling for bold solutions to stabilize our climate and to
green our economy! When you've set the appointment for your district visit,
please recruit friends and associates to go with you. It's time call upon
Congress to address the defining challenge of our time! Help us urge our
government to enact the following:

Green Jobs: Create 5 million new jobs with a sweeping national mobilization
for climate solutions, energy independence, and investment in a new energy
economy.

Firm Limits on Emissions: Do what science says is necessary -- reduce global
warming pollution at least 25% below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% by 2050.

A Moratorium on New Coal Plants: Coal-fired coal plants available today are
simply not acceptable. Carbon sequestration is at best at least a decade in
the making and there are simply too many other problems associated with
coal. Our clean energy future should not
involve dependence on coal or nuclear energy.

Sign up today to visit your member of Congress in district:
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5075/t/1697/signUp.jsp?key=80
The climate crisis demands immediate action: a clean energy revolution.

We would also love to hear from you, by return email, that you agree to work
with us on this. Please answer with "will try" in the subject line. And
please feel free to contact us about any questions you
might have about the
F32sk429uOH3eb> Initiative, or about any of our other work at the Climate
Crisis Coalition
gCrsk429uOH3eb>

Many thanks,

Ezra Small and Tom Stokes

=============

$250 Million Settlement Over Asbestos Is Announced
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/031308HA.shtml
John M. Broder, The New York Times, says: "W. R. Grace & Company, a
worldwide chemical company driven into bankruptcy by hundreds of millions of
dollars in asbestos poisoning claims, has agreed to pay the federal
government $250 million for environmental cleanup around its mining
operations in Libby, Montana."

The Monstrous Monsanto Universe
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/031308EA.shtml
Le Monde's Dominique Dhombres reviews a new documentary, "Le Monde selon
Monsanto" ["The World According to Monsanto"] that first aired on French
television on Tuesday night: "The charge sheet is horrifying, inexorable and
convincing."

===============

FROM MONTANA PEACE SEEKERS

Editor, "The Missoulian:"

Your "Stories from the war" article today
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2008/03/19/news/local/news05.txt
reports three Montana cities asked last fall for withdrawal from occupation
of Iraq.

In fact, five did and were 100% successful by significant majorities.

In June 2007 after a six month community conversation, the Butte-Silver Bow
council of commissioners approved a resolution for withdrawal by 83%.

In August Hamilton's city council voted a resolution for withdrawal by 60%.

Missoula and Helena referenda were approved by 64% and 62% on November
ballots.

Bozeman's council resolution was approved by 60% in December.

Validity of these votes for use in policy-making was verified by statewide
polls.

In private meetings with Montana's two senators (Congressman Rehberg ignored
requests to meet), volunteers who brought the resolutions and referenda to
the five major cities requested our senators stop voting our taxes to fund
Iraq's occupation. They said no, but agreed to acknowledge publicly the
democratic processes used to give them the knowledge of what their
constituents wanted.

Yesterday on the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, in an action
ignored by Montana's corporate media, leaders of the Montana Peace Seekers
12-city network visited the Helena offices of Senators Tester and Baucus and
Congressman Rehberg, asking publicly that they honor the desires of the
majority and stop voting taxpayer dollars to the occupation. They were urged
to "change their tune," replacing U.S. gun-barrels with diplomatic
alternatives that involve other countries.

While the Bush Administration says it is exporting democracy to Iraq, the
democratically elected representatives of Montanans do not honor the
democratically achieved mandate of their constituents to stop the illegal,
immoral occupation of oil-rich Iraq. Help them out. Call Montana's U.S.
Congressmen and ask they vote to de-fund the Iraq occupation so combat
troops come home safely and soon.

Mary Kay Craig, 518 W. Granite St., Butte, MT 59701
406-723-385

Mary Kay Craig is a leader of the Butte TAPS peace and justice organization,
Taking Action for Peaceful Solutions, the local Butte affiliate of the
Montana Peace Seekers Network (MPSN), .

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

FROM BILLINGS GAZETTE

Guest Opinion: Delegation should stop funding Iraq War
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/03/19/opinion/guest/60-warfund
ing.txt
By CASEY ELDER and SHANE MUNDT

When we think of an anniversary, the first thing that comes to mind is
celebration. There is a big anniversary for our country today, but it is
nothing to celebrate. Five years ago, the United States invaded Iraq. A
majority of Americans supported the invasion, convinced of a connection
between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 and that Saddam had obtained weapons of mass
destruction. Today, a majority of Americans have long since shifted their
support toward withdrawal from Iraq.

Over these five long years, Montana's congressional delegation has voted to
hand over millions of taxpayer dollars for the war every single time
President Bush made a request. Yet, only one member of our delegation has
had the courage to fight the president for more accountability on how our
money is being spent. As soldiers who've served in Iraq, we're proud to see
Sen. Jon Tester calling for more daylight on the role of private contractors
during wartime. We urge Sen. Max Baucus and Rep. Denny Rehberg to join the
call for transparency.

Still, after five years, accountability for private contractors is not
nearly enough.

HORRORS OF WAR

Based on our personal experiences, we believe that no amount of daylight can
brighten the deep hole that the United States continues to dig in Iraq. The
president has denied the American people a proper accounting of our tax
dollars in Iraq. But the American people have seen the horrors brought on by
five years of full funding for the war. On this fifth anniversary, it's
important to examine some Department of Defense numbers that are easily
accessible:

~ 3,983 U.S. soldiers have been killed and at least 29,320 have been wounded
in Iraq. On average, last month, one American soldier and 23 Iraqis
(civilian and security personnel) were murdered each day in Iraq. In total,
674 Iraqis were murdered in February. This last number increased by more
than 100 when compared to the three previous months, yet military analysts
claim "the surge" is working.

~ 145 soldiers have died from self-inflicted wounds since the war began.
This means that on average, one soldier commits suicide in Iraq every 12
days.

~ According to the National Priorities Project, over $800 million tax
dollars have been channeled from Montana to Iraq. That's enough money to
provide health care to almost 200,000 children. Instead, that money has
funded five years of war that has killed 22 Montanans.

These numbers only begin to illustrate the tragedy of the Iraq War, because
hidden behind these numbers are actual names. Here listed are the names of
our fellow Montana soldiers who've lost their lives to this war:

Nicholas Bloem, Belgrade; Charles Komppa, Absarokee; Edward Saltz, Bigfork;
Travis Arndt, Bozeman; Travis Atkins, Bozeman; Jeremy Monroe, Chinook; Aaron
Holleyman, Glasgow; Matthew Zeimer, Glendive; Michael Frank, Great Falls;
Michael MacKinnon, Helena; Scott Dykman, Helena; Shane Becker, Helena;
Donald Young, Helena; Daren Smith, Helena; Yance T. Gray, Ismay; Robbie
McNary, Lewistown; Andrew Bedard, Missoula; Kyle Bohrnsen, Philipsburg; Owen
Witt, Sand Springs; Dean Pratt, Stevensville; Raleigh Smith, Troy; and
Philip Baucus, Wolf Creek.

CITIES TAKE A STAND

Many Montanans are working hard to make sure that this list does not grow.
Last year, five Montana cities - Butte, Missoula, Helena, Hamilton and
Bozeman - joined more than 300 cities nationwide to call for the safe
withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Iraq. The last Montana city to take this
stand was Bozeman. On Dec. 17, a majority of city council members voted for
withdrawal from Iraq. One day later, on Dec. 18, Baucus, Tester and Rehberg
each voted yet again to send hundreds of millions of dollars to Iraq.

We express our gratitude to Sen. Tester for having the courage to follow the
money. He will earn more than the gratitude of Montana soldiers when he
finally decides to stop sending money to Iraq altogether. On that day, he
will earn our respect.

After five years, it is time for Montana's congressional delegation to deny
President Bush even one more dollar for war.

- Casey Elder works in Bozeman. She was disabled by injury from an explosion
during her service in Iraq with the Montana National Guard.

- Shane Mundt works in Helena after spending more than a year in Iraq with
the Army Reserves in the 172 Medical Brigade from Salt Lake City.

=====================

Some related articles/reports:

Voices for Creative Nonviolence. IRAQ WAR FUNDING ANALYSIS:
http://vcnv.org/

Assessing House Voting Records on Iraq War Funding - Feb 15, 2008

Assessments of Voting Records of Representatives on Iraq War Funding - Feb
15, 2008

Q & A: Iraq - Afghanistan War Supplemental, Feb 13, 2008

Q & A on the $102 billion war spending request still before Congress.
Written Feb 13, 2008.

Resource: House and Senate Voting Records on War Funding

House and Senate Voting Records - tables tracking key votes on funding of
the U.S. war in Iraq.

July 2007 Senate Votes on Iraq War Amendments
http://vcnv.org/july-2007-senate-votes-on-iraq-war-amendments

Tally and text of Senate votes on four amendments regarding the Iraq war.

The Terrible Reality of Iraq. A War of Lies. By PATRICK COCKBURN. March 19,
2008. http://www.counterpunch.org/

Timid Democrats Need to Stand Up or Get Lost: End It Now! By PAUL EDWARDS
(of Progressive Democrats of Montana). Counterpunch - July 4, 2007.
http://www.counterpunch.org/edwards07042007.html and
http://queencitynews.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=
7267 (Helena's Queen City News)

De-funding the US occupation of Iraq is mentioned in a March 19 Billings
Gazette article that features anti-war activists Tammara Rosenleaf (of
Helena, currently in Texas with her husband, soldier Sean Hefflin) and Carol
Marsh of Missoula who are arguing for de-funding the occupation -- the
articles also features Montana soldiers who are lobbying DC for the
occupation:
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/03/19/news/state/18-waropininion.txt

Five years of Iraq lies:How President Bush and his advisors have spent each
year of the war peddling mendacious tales about a mission accomplished. By
Juan Cole. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/03/19/iraq_five/

War and Occupation in Iraq" - An NGO Report (June 2007)
and
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/occupation/report/full.pdf
> Since the March 2003 invasion, the US-UK occupation of Iraq has utterly
failed to bring peace, prosperity and democracy, as originally advertised.
This major report assesses conditions in the country and especially the
responsibility of the US-led Coalition for violations of international law.
In twelve detailed chapters, brimming with information, the authors provide
a unique and compelling analysis of the conflict, concluding with
recommendations for action. Among the topics covered are: destruction of
cultural heritage, killing of civilians, attacks on cities and long-term
military bases. The report has been written and produced by Global Policy
Forum and co-published by thirty NGOs.

BUYING THE WAR (April 25,
2007 Bill Moyers Journal): Watch the Show -- on-line.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html

/\/\/\/\/\/\

FROM RICK GOLD

Dateline, St. Patrick's Day 3/17/2008
Yesterday, on the 5th anniversary of America's occupation of Iraq, a
coalition of Lane County Peace/Social Justice Groups put on a demonstration
that brought out up to 2,000 people, to demonstrate that Enough is Enough,
bring our troops home, Now! See Eugene PeaceWorks page:

Over one thousand people crowded the University of Oregon EMU fishbowl to
hear poets, musicians & speakers, before marching through downtown Eugene to
the Federal Building to a rally that a Register-Guard reporter said were
merely hundreds (see " Hundreds attend anti-war event" ...
=79092&sid=1&fid=1>
Unfortunately, math is not a required subject for reporters.
It was a beautiful day to be outside in Eugene as the weather cooperated
perfectly with the peace presence, helping to "Sow the Seeds of Peace."
Also, in today's Register-Guard editorial: "A question of when: Human and
financial costs of war unsustainable"

Wednesday is the fifth anniversary of President Bush's invasion of Iraq.
Rather than reviewing the 935 false statements Bush and his top aides made
about the security risk posed by Iraq in the run-up to the 2003 invasion, or
recounting the heartbreaking casualty totals, it might be more useful to
contemplate some hard questions about what lies ahead.
=79218&sid=5&fid=2>

peace,
Rick Gold
from Eugene, OR

==============

FROM MAZIN QUMSIYEH

Two videos, four good articles, and six action items for peace (How about
doing at least two of the six actions?)

(Video) US Bulldozers driven by Israeli occupation forces versus Human
Rights advocates engaged in nonviolent resistance

(Video) Bilin Nonviolent Demonstrations and repression by Israeli occupation
forces

Good Op-Ed by former Palestinian negotiation adviser Diana Buttu at NPR's
"this I believe"
>

(Short but excellent) This land was theirs. By Hannah Mermelstein writing in
the Jewish Advocate
"As an American Jew, I could move to Lajun/Megiddo tomorrow, gain full
citizenship rights, and live on the land that Adnan's family has tended for
centuries. Adnan, who lives just a few minutes away, is forbidden from doing
so."
http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/this_weeks_issue/opinions2/?content_id=4644

Rachel Corrie's Case For Justice By Tom Wright & Therese Saliba
http://www.countercurrents.org/saliba210308.htm

With friends like these... By Gideon Levy writing in Israeli paper Haaretz
The amount of support being shown for Israel these days is almost
embarrassing. The parade of highly-placed foreign guests and the warm
reception received by Israeli statesmen abroad have not been seen for quite
some time. Who hasn't come to visit lately? From the German chancellor to
the leading frontrunner for the American presidency. And the
secretary-general of the United Nations is on his way. A visit to Israel has
become de rigueur for foreign pols. If you haven't been here, you're nowhere.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/967055.html

ACTION 1: Tax Day Is Coming: Offset Your Tax Dollars to Israel

ACTION 2: Donate and join the ship to the free Gaza movement

ACTION 3: Newsletters of the Palestine Conference and needed support

ACTION 4 (For Jews): NO TIME TO CELEBRATE: Jews Remember the Nakba" is a
campaign organized by anti-Zionist Jews from around the U.S. and Canada to
coordinate and make visible Jewish response to Israeli Independence Day
celebrations and Jewish participation in commemoration of the Nakba. Sign
the NO TIME TO CELEBRATE statement and pledge of action (text below). Go to
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/notimetocelebrate/ to sign! All
signatories will be sent additional information about how to get involved in
the campaign.

ACTION 5: "Palestinian refugees living in the US, EU, Canada and Latin
America are requested to use their foreign passports to fly to the Israeli
Ben-Gurion Airport from May 14-16. The plan calls for the Palestinians to
hire dozens of boats flying UN flags that will converge on Israeli ports
simultaneously."
0Abu%20Ein>

ACTION 6: "Dying to Live"- A Peoples Struggle, Gaza Fundraiser- Friday March
28th at 6pm at Rutgers University Newark NJ, 350 MLK Jr. Blvd. in the Paul
Robeson Campus Center in the MPR. Guest Speaker is Commissioner Ramsey
Abdallah, there will be dinner, poetry, auctions, debkah performece. Tickets
are $10 student and $15 General. Info: Manal Ramadan
manalramadan2023@yahoo.com Rutgers University

Mazin Qumsiyeh

=====================

David Corn | McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031908H.shtml
David Corn writes for Mother Jones, "Senator John McCain hailed as a
spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians
to wage a 'war' against the 'false religion' of Islam with the aim of
destroying it."

"War Made Easy": Media Lap Dogs Backed Iraq Mess
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031908I.shtml
Susan Donaldson James reports for ABC News, "Sean Penn, the actor-director-turned-political-activist, narrates a new anti-war documentary that alleges U.S. presidents since Kennedy have manipulated the public to wage wars."

VIDEO | Five Years Into War, Soldiers Speak
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031908J.shtml
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the day President Bush announced from
the Oval Office the "opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted
campaign" to invade Iraq. Five years later, more than 200 of those men and
women joined last week in Silver Spring, Maryland, to speak out against that
mission and to invest their government with the responsibility to end it.
The event was called "Winter Soldier." In the coming weeks, Truthout will
bring you in-depth video and written coverage of the issues raised in
testimony at Winter Soldier. Matt Renner interviews Winter Soldier
coordinator Perry O'Brien, while Maya Schenwar writes on the event's
significance.

US Pushed Allies on Iraq, Diplomat Writes
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032308A.shtml
Colum Lynch, writing for The Washington Post, reports, "In the months
leading up to the US-led invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration
threatened trade reprisals against friendly countries who withheld their
support, spied on its allies, and pressed for the recall of UN envoys that
resisted US pressure to endorse the war, according to an upcoming book by a
top Chilean diplomat."

/\/\/\/\/\

GREEN SOLUTIONS by Paul Stephens, CasCoGreens

Why I am not an academic

I was going to say "Why I hate the Academy", but I don't, really. I've spent
enough time in universities to know that most of it is phoney, and a waste
of time and money - especially in the so-called "liberal arts." Yet, this is
the knowledge and thinking which is most needed in the leadership,
decision-making class. A good liberal arts education - history, philosophy,
literature (especially biography, criticism, plays and poetry), and the sort
of journalism featured in The New Yorker, Harper's, and The New York Review
of Books - would pretty much ruin a candidate from ever being elected. Obama
obviously had such an education, but he is one of the very few leading
candidates in recent memory to have had it. (John F. Kennedy is another good
example). Even though Bill Clinton had the opportunity to immerse himself in
the liberal arts, he obviously wasn't interested, and retained the habits
and world-view of small-town Arkansas. Hillary was obviously better-read and
educated, but I'm beginning to think that law school and a political career
renders most humanistic studies void or irrelevant.

It was once the case that this sort of education was found among Cabinet
members, ambassadors, and other top appointed officials and advisors. But
they, too, are now largely chosen from among political cadres, major donors,
fundraisers, and the like. It's said that Madeleine Albright paid $10
million (in supporting various Democratic candidates and campaigns) to be
Secretary of State. The spectre of a Dick Cheney, Colin Powell (of Mai Lai
coverup infamy) or Donald Rumsfeld holding one of these positions which has
determined our foreign and military policy for the past 8 years (or 40
years, if we go back to the Nixon Administration) is something to consider.
And there is very little difference with a Kissinger, Friedman, Condoleeza
Rice or other "leading academics" when they hold such policy-making
appointments.

What I found most objectionable in Academia was the pretentiousness, the
lack (and suppression) of any independent thinking, the gross
competitiveness and one-upmanship, the "who do you know" mentality, the
reliance on authority and "received wisdom," and the intellectual apprentice
system of graduate school, where one's advisors and thesis committee expect
total conformity and obedience to their own views. This was precisely the
reason I dropped out of graduate study in Philosophy after only two
quarters. It is an elaborate, formalized game which, even in the physical or
biological sciences, has a lot more to do with salesmanship and
grant-seeking than it does with real intellectual or scientific inquiry.

Whole fields and approaches in various disciplines are rejected out of hand,
solely because they are politically (or commercially) unpopular. Most
American universities have already been purged of socialists, critics of
American corporate imperialism, Zionism, and the like, just as the Bush
Administration has censored and suppressed the science behind global
warming, the dangers of nuclear power, etc. The very concept of "academic
freedom" has all but been eliminated in our public schools and universities.
Dissidents and critics are summarily fired for "insubordination." The issues
of freedom of thought and publication don't even need to be addressed.

=================

How to drop out of school and get a real education

I was reading Barbara Tuchman's "The March of Folly" - the chapter about how
Britain lost the American colonies - and I came upon the name of Dr. Richard
Price. I once took a course in the History of Ethics from an Oxford grad,
and he restricted it to Hobbes and some 18th century moralists, including
Price. I remembered that, and still had the textbook (a Dover reprint
collection edited by Selby-Bigge), so I looked him up. There was nothing
there about his connections with the American Independence movement, so I
Googled him, and found very little there, either. Fortunately, I have the
MacMillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and there was a nice article about him
there.

Price was a friend of Joseph Priestly (the discoverer of oxygen), Ben
Franklin, and Pitt (PM who supported the American cause - Pittsburg is named
for him). With these associations, Dr. Price supported both the American and
French Revolutions (Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France" was
actually a response to something Price had written earlier in defense of
it), and was offered the position of finance director by the American
Continental Congress in about 1778, while the war was still going on. He
graciously declined. Price was also important in the history of financial
calculations and actuarial studies, having developed the first "sinking
fund" for the Pitt government to retire the national debt, and also devised
sophisticated mathematical models to calculate risk for insurance purposes
(nearly all insurance then was for shipping and other commercial purposes).
So, he is quite an important figure in a number of different ways, including
ethics and morality with a religious basis (apparently he was a Doctor of
Divinity, not medicine or philosophy).

In perusing the "British Moralists" volumes, which I had underlined and
annotated extensively, I couldn't help but remember how advanced my own
reading and study habits were compared with most other undergraduates. And
the irony was, I didn't even know that until, as a graduate student, I read
other student's exams and term papers. They were pathetic! (This was for an
upper division/graduate course in Medieval Philosophy - not something I was
particularly good at.) Only one, another graduate student's (which the
professor re-read, and marked up from my grade) was even competent. And here
I was, a C+ student from a high school in Montana, competing against the top
10% of California students. (Now, UCLA only admits the top 1% or less -
nearly all have 4.0 averages or better, and higher average test scores than
I had - which were good enough to get me into Mensa at the 98th percentile).

I often tell people that if I were graduating from high school this year, I
wouldn't even apply or go to college. That would be a mistake, of course,
but I would be too poor, too socially maladjusted, and simply uninterested
in "upward mobility" to even want to go to college. Instead, I would
probably join some activist or artist's commune, travel, or even join the
military. Or, perhaps I would do what I very nearly did after graduating
from UCLA - go to Las Vegas and work in a casino or drive a cab. There are
hundreds of people from Great Falls who are doing precisely that.

In past ages, someone like me (say, Hermann Hesse) would apprentice as a
book-binder or printer. Proudhon did that, and learned Greek, Latin, and
Hebrew in the process of setting type for a religious publishing house. Many
of the greatest minds in history never went to college. Remember the Matt
Damon character in "Good Will Hunting" working as a janitor at MIT?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119217/ There are thousands or millions of such
people, and our society does little or nothing to encourage them. All they
require is good libraries and the time, plus a few mentors or partners in
their endeavors, and they can do as much or more original and creative work
than those trained at the best universities. That is a secret which the
universities (and the political establishment) would like to keep hidden.

The Internet, which once promised free access to all the knowledge and
information in the universe, is being increasingly commercialized and made
into a "pay to play" domain. And the corporate establishment rarely, if
ever, finds a place for independent scholars and creative thinkers to earn a
living and work in their chosen field. Many public art museums now require
an MFA if one's work is to be exhibited there. And the same is true of most
academic literary magazines, as well as research or professional journals.
Academia Rules, and not in any good way.

There are many opportunities to simply go to some other part of the world,
learn a language, work as a waiter (or even an English language teacher,
tutor, au pair, etc.). If you have any skills like auto mechanic, carpenter,
sailor, or other useful trade, you can get a job anywhere. Half the people
working in London, it is said, are foreigners, many working "under the
table" and without proper papers. Apparently, the British don't have the
same phobias about "illegal aliens" which American voters and politicians
have developed.

The same was true of Canada in the 1960's and 70's. You could go there,
vote, and have all sorts of other rights even without declaring yourself a
"landed immigrant" (which means you were already there, not that you had or
wanted land.) However, that is no longer the case, and if it looks at all
like you intend to stay there, the border guards won't even allow you to
come in as a tourist. Canadians have long complained about the "brain
drain" - especially in health care, where Canadian doctors and nurses can
come to the States and make 2-5 times as much money, and are welcomed here,
since the Canadian taxpayers have already paid for their education. But they
should reciprocate.

These days, I'm sure, just as many U.S. citizens would prefer to live in a
country which has the higher cultural and education standards of Canada.
I've often regretted that I didn't stay in Vancouver when I spent most of
the winter there in 1973. However, from what I've seen lately, Canada no
longer has such advantages over the States. They are just as involved in
war, corporate imperialism, and the privatization of their once excellent
public education, media, health care, and other services as we are, and
under extreme pressure from American interests to conform to our culture of
declining expectations. But I've always enjoyed being in Canada (the last
time, about 6 years ago), and I was always treated very well there. Alberta
is the most like the U.S. and Montana, so what happens there is no real
measure of what the rest of Canada is doing. --Paul Stephens

============

Prostitution reconsidered

Last Friday, ABC's 20-20 program had a two-hour special on prostitution,
hosted by Diane Sawyer (Smith, Class of '67, if memory serves me correctly).
It summarized a two-year project to document the lives and changing fortunes
of prostitutes in Pennsylvania and Reno, Nevada, and included some content
on the recent Spitzer scandal in New York.

For me, it was very hard to watch. I drove a taxi for six years, and for
most of my life here in Great Falls, I have been on the streets, in the drug
scene, illegal gambling, and otherwise associated with the "underworld." So,
nearly all of these people were familiar types to me. My own luck in
rehabilitating drug addicts, prostitutes, etc. has been virtually nil. Some
would say I never tried, but in fact I was (and am) trying all the time to
improve the quality of life, thinking, and values of every individual I come
into contact with.

The poet William Blake had a lot to say about this subject. While blaming
prostitution on the poverty and exploitation of capitalism, he also warned
against "legalization" and the state becoming a partner in vice.
Prostitution is sometimes called "the oldest profession," and seems to have
existed in some form in nearly every urban society. People are always
willing to pay for sex, and not just those who couldn't get it for free. We
used to blame puritanism and all sorts of sexual repression for the
existence of prostitution, but the "sexual revolution" changed all that.
Suddenly (or not so suddenly), sex was freely available to almost anyone who
could behave in a civilized manner and follow the simplest course of meeting
and conversing with someone of the opposite sex who had the same interests
in a casual liaison, or hopes for a more meaningful relationship.

My father used to say that World War II was the most sexually liberated
period he had ever seen. In fact, this might have been the reason why wars
were so popular - at least for awhile, and to each successive generation.
Young men going overseas into battle were given the support of the young
women they were fighting for - unreservedly, in most cases. It seems to be a
kind of instinct. Some came home with foreign wives - another archetype of
the military life. You conquer the enemy and take his wives and daughters
home as booty. Or leave children (and genetic information) behind to
strengthen and renew the bloodlines of the conquered. It's animal behavior
at its best.

Prostitution once followed a similar logic. Every military base or large
work-camp had prostitutes. They were considered essential to protect the
wives and daughters of nearby civilian populations. When Fort Peck dam was
being built in the 1930's (Margaret Bourke White photographed it, along with
the lives of the workers, in the very first issue of Life Magazine), they
called the brothel established there "the Riding Academy." They also had
another occupation, called "taxi dancers" - girls who hung out in
dancehalls, and would dance with anyone for a dime - good money since the
prevailing wage at that time was about 40 cents an hour. These girls were a
cut above the prostitutes, but some of them free-lanced on the side.

According to the 20-20 show, most prostitutes are drug addicts and basically
enslaved by a pimp or madame who takes at least half of what they earn -
even in the legal, closely-regulated brothels of Nevada (the only state with
legalized brothels - although street prostitution is still illegal there).
So, it is not "free enterprise" or a way to get ahead economically for the
vast majority of "sex workers." And we know the type well who lives off of
and exploits them.

I've been thinking a lot about yin and yang, lately, and how women's
involvement in traditionally male occupations - especially combat and
political leadership - has seemed to make "la difference" so much less
relevant. Do women really want to be like men? Did feminists want to
"compete" more effectively with men, feminize men (and their male children),
or was there some other purpose to "the sexual revolution?" How does gender
identification work out in areas like commercialized sex? I've read that
most prostitutes are lesbians, for example. That didn't seem to be the case
with the ABC interviewees, and that was a dimension which wasn't discussed.
However, from my own anecdotal and street experience, it seems likely that
most prostitutes were (1) sexually abused as children or raped in their
first sexual encounters, and (2) are highly resistant to the usual passive
(or passive-aggressive) style of "femininitity" - what is called "yin" in
Chinese philosophy. One of the interviewees said, "I'll do any kind of sex,
any way, but not on my back." There is also a widespread aversion among
prostitutes to being kissed on the mouth. They resist the idea that their
work has anything to do with love. In the legal brothels, however, they have
all sorts of stylized "acts" - one of the most popular being
"boyfriend-girlfriend," where they talk, hold hands, and fake a real
romantic attachment.

What would Confucius (Kung Fu) think of the contemporary American political
scene? No doubt, he would see it as a corrupt and confused attempt to
disrupt and destroy the natural order of things. And prostitution is a
perfect example of the violations of "the Tao of sex." The real meanings and
effects of sexuality and sexual expression are endlessly distorted and
corrupted. Sex makes a very poor commodity, indeed, and in the prostitution
model, it is much more about power, dominance, and the exploitation of
women. Wealthy, powerful men have traditionally had access to as many
"concubines", harems, and other pools of desirable younger females as they
wanted and were able to command and support. Prostitution is merely a
vestige of this ancient fantasy, so that even a poor man can have "sex on
demand" without actually having to support a wife and family.

There was much discussion about why men like Gov. Spitzer and other
celebrities would degrade themselves and destroy their exalted reputations
by consorting with prostitutes. What's the point? Some of the interviewees
in the ABC show (as well as other sources) confirm that prostitution isn't
always considered a bad thing for family stability. There are websites, now,
where I could probably find a hundred couples in Cascade County who are
willing to "swing" - that is to say, trade partners for sexual purposes,
much as one would change partners at a country dance. Is this illegal or
immoral? I don't think so.

Many women feel oppressed by being restricted to a single partner -
especially if they had a lot of boyfriends and were "popular" when younger.
The need to feel sexually attractive is apparently of fundamental importance
in feminine psychology. There may often be a "quid pro quo" in which both
partners have affairs - not to destroy their own relationship, but to
maintain and strengthen it. For women, this was traditionally taboo because
of fears that the male bloodline would be disrupted - the husband would
become a "cuckhold." If that is not a concern, then there should be no
problem with using high-end prostitutes or other sex workers, either. And
this is a great argument for the legalization and regulation of sex workers,
as well as the drugs which presently enslave them. All could be included in
a unified system of socialized medicine. Once the mythology and taboos about
sexuality are dispensed with, anything that's voluntary, healthy, and
promotes good feelings and success in other things can and should be
encouraged. --PHS

====================

Samhita Mukhopadhyay | Reporting on STDs

Samhita Mukhopadhyay for The Nation comments on the reporting by The New
York Times that focused on the prevalence of STDs in young girls: "Dismal
stats just make us all feel helpless. Looking at racist and sexist policy
and how that influences the behavior of young men and women to see where key
interventions might be possible, might be a place to start."
===============

FROM WORLD CIVILIZATIONS WEBSITE, WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CHPHIL/YINYANG.HTM

The essentials of the yin-yang school are as follows: the universe is run by
a single principle, the Tao, or Great Ultimate. This principle is divided
into two opposite principles, or two principles which oppose one another in
their actions, yin and yang. All the opposites one perceives in the universe
can be reduced to one of the opposite forces. The yin and yang accomplish
changes in the universe through the five material agents, or wu hsing ,
which both produce one another and overcome one another. All change in the
universe can be explained by the workings of yin and yang and the progress
of the five material agents as they either produce one another or overcome
one another. Yin-yang and the five agents are, I need to stress, a universal
explanatory principle. All phenomena can be understood using yin-yang and
the five agents: the movements of the stars, the workings of the body, the
nature of foods, the qualities of music, the ethical qualities of humans,
the progress of time, the operations of government, and even the nature of
historical change. All things follow this order so that all things can be
related to one another in some way: one can use the stars to determine what
kind of policy to pursue in government, for instance.

The yin and yang represent all the opposite principles one finds in the
universe. Under yang are the principles of maleness, the sun, creation,
heat, light, Heaven, dominance, and so on, and under yin are the principles
of femaleness, the moon, completion, cold, darkness, material forms,
submission, and so on. Each of these opposites produce the other: Heaven
creates the ideas of things under yang, the earth produces their material
forms under yin, and vice versa; creation occurs under the principle of
yang, the completion of the created thing occurs under yin, and vice versa,
and so on. This production of yin from yang and yang from yin occurs
cyclically and constantly, so that no one principle continually dominates
the other or determines the other. All opposites that one experiences-health
and sickness, wealth and poverty, power and submission-can be explained in
reference to the temporary dominance of one principle over the other. Since
no one principle dominates eternally, that means that all conditions are
subject to change into their opposites.

This cyclical nature of yin and yang, the opposing forces of change in the
universe, mean several things. First, that all phenomena change into their
opposites in an eternal cycle of reversal. Second, since the one principle
produces the other, all phenomena have within them the seeds of their
opposite state, that is, sickness has the seeds of health, health contains
the seeds of sickness, wealth contains the seeds of poverty, etc. Third,
even though an opposite may not be seen to be present, since one principle
produces the other, no phenomenon is completely devoid of its opposite
state. One is never really healthy since health contains the principle of
its opposite, sickness. This is called "presence in absence." -- Richard
Hooker

/\/\/\/\/\

War Dodgers
By BEN EHRENREICH

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/magazine/23wwln-essay-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=print

Next month, the Canadian House of Commons is slated to debate a resolution
that would allow conscientious objectors "who have refused or left military
service related to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations" to apply for
residency in Canada. The phrasing is vague but the intent is not. The war in
question is the Iraq war, and the resolution represents the culmination of a
four-year debate about what to do with the small but steady stream of
American soldiers who have fled across our northern border to avoid fighting
in Iraq.

It all began in Jan. 2004, when a young American with a long, serious face
walked into the Toronto law office of Jeffry House to ask for help with what
was at the time a highly unusual immigration case. The American turned out
to be a soldier named Jeremy Hinzman, an infantryman in the Army's 82nd
Airborne Division. He told House that his petition for
conscientious-objector status was denied while he was stationed in
Afghanistan. He crossed the border into Canada just days before his unit was
to be deployed to Iraq. Of the more than 25,000 American soldiers who,
according to the United States Department of Defense, have deserted since
2003, the Toronto-based War Resisters Support Campaign estimates that 225
have fled to Canada. (The D.O.D defines a deserter as anyone who has been
AWOL for 30 consecutive days or who seeks asylum in a foreign country;
desertion carries a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment)....

House would eventually represent between 30 and 35 American deserters. Most
of them, like Colby, say they joined the military in part out of patriotism.
"I thought Iraq had something to do with 9/11," Colby says, "that they were
the bad guys that attacked our country." But unlike Hinzman, most did not
apply for conscientious-objector status. They tend to say they aren't
opposed to all wars in principle - just to the one they were ordered to
fight. It wasn't until Colby arrived in Iraq that he started to see the
conflict as "a war of aggression, totally unprovoked," he says. "I was,
like, 'This is what my buddies are dying for?' " Midway through his tour, he
decided: "I'm never going to do this again." He went AWOL the day before his
unit left to train for a second deployment. House says that more than
two-thirds of his clients have been deployed to Iraq at least once. "One is
resisting a third deployment."

Tens of thousands of American draft dodgers and deserters took refuge in
Canada in the late 1960s and early '70s. House was one of them. He packed up
his car and left his home in Wisconsin 38 years ago to start a new life in
Canada. The process was simple. "I came to the border and said: 'I would
like to immigrate to Canada. I'm refusing to serve in Vietnam,' " he
recalls. Border officials had him type up an application for residency on
the spot. "Four weeks later, I got my permanent-resident status." But times
have changed since Pierre Trudeau, then the prime minister, declared Canada
"a refuge from militarism." While Canada is still a relative haven for
asylum-seekers, its immigration laws have tightened sharply, and Prime
Minister Stephen Harper has been a faithful ally of the Bush administration.
(Harper has kept 2,500 Canadian troops in Afghanistan, whose deployment the
House of Commons recently extended until 2011.) As a result, the new
generation of war resisters find themselves in an uncomfortable squeeze. In
today's Canada, deserters like Hinzman really have only one legal option: to
apply for residency as refugees.

"There's a very clear Canadian precedent for the idea that no soldier has to
participate in an illegal war," House says. That precedent, interestingly
enough, is a case in which an Iraqi Army soldier was granted asylum in
Canada after fleeing to avoid taking part in the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
But House's first task was to prove that the Iraq war is illegal. His
argument relied largely on his reading of international law. The United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees lays out a slender possibility for
relief. Mere disagreement with the "political justification for a particular
military action" is not sufficient. The action must be "condemned by the
international community as contrary to basic rules of human conduct." Only
in that case can punishment for desertion or draft evasion "be regarded as
persecution...."

The Iraq war has been immensely unpopular in Canada, and the leaders of the
Bloc Quebecois and the left-leaning New Democratic Party have both come out
in support of the resolution. But Canadian M.P.'s tend to vote with far more
party discipline than their American counterparts, and Stéphane Dion, the
head of the Liberal Party, has not yet taken a public stance on the bill.
Without his support, its fate is uncertain....

Undeterred by the Supreme Court ruling, new arrivals are still showing up.
Robidoux's group has added five to its roster in just the last three weeks.
For Colby, Hinzman and others, uncertainty in Canada apparently looks better
than combat in Iraq. "Every day that I'm here," Colby says, "I'm glad I'm
not in Baghdad."

Ben Ehrenreich is the author of a novel, "The Suitors," and has written for
L.A. Weekly, Men's Vogue and The Times Book Review.

==============

Legality of Guantanamo On Trial in Canada

Michelle Shephard reports for The Star, Canada: "The Supreme Court of Canada
has agreed to hear arguments about the legality of the US military prison at
Guantanamo, where Canadian Omar Khadr is being held."

================

FROM GREEN PARTY OF CANADA

Greens protest changes to Immigration Act

http://www.greenparty.ca/en/releases/03.19.2008

NEW GLASGOW - The Green Party is denouncing the Harper government's attempt
to push through a major change to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act
by hiding it in the Budget Implementation Act.

The amendment to Subsection 11 of the Act will mean that immigrants wishing
to enter Canada can still be refused a visa or other necessary documents
despite satisfying immigration officers and meeting other requirements of
the Act.

"This amendment essentially gives the government discretionary power over
who gets in and who is left out," said Green Party leader Elizabeth May.
"The Harper government is changing an immigration system ruled by law to one
ruled by lottery. This amendment means that qualified immigrants may never
be accepted into Canada and lose the $550 application fee."

Ms. May said the government's attempt to sneak in this drastic change by
concealing it in the Budget Implementation Act is underhanded and dishonest.

"This is a major alteration of the Act. Before any action is taken the
Citizenship and Immigration Committee should hold public hearings and report
to Parliament on this issue." she said....

=============

Green Pary celebrates bi-election results

http://www.greenparty.ca/en/releases/18.03.2008

OTTAWA - The Green Party is hailing a strong showing in yesterday's
by-elections as proof the Greens are competitive with the old-line parties.
Green campaigns in Toronto Centre and Vancouver Quadra both garnered over 13
percent of the vote, with Toronto Centre candidate Chris Tindal coming in
ahead of the Conservatives and virtually tied with the NDP and for a second
place finish. The Greens also finished ahead of the NDP in Willowdale in
third place.

"These results, along with the second place finish in 2006 in the London
North Centre by-election, establish we are a serious political party," said
Green Party leader Elizabeth May. "Despite being ignored by major media, we
made remarkable gains. The television networks must reconsider their view
that the televised leaders' debates exclude the Green Party."

Ms. May noted that Chris Tindal and Vancouver Quadra candidate Dan Grice
nearly tripled the Green vote from the 2006 election and that Lou Carcasole
in Willowdale and Robin Orr in Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River increased
the vote by about 50 percent from the last election.

==================

FROM RABBLE.CA

CLINTON AND LEWINSKY - THE SEQUEL
It turns out the Clinton-Lewinsky episode wasn't the final chapter in the
epic of American puritanism. You don't drop 400 years of public sexual
moralizing easily.
> by Rick Salutin
>

BRING IN THE POLICE
Section 119 of the Criminal Code of Canada could not be more precise. An
offer of money to a member of parliament to influence his or her actions in
an official capacity constitutes a criminal offence. The section specifies a
maximum prison sentence of 14 years. > by Duncan Cameron
>

VOTES THAT CONDONE TORTURE
Later this week, our two leading political parties are expected to join
forces and commit Canada to another three years of military intervention in
support of the Afghan government - which we know practises torture. > by
Linda McQuaig
>

THE CRAZE FOR NOTORIETY
"You've been lying so long you don't know what's real," Bruce Cockburn sang.
"You're a figment of your own imagination. And people see through you."
Well, take that, Conrad Black. > by Heather Mallick
>

NAFTA'S LEGACY: THE WORST AGREEMENT WE EVER SIGNED
In the aftermath of Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's threats to
"renegotiate" NAFTA the usual suspects have been activated to tell the world
how wonderful the deal has been for Canada and the United States. > by
Murray Dobbin
>

HOW TO DEAL WITH BEING CALLED SELF-HATING
A Jewish activist working against Israeli apartheid asks Ms. Communicate how
to handle public accusations of being a "traitor" and "self-hater". > Ms
Communicate > ?

ETHICAL BUYING GAINS STEAM AT YORK U.
York University signs on to ethical purchasing as activists pressure 2010
Olympics organizers. >by Tom Sandborn >The Tyee
>
================

FROM DEMOCRACY NOW!
Reproductive Rights, the Role of Religion and the History of Abortion
Activism: A Roundtable Discussion

We host a roundtable discussion on reproductive rights with Margaret
Roberts, co-president of Planned Parenthood Mohawk Hudson; Rabbi Dennis
Ross, the director of Concerned Clergy for Choice; Rev. Donna Schaper,
Senior Minister of the Judson Memorial Church; and Rev. Tom Davis, author of
the book Sacred Work: Planned Parenthood and Its Clergy Alliances.

Listen/Watch/Read

Teenage Peer Counselors Attending Annual Meeting of NY Family Planning
Advocates

We speak with two high school students who have traveled from Buffalo to
attend the annual meeting of the Family Planning Advocates of New York
State. They are both teenage peer counselors. Samantha Vuich is a senior at
McKinley High School in Buffalo, and Shabar Rouse is a junior at City Honors
High School in Buffalo.

Listen/Watch/Read
_

/\/\/\/\/\

NADER MORE POPULAR AMONG INDEPENDENTS AND REPUBLICANS

http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/032008_release_web.pdf

From Fox News poll, March 20, 2008

9. Do you think you would seriously consider voting for third-party
candidate

Ralph Nader over one of the major party candidates in November? 18-19 Mar 08

Yes No (Don't know)

All Voters 14% 77 9

Democrats 10% 81 9

Republicans 14% 79 8

Independents 21% 69 10

[I'm surprised at how low the Independent's number is (perhaps most of them
think he's a "socialist," which he obviously isn't), but this more or less
conclusively refutes the idea that Nader "siphons away voters from
Democrats". More about the "spoiler" factor in the interview, below. The
GPUS is in the process of purging all Nader materials from its lists and
websites, and demanding that delegates resign if they want to work in the
Nader campaign. Another faction still wants us to "endorse" Nader and let
him use our ballot lines - which he has already said he doesn't want and
won't do. I'm publishing this Nader material in the spirit of "more voices,
more choices." It's an excellent summary of Green environmental policies. --
PHS]

=====================

Nader on the Record http://www.grist.org/feature/2008/03/19/nader/index.html

An interview with Ralph Nader about his presidential platform on energy and
the environment

By Amanda Griscom Little

19 Mar 2008

This is part of a series of interviews
with presidential
candidates.

Ralph Nader.

Photo: Sage Ross
He brought you the seat belt. He launched a consumer advocacy empire. He got
2,883,105 votes in the 2000 presidential election, which critics argue
helped put George W. Bush in the White House. Ralph Nader has earned fame --
and infamy -- for many doings over his 40-plus years as a firebrand
activist. Perhaps less well-known is his contribution to environmental
protection in the U.S.

Nader, who entered the 2008 presidential race in late February, was on the
frontlines of environmental advocacy in the 1970s. He went to bat for the
first auto fuel-economy regulations and was a major voice against
nuclear-power development. He fought for the passage of cornerstone
environmental laws including the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. In the
years since, he's pressed on with green advocacy, publishing numerous
studies, essays, and editorials decrying coal and nuke power and advocating
ultra-efficient cars and a solar-powered economy.

But for all his work in these areas, Nader has done little so far to flesh
out an environmental and energy platform for his presidential campaign. The
only specifics on his campaign website
are that he supports solar energy and a "carbon pollution tax" and opposes
nuclear power. To rustle up some particulars, I called Nader on his cell
phone as he journeyed from one campaign stop to the next.

For more info on his environmental stances and record, check out Grist's
Nader fact sheet

Why should voters consider you the strongest environmental candidate?
RN: I was a big advocate of renewable energy back in the '70s -- all forms,
from wind power to photovoltaic to solar thermal to passive solar
architecture. I was a very early opponent of nuclear power. As a lobbyist, I
was instrumental in the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency,
along with legislation to control air pollution and other toxic substances.
I was also involved in the passage of the first motor-vehicle efficiency
laws back in the '70s. So my words on this issue as a candidate reflect what
I've done, rather than what I hope to do.

Going forward, what sets your environmental platform apart from the other
candidates'?
RN: I'm basically promoting a massive conversion from a hydrocarbon-based
economy to a carbohydrate-based economy. I'm not talking about corn ethanol,
which has a very poor net energy- and water-usage characteristic. I'm
talking about industrial hemp. I'm talking about plant life that can be
efficiently converted to fuel -- like sugar cane, agricultural waste,
cellulosic grasses, and certain kinds of biomass that can be grown with a
spectacular ratio of energy inputs to outputs. I'm talking about a very
fundamental remodeling of our economy -- a conversion from industrial-age,
19th-century technologies like the internal combustion engine to renewable,
sustainable technologies of efficiency and production. We should have
vehicles that get well over 100 miles per gallon. As Amory Lovins and Paul
Hawken have shown,
we can create far greater efficiencies in the use of our natural resources,
whether it's copper, iron, oil, gas, timber, you name it.

Many argue that the U.S. shouldn't commit to a global greenhouse-gas
reduction target that doesn't involve China and India. Do you agree with
this? How would you bring them to the table?
RN:You bring them to the table by restricting imports of badly emitting
greenhouse-gas technologies. Then you devise an international treaty where
you analyze very carefully which countries really need aid in this area,
which countries don't need aid, and you proceed accordingly. You have a
deliberative process under an international body with a global goal of
restricting greenhouse gases and acid rain and other things.

What do you think is the most important environmental issue we face after
climate and energy?
RN: It's all about solar, in all its manifestations -- from passive solar to
active, including photovoltaics, solar thermal, and efficient biomass [plant
life fed by sunlight]. Wind is also a form of solar energy, because the sun
creates the earth's climate, including the winds within it. Solar is the
greatest universal solvent for environmental hazards.

What do you think of Al Gore's climate activism? Has he been an effective
agent of change?
RN: At last. Where was he when he was vice president? We couldn't get him to
make a speech on solar energy. But now, like Martin Luther King Jr. said,
he's "free at last, free at last," and he's made a major contribution.

Many have called George W. Bush America's worst environmental president, and
some critics have said that if you hadn't entered the 2000 race, Gore would
have been president, and therefore Bush's irreversible environmental damage
never would have happened.
RN: Well, tell those critics to take a course in elementary statistics and
engage all variables, each one of which would have put Gore in the White
House. Gore won, but the Republicans stole his victory in Florida. The
Electoral College stole his victory nationally after he won the popular
vote. The Supreme Court stole his victory. And 250,000 Democrats in Florida
voted for Bush. We've got to stop playing the spoiler game and treating
third-party candidates as second-class citizens. If you're going to blame me
for Gore's loss -- and Gore doesn't blame me, by the way -- then you've got
to credit me for Gore's Nobel Prize
for his alerting the
world to global climate change, for all of his successes with books, and for
his millions of dollars of appreciating Google stock.

Maybe you should get an honorary percentage. On to another topic: Who is
your environmental hero?
RN: There are several. One is David Brower . Another is Barry Commoner
, who wrote
Making Peace With the Planet
, among other
great books on the environment. The third one is Amory Lovins.
http://www.rmi.org

/\/\/\/\/\/\

An Election Without Meaning
By Peter Phillips, Project Censored

Will November 2008 bring a meaningful change to America? Will getting rid of
George W. Bush and Richard Cheney without impeachment or indictment really
make a difference? Will a 600 billion dollar war/defense budget be cut in
half and used for desperately needed domestic spending? Will the
ninety-three billion dollars profits in the private health insurance
companies???those parasitic intermediates between you and your doctor?be
used instead for full health care coverage for all? Will Habeas Corpus and
Posse Comitatus be restored to the people? Will torture stop? Will all
students in public universities be able to enroll for free? Will the US
national security agencies stop mass spying on our personal communications?
Will the neo-conservative agenda of total military domination of the world
be reversed?

The answer to these questions in the context of the current billion dollar
presidential campaign is an absolute no. Instead we have a campaign of
personalities and platitudes. There is a race candidate, a gender candidate
and a tortured veteran candidate, each talking about change in America,
national security, freedom, and the American way. The candidates are running
with support of political parties so deeply embedded with the military
industrial complex, the health insurance companies, Wall Street, and
corporate media that it is undeterminable where the board rooms separate
from the state rooms.

The 2008 presidential race is a media entertainment spectacle with props,
gossip, accusations, and public relations. It is impression management from
a candidates? perspective. How can we fool the most people into believing
that we stand for something? It is billions of dollars of gravy for the
media folks and continued profit maximazation for the war machine, Wall
Street, and insurance companies no matter who is determined the winner in
November.

We must face the fact that the US government's primary mission is to protect
the wealthy and insure capital expansion worldwide. The US military -
spending more than the rest of the militaries of the world combined - is the
muscle behind this protect-capital-at-all-costs agenda, and will be used
against the American people if deemed necessary to support the mission.

Homeland Security, the North American Command, mass arrest practices with
the FALCON raids, new detentions centers, and broadened "terrorism" laws to
included interference with business profits are all now in place to insure
domestic tranquility through extra judicial means if needed.

The two party corporate political system is having a HOMELAND presidential
campaign?Hillary, Obama, McCain, Election, Lacking, Actual, National,
Debate. It is time for real change, but it will only come with a social
movement of reform in the tradition of the progressive, labor, civil rights,
anti-war movements of the last century. We need to use all of our activist,
legal, and political resources to reverse these threats to freedom. Naomi
Wolf says it is not too late to prevent totalitarianism, but we have to act
fast.

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and
director of Project Censored. Access to verifying facts and analysis for the
issues mentioned above is available at

==================
Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008

#1 No Habeas Corpus for "Any Person"
With the approval of Congress and no outcry from corporate media, the
Military Commissions Act (MCA) signed by Bush on October 17, 2006, ushered
in military commission law for US citizens and non-citizens alike. While
media, including a lead editorial in the New York Times October 19, have
given false comfort that we, as American citizens, will not be the victims
of the draconian measures legalized by this Act-such as military roundups
and life-long detention with no rights or constitutional protections-Robert
Parry points to text in the MCA that allows for the institution of a
military alternative to the constitutional justice system for "any person"
regardless of American citizenship. The MCA effectively does away with
habeas corpus rights for "any person" arbitrarily deemed to be an "enemy of
the state." The judgment on who is deemed an "enemy combatant" is solely at
the discretion of the President.
The oldest human right defined in the history of English-speaking
civilization is the right to challenge governmental power of arrest and
detention through the use of habeas corpus laws, considered to be the most
critical parts of the Magna Carta which was signed by King John in 1215.
.....
#2 Bush Moves Toward Martial Law
The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007, which was quietly signed
by Bush on October 17, 2006, the very same day that he signed the Military
Commissions Act, allows the president to station military troops anywhere in
the United States and take control of state-based National Guard units
without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to
"suppress public disorder."
By revising the two-century-old Insurrection Act, the law in effect repeals
the Posse Comitatus Act, which placed strict prohibitions on military
involvement in domestic law enforcement. The 1878 Act reads, "Whoever,
except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the
Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or Air
Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined
under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both." As the
only US criminal statute that outlaws military operations directed against
the American people, it has been our best protection against tyranny
enforced by martial law-the harsh system of rules that takes effect when the
military takes control of the normal administration of justice. Historically
martial law has been imposed by various governments during times of war or
occupation to intensify control of populations in spite of heightened
unrest. In modern times it is most commonly used by authoritarian
governments to enforce unpopular rule. .......

# 3 AFRICOM: US Military Control of Africa's Resources
In February 2007 the White House announced the formation of the US African
Command (AFRICOM), a new unified Pentagon command center in Africa, to be
established by September 2008. This military penetration of Africa is being
presented as a humanitarian guard in the Global War on Terror. The real
objective is, however, the procurement and control of Africa's oil and its
global delivery systems.
A context for the pending strategic role of AFRICOM can be gained from
observing CENTCOM in the Middle East. CENTCOM grew out of the Carter
Doctrine of 1980 which described the oil flow from the Persian Gulf as a
"vital interest" of the US, and affirmed that the US would employ "any means
necessary, including military force" to overcome an attempt by hostile
interests to block that flow.
It is in Western and Sub-Saharan Africa that the US military force is most
rapidly increasing, as this area is projected to become as important a
source of energy as the Middle East within the next decade. In this region,
challenge to US domination and exploitation is coming from the people of
Africa-most specifically in Nigeria, where seventy percent of Africa's oil
is contained. .....

# 4 Frenzy of Increasingly Destructive Trade Agreements
The Oxfam report, "Signing Away the Future," reveals that the US and
European Union (EU) are vigorously pursuing increasingly destructive
regional and bilateral trade and investment agreements outside the auspices
of the WTO. These agreements are requiring enormous irreversible concessions
from developing countries, while offering almost nothing in return. Faster
and deeper, the US and EU are demanding unprecedented tariff reductions,
sometimes to nothing, as the US and EU dump subsidized agricultural goods on
undeveloped countries (see story #21), plunging local farmers into desperate
poverty. Meanwhile the US and EU provide themselves with high tariffs and
stringent import quotas to protect their own producers. Unprecedented loss
of livelihood, displacement, slave labor, along with spiraling degradation
of human rights and environments are resulting as economic governance is
forced from governments of developing countries, and taken over by
unaccountable multinational firms.
During 2006, more than one hundred developing countries were involved in FTA
or Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) negotiations. "An average of two
treaties are signed every week," the report says, "Virtually no country,
however poor, has been left out."

#5 Human Traffic Builds US Embassy in Iraq
The enduring monument to US liberation and democracy in Iraq will be the
most expensive and heavily fortified embassy in the world-and is being built
by a Kuwait contractor repeatedly accused of using forced labor trafficked
from South Asia under US contracts. The $592 million, 104-acre fortress
equal in size to the Vatican City is scheduled to open in September 2007.
With a highly secretive contract awarded by the US State Department, First
Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting has joined the ranks of Halliburton/KBR in
Iraq by using bait-and-switch recruiting practices. Thousands of citizens
from countries that have banned travel or work in Iraq are being tricked,
smuggled into brutal and inhumane labor camps, and subjected to months of
forced servitude-all in the middle of the US-controlled Green Zone, "right
under the nose of the US State Department."
Though Associated Press reports that, "The 5,500 Americans and Iraqis
working at the embassy are far more numerous than at any other US mission
worldwide,"1 there is no mention in corporate media of the 3,000 South Asian
laborers working for contractors in dangerous and abysmal living and working
conditions.

#6 Operation FALCON Raids
Under the code name Operation FALCON (Federal and Local Cops Organized
Nationally) three federally coordinated mass arrests occurred between April
2005 and October 2006. In an unprecedented move, more than 30,000
"fugitives" were arrested in the largest dragnets in the nation's history.
The operations directly involved over 960 agencies (state, local, and
federal) and were the brainchild of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and US
Marshal's Director Ben Reyna. The DoJ supplied television networks
government-shot action videotape of Marshals and local cops raiding homes
and breaking down doors, "targeting the worst of the worst criminals on the
run," emphasizing suspected sex offenders. Yet less than ten percent of the
total 30,150 were suspected sex offenders and less than two percent owned
firearms. The press has not asked, "Who were the others?" And to date, the
US Marshal's office has issued no public statement as to whether the people
arrested in Operation Falcon have been processed or released. Author Mike
Whitney cautions that Attorney General Gonzales has little interest in the
petty offenders who were netted in this extraordinary crackdown. This action
is instead, he warns, a practice roundup in the move toward martial law.
......
The media played an essential role in concealing the important details of
the Operation. In fact, the non-critical "cookie cutter" articles which
appeared in newspapers across the country suggest that the media may have
collaborated directly with the Justice Department. (see Chapter 9, Fake
News) Whitney notes that nearly identical "news" segments and articles put
the best possible spin on a story that most Americans might find deeply
disturbing, and perhaps frightening....

#7 Behind Blackwater Inc.
The company that most embodies the privatization of the military industrial
complex-a primary part of the Project for a New American Century and the
neoconservative revolution is the private security firm Blackwater.
Blackwater is the most powerful mercenary firm in the world, with 20,000
soldiers, the world's largest private military base, a fleet of twenty
aircraft, including helicopter gunships, and a private intelligence
division. The firm is also manufacturing its own surveillance blimps and
target systems.
Blackwater is headed by a very right-wing Christian-supremist and ex-Navy
Seal named Erik Prince, whose family has had deep neo-conservative
connections. Bush's latest call for voluntary civilian military corps to
accommodate the "surge" will add to over half a billion dollars in federal
contracts with Blackwater, allowing Prince to create a private army to
defend Christendom around the world against Muslims and others. One of the
last things Dick Cheney did before leaving office as Defense Secretary under
George H. W. Bush was to commission a Halliburton study on how to privatize
the military bureaucracy. That study effectively created the groundwork for
a continuing war profiteer bonanza.

#8 KIA: The US Neoliberal Invasion of India
Farmers' cooperatives in India are defending the nation's food security and
the future of Indian farmers against the neoliberal invasion of genetically
modified (GM) seed. As many as 28,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide
over the last decade as a result of debt incurred from failed GM crops and
competition with subsidized US crops, yet when India's Prime Minister Singh
met with President Bush in March 2006 to finalize nuclear agreements, they
also signed the Indo-US Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture (KIA), backed by
Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), and Wal-Mart. The KIA allows for the
grab of India's seed sector by Monsanto, of its trade sector by giant
agribusiness ADM and Cargill, and its retail sector by Wal-Mart. .......
A combination of physical access to India's gene banks and a possible new
intellectual property law that allows seed patents will in essence deliver
India's genetic wealth into US hands....
At the same time KIA has paved the way for Wal-Mart's plans to open five
hundred stores in India, starting in August 2007, which will compound the
outsourcing of India's food supply and threaten 14 million small family
venders with loss of livelihood.

#9 Privatization of America's Infrastructure
We will soon be paying Wall Street investors, Australian bankers, and
Spanish contractors for the privilege of driving on American roads, as more
than twenty states have enacted legislation allowing public-private
partnerships to build and run highways. Investment firms including Goldman
Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and the Carlyle Group are approaching state
politicians with advice to sell off public highway and transportation
infrastructure. When advising state officials on the future of this vital
public asset, these investment firms fail to mention that their sole purpose
is to pick up infrastructure at the lowest price possible in order to
maximize returns for their investors. Investors, most often foreign
companies, are charging tolls and insisting on "noncompete" clauses that
limit governments from expanding or improving nearby roads.

# 10 Vulture Funds Threaten Poor Nations' Debt Relief
Vulture funds, otherwise known as "distressed-debt investors," are
undermining UN and other global efforts to relieve impoverished Third World
nations of the debt that has burdened them for many decades. Vulture funds
are financial organizations that buy up debts that are near default or
bankruptcy. The vulture fund will pay the original investor pennies on the
dollar for the debt and then approach the debtor to arrange a better
repayment on the loan, or will go after the debtor in court. In the private
financial world, these funds, like the birds they are named for, provide a
useful function for investors who are unable to follow up on defaulted debts
and are themselves facing financial ruin if the debtor reneges entirely....
/\/\/\/\/\

FROM MAZIN QUMSIYEH http://www.qumsiyeh.org

On violent and nonviolent struggle: what about our personal responsibility?

(Written and distributed on the fifth anniversary of the last leg of the War
on Iraq: BTW the US/British-led war on Iraq started on 15 Jan 1991 and has
killed nearly 3 million people since then including nearly 1 million
children by sanctions alone )
[excerpts]

What is your position on Israeli violence? Palestinian violence? What do you
think Israelis and Palestinians should or should not do? What do you think
of Barak Obama? What makes Christian Zionists support Israel? These and many
other questions came during over 30 talks given over the past three
weeks....

Being a scientist and a medical professional, I always believe that we must
first objectively characterize the symptoms and from those infer the
etiology of the disease (the underlying cause) then design rational
treatments. In all of this we are always guided by study of history.
Knowledge accumulates whether some individuals chose to ignore it or to
learn from it. This is true in medicine as it is in politics. Of course
different issues and struggles have unique features but also many common
ones with previous struggles. But lessons from successes and failures can be
instructive. How can we judge conduct and plans of US occupation of Iraq if
we do not study what happened in Vietnam? How can we understand Israeli
Hafrada (Segregation) if we do not know about Afrikaaner Apartheid
(Segregation)? What was the role of violent and nonviolent resistance in
achieving civil rights or an end to slavery in America? How can we
understand why French colonial settlers were evicted from Algeria while
Spanish colonial settlers succeeded in South America? Each of these
struggles is worth studying carefully and applying relevant lessons learned
to today's struggles.

Lest I make this essay too long, I will try to focus on the issues of
violent and nonviolent resistance in Palestine and the personal
responsibility each of us have (especially those of us who live in states
that financially and diplomatically support occupation and oppression and
endless wars). The underlying etiology of the struggle here is actually not
very complicated (even though many gate keepers in the media and politics
want you to think it is). It can be summarized in a few sentences. Jews were
discriminated against especially in 19th century Europe when ethnocentric
nation states were created by Europeans (who are now abandoning the concept
for a European Union!). A minority of Western European Jews egged on and
supported by colonial powers of the time (primarily France and England)
created its own ethnocentric nationalistic paradigm called Zionism as a
response (originally supposedly to benefit Eastern European Jews). With the
support of primarily the British government (and other allies in WWI), they
planned and executed a strategy to establish a Jewish state in Palestine at
the expense of the native Christians and Muslims. Thus, 530 villages and
towns were completely depopulated between 1947-1950 and, in the six decades
that followed, most of the remaining land was taken over. Today, the
remaining Palestinians live as either 10th class citizens or under
occupation with no citizenship on the still shrinking reservations left for
us (less than 10% of historic Palestine). Of the 10 million Palestinians in
the world, 7 million are refugees or displaced people. Israel is now heavily
funded by our taxes (over $1 trillion spent so far per a study published in
the Christian Science Monitor) and protected by a US hegemony that prevents
the International community from forcing Israel to comply with human rights
and International law (Israel is in violations of 65 UN Security Council
Resolutions and over 200 UN General Assembly Resolution and shielded from
many others by use of 35 US Vetoes)....

Most Palestinian resistance has been nonviolent. I am now finishing a book
on the history of Palestinian nonviolent resistance going back 120 years. It
is a very rich history that testifies to the resilience and resourcefulness
of that society (a glimpse is at
http://qumsiyeh.org/palestiniannonviolentresistance/ ). These struggles
would not be covered in US mainstream media that are self-censoring to serve
their Israel-first agenda. Further,

"One of the reasons these [nonviolent] struggles are missing from the
history books or misrepresented is that it was never in the interests of the
oppressors to record or teach us that history. It is in the interest of
oppressors to teach that only violence is successful because the oppressors
usually have the superior capacity for violence. They will therefore have a
greater chance to maintain their oppression if the oppressed also believe in
violence. The oppressed need to learn that they do not need to fight with
the oppressor's best weapons. Instead of using violence, they have a greater
chance of mobilizing their power capacity by working and acting together
using psychological, social, political, and economic weapons-weapons that
enable them to become stronger."(p. 40, Afif Safieh: "Gene Sharp: Non
Violent Struggle", interview. Journal of Palestine Studies, Autumn, 1987 pp.
37-55).

Of course, doing nonviolent resistance is just as risky (and sometimes more
risky) than doing violent resistance. Countless Palestinians were killed
doing nonviolent resistance. Even an American student, Rachel Corrie was
killed standing in front of a bulldozer (that is an unusual event for
internationals, Palestinians are killed regularly). But in a colonial
occupation, people get killed, injured and jailed who are not resisting
(other than by being on the coveted land, which can be considered a form of
nonviolent resistance). Thousands of Palestinian civilians were killed and
tens of thousands injured over the past few decades for simply being
Palestinian in Palestine. Over 650,000 Palestinian males have gone through
Israeli detention at some point in their lives (Gideon Levy in Haaretz)....

(For a discussion of the issue of state and individual terrorism, please see
my earlier article for now let us
stay on the issue of violence generally in colonial systems)....

It is clear from any historical, legal, and moral examination that:

a) Violence and nonviolence occur in all colonial situations. How can one
steal someone else's land or natural resources without violence!

b) That violence and that theft generate resistance. Most of it nonviolent,
some of it violent and some of it extremely violent. That resistance is a
Bell shaped curve. As any statistician would tell you eliminating a portion
of the curve would cause it to renormalize in short order (whether what you
eliminate is those who engage in violence or nonviolence).

c) The violence of the occupiers/colonizers always kills many times more
natives than colonial settler populations. For example the ratio of
civilians killed was 10:1 (Palestinain:Israeli) and over >100:1 (European
settlers:Native Americans).

d) While resistance is sanctioned by International law, the native can and
do chose other forms of resistance and do frequently switch modes of
resistance.

e) It is rather useless for armchair theorists to lecture people thousands
of miles away about tactics and strategies. What will we do: engage in
personal struggle by violent or nonviolent resistance? Isn't it better for
people in Europe and North America to work to effect change in their own
governments and media (entities that are directly involved in perpetuating
the injustices)?

If we believe that we must wait for others to do something for us, we are
doomed to fail as humans (not as "Palestinians", as "Israeli", or as
"Americans"). In our respective traditions, we can find some useful
guidance. In the Arab-Islamic traditions we find the statement that "Wala
Yughayiur Allah Ma Biqaumen 3atta Yughaiyuru ma biAnfusihim" "Verily, God
does not change [condition of] a people until they change what is within
themselves." Similar commandments of self-reliance and choice exist in every
culture and tradition. Thus and as the old canard goes: do not ask for whom
the bells ring, they ring for thee.

Other relevant material

Azmi Bishara, the Right of Resistance, and the Palestinian Ordeal

See the book "Defending Civil Resistance Under International Law," Francis A
Boyle, Transnational Pub., 1987

Gilad Atzmon - The Right to Self-Determination - A Fake Exercise in
Universalism
"given the reality on the ground, instead of demanding some rhetorical
rights, we should fight for the Palestinian and Arab right to rebel against
the Jewish State and against global Zionist imperialism. Instead of wasting
our time on rhetorical fantasies and academic exchange, we better expose
Jewish tribal politics and praxis. To support Palestine is to be courageous
enough to say what we think and to admit what we see."
http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2008/03/gilad-atzmon-right-to-self.html

Mazin Qumsiyeh

/\/\/\/\/\/\

/\/\/\/\/\

FROM ORGANIC BYTES

ESSAY OF THE WEEK: OCA DIRECTOR RONNIE CUMMINS ON HOW TO SOLVE AMERICA'S
HEALTH CARE CRISIS The health care crisis in the U.S. is fast becoming a
life or death emergency. OCA Director Ronnie Cummins exposes the real roots
of this crisis and lays out what we can do about it in his latest article:
"Beyond Progressive Malpractice: Taking Down Big Pharma." Read the article
and press the politicians on this burning issue:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_10838.cfm

ALERT OF THE WEEK: FARM WORKERS AND ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS LOSE FREEDOM OF
SPEECH Despite massive opposition from public interest groups and civil
libertarians, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, AETA, became law on
November 27, 2007 upon receiving President Bush's signature. Its stated
purpose is "to provide the Department of Justice the necessary authority to
apprehend, prosecute, and convict individuals committing animal enterprise
terror." But AETA is not limited to acts of violence or property
destruction. It extends to anyone who attempts to, or conspires to,
interfere with an animal enterprise. AETA offers no defense to activists who
expose illegal activities. Animal researchers and factory farms that are
operating illegally can use AETA to protect themselves from whistle blowers.
The effect of AETA is to label social justice activists as terrorists when
they work to expose animal cruelty, poor labor conditions, or environmental
violations in agribusiness or the biomedical industries. It's time to repeal
AETA. Learn more and take action:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_10859.cfm

=================

Heads Monsanto Wins, Tails We Lose; the Genetically Modified Food Gamble
By Robert Weissman
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2008/000278.html
March 18, 2008

There have been few experiments as reckless, overhyped and with as little
potential upside as the rapid rollout of genetically modified crops.

Last month, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech
Applications (ISAAA), a pro-biotech nonprofit, released a report
highlighting the proliferation of genetically modified crops. According to
ISAAA, biotech crop area grew 12 percent, or 12.3 million hectares, to reach
114.3 million hectares in 2007, the second highest area increase in the past
five years....

For all of the industry hype around biotech products, virtually all planted
genetically modified seed is for only four products -- soy, corn, cotton and
canola -- with just two engineered traits. Most of the crops are engineered
to be resistant to glyphosate, an herbicide sold by Monsanto under the
brand-name Round-up (these biotech seeds are known as RoundUp-Ready). Others
are engineered to include a naturally occurring pesticide, Bt.

Most of the genetically modified crops in developing countries are soy, says
Bill Freese, science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety and
co-author of "Who Benefits from GM Crops," a report issued at the same time
as ISAAA's release. These crops are exported to rich countries, primarily as
animal feed. They do absolutely nothing to supply food to the hungry.

As used in developing countries, biotech crops are shifting power away from
small, poor farmers desperately trying to eke out livelihoods and maintain
their land tenure.

Glyphosate-resistance is supposed to enable earlier and less frequent
spraying, but, concludes "Who Benefits from GM Crops," these biotech seeds
"allow farmers to spray a particular herbicide more frequently and
indiscriminately without fear of damaging the crop." This requires
expenditures beyond the means of small farmers -- but reduces labor costs, a
major benefit for industrial farms.

ISAAA contends that Bt planting in India and China has substantially reduced
insecticide spraying, which it advances as the primary benefit of biotech
crops.

Bt crops may offer initial reductions in required spraying, says Freese, but
Bt is only effective against some pests, meaning farmers may have to use
pesticides to prevent other insects from eating their crops. Focusing on a
district in Punjab, "Who Benefits from GM Crops" shows how secondary pest
problems have offset whatever gains Bt crops might offer....

Strong evidence of pesticide resistance is rapidly accumulating, details
"Who Benefits from GM Crops," meaning that farmers will have to spray more
and more chemicals to less and less effect. Pesticide use is rising rapidly
in biotech-heavy countries. In the heaviest user of biotech seeds -- the
United States, which has half of all biotech seed planting --
glyphosate-resistant weeds are proliferating. Glyphosate use in the United
States rose by 15 times from 1994 to 2005, according to "Who Benefits from
GM Crops," and use of other and more toxic herbicides is rapidly rising. The
U.S. experience likely foreshadows what is to come for other countries more
recently adopting biotech crops.

Seed diversity is dropping, as Monsanto and its allies aim to eliminate seed
saving, and development of new crop varieties is slowing. Contamination from
neighboring fields using genetically modified seeds can destroy farmers'
ability to maintain biotech-free crops. Reliance on a narrow range of seed
varieties makes the food system very vulnerable, especially because of the
visible problems with the biotech seeds now in such widespread use.

For all the uncertainties about the long-term effects of biotech crops and
food, one might imagine that there were huge, identifiable short-term
benefits. But one would be wrong.

Instead, a narrowly based industry has managed to impose a risky technology
with short-term negatives and potentially dramatic downsides.

But while it is true, as ISAAA happily reports, that biotech planting is
rapidly growing, it remains heavily concentrated in just a few countries:
the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, India and China.

Europe and most of the developing world continue to resist Monsanto's seed
imperialism. The industry and its allies decry this stand as a senseless
response to fear-mongering. It actually reflects a rational assessment of
demonstrated costs and benefits -- and an appreciation for real but
incalculable risks of toying with the very nature of nature.

Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational
Monitor, <> and director of Essential
Action <>.

(c) Robert Weissman

This article is posted at:

/\/\/\/\/\

J. Sri Raman | India as a Poll Issue in Nepal

J. Sri Raman, writing for Truthout, says: "India figures prominently as an
issue in Nepal's forthcoming elections. The Himalayan nation has always
figured in India's politics, too, and is likely to do so in a larger manner
over the next few months."

Judge Calls Immigration Officials' Decision "Beyond Cruel"

Henry Weinstein, reporting for The Los Angeles Times, writes, "In a stinging
ruling, a Los Angeles federal judge said immigration officials' alleged
decision to withhold a critical medical test and other treatment from a
detainee who later died of cancer was 'beyond cruel and unusual'
punishment."

Darrin Mortenson | Native Americans on "Longest Walk 2"

Darrin Mortenson, writing for Truthout, says: "When northwestern Arizona's
Hualapai Indians got in the way of the Anglos' westward expansion in the
1860's, US soldiers rounded them up, penned them in and forced survivors to
march some 100 miles across the desert to a reservation far from white
commerce. 'We became strangers to our own land,' said Loretta Jackson, the
tribe's current director of cultural resources, who says the tribe now
suffers a scourge of alcoholism and health issues, encroachment from rampant
development and invasions of their sacred sites."

/\/\/\/\/\

ZNet Commentary

Commentaries are a premium sent to Sustainer Donors of Z/ZNet. To learn more
folks can consult ZNet at

Duck and Cover
By Vijay Prashad

A fractured electorate cannot unite behind candidates. The Republicans have
their candidate (Boom, Boom McCain). The Democrats are divided by age,
gender and race. In the murky results and polls it is hard to fathom the
outcome. What is clear is that the Democratic race has mobilized vast
numbers of previously disenchanted people to the polls. Some of this is the
special charisma of Obama, but quite a lot of it is the general enthusiasm
to vote for the first woman or the first African American with a shot at
sitting behind the big desk in the Oval Office.

On Iraq, however, there is unity. The electorate stands firmly in opposition
to the war (64 percent), and a majority want withdrawal within the year (63
percent; 90 percent of registered Democrats). Yet, the three principle
candidates are far from this position. John McCain is one of the principle
architects of the Surge, and he has pledged to remain in Iraq for the next
hundred years (or 10,000). There is no question, to his mind, that the US
military will need to operate with permanent bases in Iraq. The small
minority of Republicans who stood behind Ron Paul, far and away the only
candidate who called for immediate withdrawal, will have no impact on the
GOP platform this Fall.

__________________________

Valuable websites and other resources:

Alternative Radio from Boulder, CO http://www.alternativeradio.org/ is
broadcast Mondays at 1:00 p.m. on KUFM/KGPR, 89.9 FM in Great Falls, and at
other frequencies in western Montana. Making Contact originated by Norman
Solomon can be heard Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m. on the same stations. You can
hear Pacifica radio on the internet at http://www.kpkf.org (that's the LA
station), or your favorite part of the country, linked from there. Great
Falls native Suzi Weissman's show, Beneath the Surface, airs Monday nights
at 6:00, Mountain time, and is archived at http://www.suziweissman.com
Pacifica's Democracy Now with Amy Goodman is available M-F and archived on
the net at http://www.democracynow.org .

Try other major stations by searching the web, or browsing (call
letters).org. Internet radio is coming to be a necessity here in Montana,
and is an excellent source of foreign language news and culture, as well.
You can also get KEMC, Billings public radio from
http://www.yellowstonepublicradio.org in various streaming formats.

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/ national Bozeman-based election/corporate law
reforms

http://www.greeninstitute.net/ non-profit educational institute for Green
values

http://www.wildrockies.org/ Alliance for the Wild Rockies member
organizations

http://www.meic.org website of the Montana Environmental Information Center

http://www.aeromt.org/ Alternative Energy Resource Organization, Helena

http://www.newworldwindpower.com/ Russ Doty's site for MT energy links, etc.

http://OrganicConsumers.org news and information about food safety

http://www.ippn.org links to just about every Green, peace, and justice
organization

http://www.montanapeaceseekers.org Montana peace seekers, local chapters

http://www.greencommons.org national website and discussion forum for Green
activists

http://www.chlorophyll.us/ another prominent Green blog

http://www.wagingpeace.org/ "Sunflowers" Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

http://www.native-voice.com Website for bi-weekly newspaper, The Native
Voice

http://www.IndianCountry.com Indian Country Today, daily national newspaper

http://www.missoulanews.com Missoula Independent weekly newspaper, online

http://www.billingsnews.com Billings Outpost independent weekly newspaper,
online

http://www.queencitynews.com Helena independent weekly newspaper, online

http://www.drugpolicy.org Website of the Lindesmith Center, Drug Policy
Foundation

http://www.fairvote.org/irv/ The Center for Voting and Democracy

http://www.rachel.org/ Great resource for health and environmental issues

http://nukeinfo.org/ Website by Missoula green Rick Gold -- all sorts of
nuclear links

http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml GP News links and blogs

MT Green Bulletin 11 Feb 2008

2008-02-17T22:42:00.006-08:00

Montana Green Bulletin

February 11, 2008 Volume VII, Number 7

A PROJECT OF THE CASCOGREENS

Paul Stephens, Editor and Publisher 406.216.2711 greateco@3rivers.net

THIS BULLETIN IS NOT AN OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF ANY GREEN PARTY (see disclaimers and selected resources at end)

Much of the content of this Bulletin is now being posted at

and

Table of Contents:

UPCOMING AND ONGOING EVENTS

GPCA Green Focus newspaper, Winter 2008 issue, is posted here:
http://cagreens.org/greenfocus/pdfs/GreenFocus.2008.Winter.pdf
Winona LaDuke to speak in President's Lecture Series at UM Missoula

FROM MAZIN QUMSIYEH News/Comments

Gaza Diary: Not a life for children By Omar, a humanitarian worker in partnership with Oxfam http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=40931&s2=08
Insightful and sober analysis of the US/Israel self-destructive partnership from an ex-CIA analyst http://www.counterpunch.org/christison02072008.html
Israel "Democracy for Jews Only" http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/864734.html

Only One Presidential Candidate Talks of True Legacy of Dr Martin Luther King
by Michael Cavlan

Only one U.S. President really understood "the energy crisis" - in 1977

The President's Proposed Energy Policy Jimmy Carter* April 18, 1977 http://www.mnforsustain.org/energy_speech_president_carter.htm

LABOR SHORTAGES

Wind Farms Need Techs to Keep Running By DAVID TWIDDY - http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jQyWv7yuS4TNB8kFrF93tue9Q3rwD8UI0ND00

GREEN SOLUTIONS by Paul Stephens, CasCoGreens

The Dead Poet's Society, continued

Teaching death penalty issues

THE MONTANA DEMOCRATIC-NECKTIE PARTY TRADITION - CONTINUED

FROM GREEN LISTSERVS

1000 Green Candidates in 2008

The election is over - we lost by Sam Smith

KENT STATE NOW THE RULE, NOT THE EXCEPTION

Repress U
by MICHAEL GOULD-WARTOFSKY
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080128/gould-wartofsky

FROM GPUS AFFAIRS LIST

Are we missing the Big Green Picture?

FROM RABBLE.CA

Mythbusting Canadian Health Care
By Sara Robinson OurFuture.org http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/020508HA.shtml

ZNET COMMENTARIES

Obama vs. Clinton, A Second Thought February 10, 2008
By Ted Glick
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2008-02/10glick.cfm

In Honor of My Mother and the Power of Love January 31, 2008 By Norman Solomon http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2008-01/31solomon.cfm

A NOTE ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION

WEBSITES AND OTHER RESOURCES

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE GREENS SUPPORT:

HEALTH CARE DOLLARS FOR HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS -- NOT INSURANCE COMPANIES AND CORPORATE PROFITS http://www.pnhp.org

STOP THE WARS! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW! WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION ARE NOT A LOCAL GROWTH INDUSTRY! http://www.antiwar.com/

COAL USE MUST BE MINIMIZED, NOT MAXIMIZED: GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL! http://www.ipcc.ch/ http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/ http://www.realclimate.org/

END CORPORATE DOMINATION AND PREDATION: CORPORATIONS AREN'T PEOPLE, AND THEY DON'T HAVE "PROPERTY" OR OTHER RIGHTS! http://reclaimdemocracy.org/

For an introduction to Green Party philosophy and programs, go to http://www.gp.org/welcome.shtml

You can join the Montana Green Party at the NEW MONTANA GREEN PARTY WEBSITE!! http://www.mtgreens.org

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

UPCOMING AND ONGOING EVENTS

GPCA Green Focus newspaper, Winter 2008 issue, is posted here:
http://cagreens.org/greenfocus/pdfs/GreenFocus.2008.Winter.pdf

Cheers,
Lisa Taylor
Los Angeles City Greens
http://losangelesgreens.org/

=============

Beneath the Surface today/ Monday 5-6pm (6-7 Mountain time) on KPFK 90.7FM, streaming live and archived at http://www.kpfk.org

John Nichols www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=283443: With primaries in Wisconsin and the Potomac this week, we talk to John about delegates, super-delegates, brokered conventions, John Edwards' possible endorsement and more -- everything you wanted to know about how democracy can (and has been) subverted, and how -- as well as how the primaries and not the insiders may still decide who will be the candidates.

Thousands of striking writers met at the Shrine Auditorium yesterday to discuss the deal that will end the three and a half month old Writers strike. Tomorrow they vote, but already the union has declared a huge victory. Howard Rodman http://cinema.usc.edu/faculty/rodman-howard.htm does the heavy lifting for us as he discusses the deal, the strike, the victory and more.

Author Laura Agustín http://www.nodo50.org/conexiones/Laura_Agustin/ talks to us about her new book, Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labor Markets and the Rescue Industry which upends conventional notions and rethinks everything about this issue. If you've EVER read a story about trafficking, "immigration problems," and felt like you didn't know where to turn, this book will turn every assumption you might have on its head. "

Suzi Weissman Beneath the Surface, Mondays 5-6 Pacific (6-7Mountain time) KPFK 90.7FM in Los Angeles; 98.7 Santa Barbara

streaming live and archived at www.kpfk.org http://www.kpfk.org/

Podcast information, audio archives and more at http://www.suziweissman.com/

===========

Winona LaDuke to speak in President's Lecture Series at UM Missoula at 8pm on Monday, Feb 25 in the Montana Theater on the UM campus. The topic is "Creating Just Societies: The Environment, the Economy and Human Relations in the Next Millenium." Earlier that day, from 3:10 to 4:30 pm, LaDuke will give a seminar titled "Indigenous Thinking on sustainable Development: Strategies for the Northern Plains-Great Lakes Region." It will be held in Room 123 of the Gallagher Business Building. Both events are free and open to the public.

[I have yet to see any mention in the press releases and announcements for these events that Winona was the Green Party Vice-Presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000, or, for that matter, any mention of the Green Party whatsoever. According to the Wikipedia article below, Winona first supported Dennis Kucinich in 2004, and later endorsed John Kerry in that campaign. No doubt, this reflects the sad state of the Green Party and its Presidential nominating convention and campaign in 2004, plus the fact that the GPUS did virtually nothing to support or organize Native Americans in the 2000 campaign. I believe it was Nader, himself, who selected La Duke as his running mate, and there was no real Green Party organization behind her. That may still be the case, today, although I would hope that some Missoula Greens (if there are any) might talk with her, and find out what she thinks about all this. -- PHS]

===============

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke

Winona LaDuke (b. 1959) is a Native American activist, environmentalist, economist, and writer. In 1996 and 2000, she was the Green Party candidate for Vice President of the United States, on the ticket headed by Ralph Nader.

Biography

LaDuke was born in Los Angeles, California to Vincent and Betty LaDuke. Her father was part Anishinaabe (Ojibwe or "Chippewa") from an Indian reservation of Minnesota. He was an actor with supporting roles in Western movies, an activist, a writer, and at the end of his life, a spiritual guru under the name Sun Bear.[1] Her mother was a Jewish artist, employed as an art professor at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon. LaDuke is the mother of five.

LaDuke was raised in Ashland,[2] but after graduating from Harvard in 1982 with a degree in rural economic development, she accepted a job as principal of the high school on the Ojibwe White Earth Indian Reservation in Minnesota. She soon became an activist, involved in the struggle to recover lands promised to the Ojibwe by an 1867 treaty. She helped the Ojibwe buy back thousands of acres of ancestral land.

She worked with Women of All Red Nations to publicize the alarmingly high level of forced sterilization among Native American women.

LaDuke was named Woman of the Year by Ms. Magazine in 1997 and won the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1998. She is the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project in Minnesota, the Indigenous Women's Network, and Honor the Earth.

LaDuke is the author of the novel Last Standing Woman (1997), the non-fiction book All our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life (1999), and Recovering the Sacred: the Power of Naming and Claiming (2005), a book about traditional beliefs and practices.

She appeared in the documentary film Anthem, directed by Shainee Gabel and Kristin Hahn. The film was first released in the United States on July 25, 1997. Both directors were awarded by the 1997 Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival. LaDuke also appeared in the TV documentary The Main Stream, first released on December 17, 2002. The film was directed by Roger Weisberg who is better known for winning the 2002 Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject as director of Why Can't We Be a Family Again?.

LaDuke appeared as an actor in the film "Skins", first released on January 14, 2002. The film depicted the problems of unemployment, alcoholism and domestic violence within the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation through the eyes of two Lakota Sioux Native American brothers. The main fictional characters were police detective Rudy Yellow Lodge (Eric Schweig) and his brother Mogie Yellow Lodge (Graham Greene) the latter with an apparent tendency toward self-destruction. LaDuke played secondary character Rose Two Buffalo. The film was awarded the 2003 Prism Award. Graham Green won the Best Actor Award of the 2002 Tokyo International Film Festival and was nominated for a Best Male Lead award in the 2003 Independent Spirit Awards.

In Sept 2007, LaDuke was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

===============

The other famous member of the White Earth Band is Vernon Bellecourt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Bellecourt

Bellecourt was a long time leader in the American Indian Movement. His brother, Clyde Bellecourt, helped found AIM as a militant group in 1968, and Vernon soon became involved as well. He co-founded the AIM chapter in Denver, and was its first Executive Director.

Bellecourt took part in the 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties caravan, then served as a negotiator during AIM's occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which took place following the caravan's arrival in Washington, D.C. Bellecourt was present briefly during the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation in South Dakota, serving mostly as an AIM spokesman and fundraiser during the 71-day standoff with federal agents.

After Wounded Knee, Bellecourt worked with the International Indian Treaty Council, which advocates on behalf of Indigenous rights throughout the Western Hemisphere. He became a leader of AIM’s work abroad, meeting with foreign leaders like Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Moammar Gadhafi of Libya, and Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat.[3]

Bellecourt was active for many years in the campaign to free AIM activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted in 1977 of killing two FBI agents during a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Final days

In August 2007, Bellecourt accepted an invitation from the Venezuelan government to attend the First International Congress of Anti-imperialist Indigenous Peoples of America and visited with President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. The two discussed the possibility of Chavez providing aid to Native American groups. According to his brother, Clyde, Bellecourt fell ill soon after the trip and was hospitalized. He died of pneumonia at age 75, in Minneapolis, where he lived.

============

The White Earth Band of Ojibwe to which LaDuke and Bellecourt belong is closely related to the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Montana. Here is a Wikipedia link to that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pembina_Band_of_Chippewa_Indians

Pembina Band of Chippewa Indians are a historical band of Chippewa (Ojibwe), originally living along the Red River of the North and its tributaries. Through the treaty process with the United States, the Pembina Band were settled on reservations in Minnesota and North Dakota. Few tribal members refusing settlement in North Dakota relocated westward, eventually settling in Montana. The successors inherent of the Pembina Band are:

Chippewa Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boys Indian Reservation (in part)

Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana (in full)

Red Lake Band of Chippewa (in part)

Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians (in full)

White Earth Band of Ojibwe (in part)

_________________

Do you support the Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement?

Some local municipalities get it on the climate crisis and have been working to meet these objectives. There are now over 500 city, town and county governments representing over 50 million people that have signed onto the Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement, http://www.seattle.gov/mayor/climate/
As explained on the website of Greg Nickels, the Seattle mayor who initiated this effort over two years ago.... [Billings and Missoula are already signed on to this. Tell your mayor to sign on, too!] http://www.usmayors.org/climateprotection/

________________

GF Conservation Council

************************************
NEW MEETING PLACE: Penny's Gourmet (Central Avenue between 8th and 9th), Thursday's at noon.
******************************************

2/14/2008 - Round table discussion
=============================

FROM TAPS, BUTTE
"INCIDENT IN I CORPS" is TUESDAY FEB. 12 DOCUMENTARY
Filmmaker Paul Edwards of Helena will come to Butte in a personal appearance to
present his Vietnam War film to our audience as part of the ongoing Citizens
Education Project of the Montana Tech Peace Seekers Club with TAPS and Sacred
Ground. Paul Edwards was the director of Bobby Kennedy's personal film crew in
1968. He worked in Vietnam for nearly three years from 1965-67 and came to know
the country and the war in depth and detail. He was a screen and TV writer for
30 years, starting with Gunsmoke in 1970 and ending up doing "Tecumseh", one of
the badly botched Indian series that Turner made and wrote 40 movies in
between. He is presently Chair of the Progressive Democrats of Montana and was
Dennis Kucinich's Montana campaign manager both in 2004 and again this year.

=============================
"UNCOUNTED" film and national teleconference WEDNESDAY FEB. 13
"Did you think the 2000 election was stolen? And that maybe something was wrong
in 2004 as well? Are you wondering what effect election fraud had in 2006? Do
you want to know what really happened and how it'll affect this year's
election?"
PLEASE RSVP !!! Click on this link or else paste it into your browser.
(Democracy for America provides the film free of charge if a certain number of
people are registered to attend.)
http://www.dfalink.com/register.php?c=e&id=696479e63b38b34a&eid=27249&email=%%EMAIL%%

=============================
Excellent overview from Davos Economic Summit last week...
THE GLOBAL BATTLE FOR FOOD, OIL AND WATER
By Gideon Rachman Financial Times January 312, 2008
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d3cde844-cdb7-11dc-9e4e-000077b07658,dwp_uuid=cc90227a-20ae-11db-8b3e-0000779e2340,print=yes.html
===============

Welcome to the February 2008 MTCoH e-News Update and thank you for your interest in homelessness in Montana.

Upcoming Events

The Billings Mayor’s Committee on Homelessness is sponsoring a Social Enterprise Conference on February 13 – 14. Pioneer Human Services from Seattle will be presenting. This is a phenomenal model that has a real chance to make a sustainable difference. For more information, contact Doris Cole at 247-8675 or coled@ci.billings.mt.us .

Honoring Those Who Die as a Result of Homelessness

Homelessness dramatically elevates the risk of illness, injury and death. At every age, homeless persons are three times more likely to die than their housed peers - the average age of death is about 50, compared to 78 for housed Americans. Homeless people suffer the same illnesses experienced by people with homes, but at rates three to six times higher. They die from illnesses that can be treated or prevented. The difficulty involved in getting rest, staying on a medication schedule, eating well, staying clean and warm prolong and exacerbate illnesses, sometimes to the point where they become life threatening. Dying as a result of having been homeless does not necessarily mean dying while homeless. Even though dozens of people throughout Montana died in 2007 as a result of having been homeless, no one is formally tracking them. Please help us honor them. If you know of someone who dies as a result of homelessness, please follow the link on the home page to a short report form.

Please Help Us – Take 10 minutes to take the 2008 Survey on Homelessness in Montana.

• Please help by telling what you are seeing in your community. Go to:

• Or go to www.MTCoH.org and follow the link on the front page.

Send us your news

• We are currently seeking articles for the next edition of the MTCoH e-News Update. Contact Sherrie@mtcoh.org with ideas for articles.

About the Council

• The Montana Council on Homelessness was appointed by Governor Brian Schweitzer. The Council was originally created under Executive Order in 2004, and continued by Governor Schweitzer in 2006. The MTCoH Mission is to develop and implement strategies to prevent and reduce homelessness in Montana overall and to end chronic homelessness by 2014.

Download the Newsletter

• The e-newsletter can be downloaded from the MTCoH website: http://www.mtcoh.org/images/stories/february_2008_mtcoh_e-news_update.pdf.

• The newsletter is in PDF format, which must be accessed with Acrobat Reader. Download the free reader at: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

============

FROM MAZIN QUMSIYEH

News/Comments

Gaza Diary: Not a life for children By Omar, a humanitarian worker in partnership with Oxfam

Insightful and sober analysis of the US/Israel self-destructive partnership from an ex-CIA analyst

Israel "Democracy for Jews Only"
------------------------------
ACTION ALERT FROM WHEELS OF JUSTICE

Dear Friends and Supporters of The Wheels of Justice!

The Spring 2008 tour is about to start on February 25th in Olympia, WA! We have a great line-up of stops along the way going through Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa. Our itinerary is posted below. There are still some tentative stops, as well as other stops still on our wish list. Take a look and see if there's any way you can help bring us to any of these places listed with a ? after it.

Along the way we'll be participating in a variety of important commemorations and national observances, from the Nakba in Palestine (60 years and counting), to the 5th anniversary of the US invasion in Iraq (March 19). We have a great pool of speakers, listed below, who will be joining us throughout the route, as well as some other tentative speakers later in the season. The bios of all our speakers can be found on our website, .

Thank you to all for your continued support. I have confidence that this will be a highly successful tour this spring, and hopefully many of you will be a part of it. Again, please let me know if your town falls along our route so we can make sure to stop there. If not, you can always support us by making donations via our website!

It's an honor to be working with all of you, and I hope we can continue doing this valuable work together.

In solidarity,
Abbie Coburn
Wheels of Justice
abigail.coburn@gmail.com

Itinerary
Feb 25-27 Olympia, WA
Feb 28-29 Vancouver, WA
Feb 29-March 2 Portland, OR
March 3-6 Eugene, OR
March 12-13 Boise, ID
March 13-15 Sun Valley, ID (?)
March 16-19 Boise, ID
March 20-24 Jackson, WY (?)
March 25-28 Salt Lake City, UT
March 28-30 Riverton/Dubois, WY
Cheyenne, WY (?)
Nebraska (?)
April 10-14 Manhattan, KS
April 15-17 Lawrence, KS
Wichita, KS (?)
Des Moines, IA (?)
Cedar Rapids, IA (?)

Speakers
Iraq: Mike Miles, Salam Talib, Ed Kinane, Gene Stoltzfus, Kathy Kelly
Palestine: Mazin Qumsiyeh, Mark Turner, Hannah Mermelstein, Nora Burrows-Friedman

http://justicewheels.org

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Only One Presidential Candidate Talks of True Legacy of Dr Martin Luther King
by Michael Cavlan

While there is a lot of talk of the legacy of Reverend Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., there is only one presidential candidate who is actually speaking on the issue that drove Dr. King. That issue, of course, is the right for black people to vote in America. She is also the only presidential candidate speaking of the violations of the 1965 Voter Rights Act that were seen during the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Rep. Cynthia McKinney goes into this issue on the campaign trail and in her movie American Blackout.

It is also true that Cynthia McKinney is the only candidate who is truly looking out for the interests of the poor in our nation. Cynthia McKinney is willing to face the military industrial complex on the issue of the war also and stand up to the war profiteers. In all these aspects, McKinney is the only candidate for president who actually follows the legacy of Dr. King.

We progressives must note a sense of irony in that Rep. McKinney is getting no coverage by the mainstream media on this issue, which is central and critical to the future of our democracy. We also notice, with a further sense of irony, that while Rep. McKinney is talking about the very direct violations of the 1965 Voter Rights Act there are other candidates for president who are not. That includes Barack Obama, John Edwards who was the vice-presidential candidate who "conceded" in Ohio 2004, and, sadly, even Dennis Kucinich, whose own constituents in Ohio were targeted and disenfranchised in the 2004 election.

Just as there was an American Blackout on the issue of Voter Fraud in the 2000 and 2004 elections and the issues surrounding it by the corporate, so-called mainstream media, now that blackout is surrounding the Cynthia McKinney for President campaign. For far too long, progressives have been aware of the corporate bias of the so called "liberal" corporate media. These is now a way to break past that corporate media blockade on information to the American public. There is only one candidate, with the integrity and courage to tell the American people the simple, unvarnished truth about where we truly are in our democracy. There is only one presidential candidate who has the moral fortitude to actually work on getting our nation and our democratic republic back on track. That candidate is Cynthia McKinney.

If you believe in the integrity and future of our democracy, if you want to end the war on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, if you want a new independent investigation into the events of September 11th, if you want accountability and Impeachment for the criminals in the Bush Regime, then your only presidential candidate is Cynthia McKinney. Have the courage to support her if these issues are important to you.

Stop letting the media and corporate shills run the elections. Let us decide the future direction of our democracy.

For more information on the McKinney for President campaign, visit http://www.runcynthiarun.org/ and meet a presidential candidate with the courage, integrity, smarts and organizing skills to make a real difference instead of giving us rhetoric and corporate tested, empty slogans such as "change" or "experience."

Then join us, as we work on building a better tomorrow. For all of us.

Michael Cavlan , RN, is an Official Green Party Observer for the 2004 Ohio Re-Count. He was the Green Party Candidate for US Senate 2006 and is a Candidate US Senate 2008 Seeking Green Party Endorsement in Minnesota. See www.michaelcavlan.org http://www.michaelcavlan.org

===============

FROM MINNESOTANS FOR SUSTAINABILITY

Only one U.S. President really understood "the energy crisis" - in 1977

The President's Proposed Energy Policy

Jimmy Carter*
April 18, 1977

http://www.mnforsustain.org/energy_speech_president_carter.htm

Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem unprecedented in our history. With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly.

It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century.

We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren.

We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.

Two days from now, I will present my energy proposals to the Congress. Its members will be my partners and they have already given me a great deal of valuable advice. Many of these proposals will be unpopular. Some will cause you to put up with inconveniences and to make sacrifices.

The most important thing about these proposals is that the alternative may be a national catastrophe. Further delay can affect our strength and our power as a nation.

Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern. This difficult effort will be the "moral equivalent of war" -except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy....

The oil and natural gas we rely on for 75 percent of our energy are running out. In spite of increased effort, domestic production has been dropping steadily at about six percent a year. Imports have doubled in the last five years. Our nation's independence of economic and political action is becoming increasingly constrained. Unless profound changes are made to lower oil consumption, we now believe that early in the 1980s the world will be demanding more oil that it can produce.

The world now uses about 60 million barrels of oil a day and demand increases each year about 5 percent. This means that just to stay even we need the production of a new Texas every year, an Alaskan North Slope every nine months, or a new Saudi Arabia every three years. Obviously, this cannot continue.

We must look back in history to understand our energy problem. Twice in the last several hundred years there has been a transition in the way people use energy.

The first was about 200 years ago, away from wood -which had provided about 90 percent of all fuel- to coal, which was more efficient. This change became the basis of the Industrial Revolution.

The second change took place in this century, with the growing use of oil and natural gas. They were more convenient and cheaper than coal, and the supply seemed to be almost without limit. They made possible the age of automobile and airplane travel. Nearly everyone who is alive today grew up during this age and we have never known anything different.

Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power. [This speech was given at a time when the dangers of CO2 pollution - the "Greenhouse Effect" - were only suspected and not yet quantified. Thus, the advocacy of more coal development was not nearly so irrational then as it would be, today. -- PHS]

The world has not prepared for the future. During the 1950s, people used twice as much oil as during the 1940s. During the 1960s, we used twice as much as during the 1950s. And in each of those decades, more oil was consumed than in all of mankind's previous history.

World consumption of oil is still going up. If it were possible to keep it rising during the 1970s and 1980s by 5 percent a year as it has in the past, we could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade....

But we do have a choice about how we will spend the next few years. Each American uses the energy equivalent of 60 barrels of oil per person each year. Ours is the most wasteful nation on earth. We waste more energy than we import. With about the same standard of living, we use twice as much energy per person as do other countries like Germany, Japan and Sweden.

One choice is to continue doing what we have been doing before. We can drift along for a few more years.

Our consumption of oil would keep going up every year. Our cars would continue to be too large and inefficient. Three-quarters of them would continue to carry only one person -the driver- while our public transportation system continues to decline. We can delay insulating our houses, and they will continue to lose about 50 percent of their heat in waste.

We can continue using scarce oil and natural to generate electricity, and continue wasting two-thirds of their fuel value in the process....

If we wait, and do not act, then our factories will not be able to keep our people on the job with reduced supplies of fuel. Too few of our utilities will have switched to coal, our most abundant energy source.

We will not be ready to keep our transportation system running with smaller, more efficient cars and a better network of buses, trains and public transportation.

We will feel mounting pressure to plunder the environment. We will have a crash program to build more nuclear plants, strip-mine and burn more coal, and drill more offshore wells than we will need if we begin to conserve now. Inflation will soar, production will go down, people will lose their jobs. Intense competition will build up among nations and among the different regions within our own country.

If we fail to act soon, we will face an economic, social and political crisis that will threaten our free institutions.

But we still have another choice. We can begin to prepare right now. We can decide to act while there is time.

That is the concept of the energy policy we will present on Wednesday. Our national energy plan is based on ten fundamental principles.

The first principle is that we can have an effective and comprehensive energy policy only if the government takes responsibility for it and if the people understand the seriousness of the challenge and are willing to make sacrifices.

The second principle is that healthy economic growth must continue. Only by saving energy can we maintain our standard of living and keep our people at work. An effective conservation program will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

The third principle is that we must protect the environment. Our energy problems have the same cause as our environmental problems -wasteful use of resources. Conservation helps us solve both at once.

The fourth principle is that we must reduce our vulnerability to potentially devastating embargoes. We can protect ourselves from uncertain supplies by reducing our demand for oil, making the most of our abundant resources such as coal, and developing a strategic petroleum reserve.

The fifth principle is that we must be fair. Our solutions must ask equal sacrifices from every region, every class of people, every interest group. Industry will have to do its part to conserve, just as the consumers will. The energy producers deserve fair treatment, but we will not let the oil companies profiteer.

The sixth principle, and the cornerstone of our policy, is to reduce the demand through conservation. Our emphasis on conservation is a clear difference between this plan and others which merely encouraged crash production efforts. Conservation is the quickest, cheapest, most practical source of energy. Conservation is the only way we can buy a barrel of oil for a few dollars. It costs about $13 to waste it.

The seventh principle is that prices should generally reflect the true replacement costs of energy. We are only cheating ourselves if we make energy artificially cheap and use more than we can really afford.

The eighth principle is that government policies must be predictable and certain. Both consumers and producers need policies they can count on so they can plan ahead. This is one reason I am working with the Congress to create a new Department of Energy, to replace more than 50 different agencies that now have some control over energy.

The ninth principle is that we must conserve the fuels that are scarcest and make the most of those that are more plentiful. We can't continue to use oil and gas for 75 percent of our consumption when they make up seven percent of our domestic reserves. We need to shift to plentiful coal while taking care to protect the environment, and to apply stricter safety standards to nuclear energy.

The tenth principle is that we must start now to develop the new, unconventional sources of energy we will rely on in the next century.

These ten principles have guided the development of the policy I would describe to you and the Congress on Wednesday.

Our energy plan will also include a number of specific goals, to measure our progress toward a stable energy system.

These are the goals we set for 1985:

Reduce the annual growth rate in our energy demand to less than two percent.

Reduce gasoline consumption by ten percent below its current level.

Cut in half the portion of United States oil which is imported, from a potential level of 16 million barrels to six million barrels a day.

Establish a strategic petroleum reserve of one billion barrels, more than six months' supply.

Increase our coal production by about two thirds to more than 1 billion tons a year.

Insulate 90 percent of American homes and all new buildings.

Use solar energy in more than two and one-half million houses.

We will monitor our progress toward these goals year by year. Our plan will call for stricter conservation measures if we fall behind.

I cant tell you that these measures will be easy, nor will they be popular. But I think most of you realize that a policy which does not ask for changes or sacrifices would not be an effective policy.

This plan is essential to protect our jobs, our environment, our standard of living, and our future....

But the sacrifices will be gradual, realistic and necessary. Above all, they will be fair....

The citizens who insist on driving large, unnecessarily powerful cars must expect to pay more for that luxury.

We can be sure that all the special interest groups in the country will attack the part of this plan that affects them directly. They will say that sacrifice is fine, as long as other people do it, but that their sacrifice is unreasonable, or unfair, or harmful to the country. If they succeed, then the burden on the ordinary citizen, who is not organized into an interest group, would be crushing.

There should be only one test for this program: whether it will help our country.

Other generation of Americans have faced and mastered great challenges. I have faith that meeting this challenge will make our own lives even richer. If you will join me so that we can work together with patriotism and courage, we will again prove that our great nation can lead the world into an age of peace, independence and freedom.
_____
* Jimmy Carter televised speech April 18, 1977.
Jimmy Carter, "The President's Proposed Energy Policy." 18 April 1977. Vital Speeches of the Day, Vol. XXXXIII, No. 14, May 1, 1977, pp. 418-420.
Courtesy of Jimmy Carter, the American Experience, PBS.
See original at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_energy.html .

=========

The World's Rubbish Dump
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/020608EB.shtml
Kathy Marks and Daniel Howden, of The Independent UK, report, "A 'plastic soup' of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said."

To Save a Forest: Grand Plan to Preserve Trees, Protect Climate
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/020608EC.shtml
Michael Casey, of The Associated Press, writes: "For decades, a flood of aid and an army of conservationists couldn't save Indonesia's rain forests from illegal loggers, land-hungry peasants and the spread of giant plantations. Now the world is looking at a simpler approach: up-front cash."

Barbara Ehrenreich | The Boom Was a Bust for Ordinary People
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/020608LA.shtml
In The Washington Post, Barbara Ehrenreich says: "It begins to sound a bit naughty - all this talk about the need to 'stimulate' the economy, as if we were discussing how to make a porn film. I don't mean to trivialize our economic difficulties or the need for effective government intervention, but we have to face a disconcerting fact: For years now, that strange stimulus-crazed beast, the economy, has been going its own way, increasingly disconnected from the toils and troubles of ordinary Americans."

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LABOR SHORTAGES

Wind Farms Need Techs to Keep Running

By DAVID TWIDDY – Feb 1, 2008 http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jQyWv7yuS4TNB8kFrF93tue9Q3rwD8UI0ND00

LINCOLN, Kan. (AP) — The line of towering wind turbines stand motionless on the ridgeline above Interstate 70 in central Kansas, Y-shaped silhouettes amid the swirling snow.

Despite the weather, dozens of technicians are working to get the 10-mile-long Smoky Hills Wind Farm ready to begin producing electricity.

Jason Martinson, who is supervising the 56-turbine operation on behalf of Enel North America Inc., said after almost a decade in the industry he's still amazed by how fast wind farms like Smoky Hills are going up across the country. But he also said workers like those braving the blizzard-like conditions outside his office are becoming increasingly rare.

"Finding experienced techs is impossible with wind growing as fast as it is," Martinson said. "You get one year's worth of experience and it's like dog years."

Considered a cheap source of renewable power, wind farms have taken off amid concerns over greenhouse gases produced by coal-fired electric plants and the increasing cost of natural gas and other petroleum products. Some states have encouraged their development by requiring a certain portion of their future energy be created through renewable resources.

Last year, wind farms installed almost 3,200 turbines, boosting the nation's wind energy capacity by 45 percent and cranking out an additional 5,200 megawatts, or enough electricity to power 1.5 million homes for a year. The industry, which now accounts for a little more than 1 percent of the U.S. electric supply, expects to repeat that surge in 2008.

Critics of wind power have called the mammoth turbines eyesores and environmentalists have fought against them, warning the giant rotors could pose a hazard to migratory birds and other wildlife.

But wind power officials see a much larger obstacle coming in the form of its own work force, a highly specialized group of technicians that combine working knowledge of mechanics, hydraulics, computers and meteorology with the willingness to climb 200 feet in the air in all kinds of weather.

That work force isn't keeping up with the future demand, partly because the industry is so new that the oldest independent training programs are less than five years old.

The American Wind Energy Association, a Washington, D.C-based trade group, estimates the industry employs about 20,000 people, not including those making turbines or other equipment.

Future need is harder to quantify, given the uncertainties of the industry's growth. But with two-man teams generally responsible for seven to 10 turbines, the industry would need up to 800 technicians to serve the turbines expected to be installed this year alone.

Park developers, turbine manufacturers and utilities are investing in training programs, attempting to lure workers with wages of up to $25 an hour, or teaming up with the growing number of wind energy training programs being offered at community and technical colleges.

At Columbia Gorge Community College in The Dalles, Ore., seven wind companies are working with the school as academic advisers. Several of the companies are also supporting the college financially, including a three-year $150,000 grant from PPM Energy and donated equipment from Arlington, Va.-based wind developer AES Corp....

read more>> http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jQyWv7yuS4TNB8kFrF93tue9Q3rwD8UI0ND00

Russell L. Doty, CEO/General Counsel, New World WindPower LLC
3878 N Tanager Ln
Billings, MT 59102-5916
Phone: 406-656-2763 http://www.newworldwindpower.com/

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Water Shortages Drive Conflicts Worldwide
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/020808HA.shtml
UN News Centre: "Many of today's conflicts around the world are being fuelled or exacerbated by water shortages and climate change is only making the situation worse, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the General Assembly today."

Studies Say Clearing Land for Biofuels Will Aid Warming
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/020808EA.shtml
Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post: "Clearing land to produce biofuels such as ethanol will do more to exacerbate global warming than using gasoline or other fossil fuels, two scientific studies show."

Activists Not Happy Campers With Logging Rule
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/020808EB.shtml
The Associated Press: "In its ongoing effort to boost commercial logging, the Bush administration on Thursday proposed giving managers of the nation's 155 federal forests greater discretion in letting timber companies cut down more trees on the federally controlled land."

Court KOs Administration's Relaxed Emissions Policy
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/020808EC.shtml
The Associated Press: "A federal appeals court struck down a Bush administration policy exempting power plants from certain environmental regulations. The court said the policy was unlawful."

Wars Dwarf Warming in US Budget
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/020108EA.shtml
Jim Lobe for the Inter Press Service reports, "Despite growing recognition in the Pentagon and the intelligence community that global warming poses serious national security threats to the United States, Washington is spending $88 on the military for every dollar it spends this year on climate-related programs, according to a new study released Thursday by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS)."

/\/\/\/\/\

GREEN SOLUTIONS by Paul Stephens, CasCoGreens

The Dead Poet's Society, continued http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097165/

I couldn't remember seeing "The Dead Poet's Society" since its original release in 1989. (It was actually on Turner Classic Movies channel yesterday, Feb 10, but since I don't have cable, I watched a tape of it.). It caused a sensation in the education community, on a deeper level than, say, "Teachers" (1984) or "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (1982). And it was a true "cultural barometer". Only the "good guys" liked it, while the usual fascist control-freaks found it "troubling", "disturbing," or outright subversive (no pun intended).

My thoughts on seeing it, again, were extensive. First, it was no doubt the immediate stimulus for my trying teaching as a job and potential career in September, 1989. I would work as a substitute for the next seven years, and earn a teaching credential from what was then Northern Montana College in Havre, MT. At that point, I got my own chance to "live the example," by teaching for a year at Montana's only "exclusive prep school", Headwaters Academy in Bozeman. It is eerie, in retrospect, to see how closely my experience there corresponded to that of John Keating in Dead Poet's Society. Fortunately, no one committed suicide, unless it would have been the school, itself, which abandoned its progressive, child-centered curriculum and structure during the year that I was there, resulting in my departure.

Supposedly, the character of Keating was based on a real teacher who did lose his job - not after the first year, but after decades of faithful service after the film came out. Apparently, he had been able to conceal his real character and intentions from the administration for that long. I couldn't find any references to that story, however. -- PHS

____________

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Poets_Society

Sources and inspirations

The inspiration for Robin William's character is University of Connecticut English professor Samuel F. Pickering Jr., a former teacher of author Thomas Schulman at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, TN. Williams, however, partly based his portrayal of the character on the late John C. Campbell (d. 2007), Williams' history teacher at Detroit Country Day School. On the first day of class it was customary for Campbell to dump the AP American History textbook in the trash and to commence lecturing extempore.

The film was also inspired by the book Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton, which has been adapted for television or film at least four times.

The introductory essay that Keating has his students read from their poetry textbook near the beginning of the movie is taken nearly word-for-word from an early chapter of Laurence Perrine's Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry, which is still occasionally used by AP English classes in the United States.

Charlie Dalton writes his poem on the image of a centerfold; she is Elaine Reynolds, Miss October 1959 in Playboy magazine. In another reunion, the centerfold for Miss March 1959 Audrey Daston is seen briefly.

In one scene, a bagpipe player stands on the docks in the middle of the night. The song played is "The Fields of Athenry", an Irish ballad that tells the story of a man who stood up against 'the famine' and 'the crown' was arrested for it and dispatched to Botany Bay. This echoes the boys' actions: they stood up against the school and were punished, even though they did it for the right reasons. The song was composed in the 1970s.

The uniform of the fictional Welton Academy shares characteristics with that of director Weir's real high school, The Scots College, including the use of the rampant lion on blazer breast pocket. The major difference is that Welton's uses red and blue, while Scots' uses a gold and blue colour system.

The quotation from Henry David Thoreau read at the beginning of each meeting is incorrect. It actually reads

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived … I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms..." (Walden, 1854).

Neil Perry recites the words of Puck's soliloquy at the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

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Teaching death penalty issues

[One of the key "litmus test" issues in politics and social philosophy is whether or not one supports the death penalty, or state-sponsored executions. Indeed, this is the issue which separates traditional vengeance and punishment-based societies from what we think of as "modern" civilized and humane governments. And many recent American political campaigns have foundered on this very issue. Gov. Dukakis's campaign effectively ended in 1988 when he was asked a hypothetical question about whether or not he would support the death penalty for someone convicted of raping and killing his wife. He didn't have an adequate response to this "trick question."

In fact, the issue is a very simple one, but difficult to teach or effectively communicate in political campaigns. I recently received an e-mail from an anti-death penalty activist who teaches college courses on the subject - she claims, successfully. So I asked her to send me a short summary of her curriculum or lesson plans. Here they are. -- PHS]

______________

I am very fond of the sites below which provide great death penalty lesson plans and curriculum development strategies. Keep in mind that these resources are impartial and do not take one side or another. They are basically on state facts, policies, statistics and procedures.

http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/teacher/index.html

http://www.aclufl.org/take_action/students/case_of_the_month/2002/lessonsdec2002.cfm

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?&did=2337

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/socialstudies/juvenile_deathpenalty.html

Below please find a short piece on TEACHING AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY.

D.L.

The Basics of Teaching Against The Death Penalty

By Professor D.L. Carcara

So many educators wonder how to go about teaching college level students that the death penalty is indeed a failure in social policy. Well, it is much simpler than one would think. All a teacher needs to do is present the scientific facts. Whether it be qualitative research (via intensive interviews with the personally involved) or quantitative research (by way of collecting statistical data through survey), there is no other way to interpret the results but to say that capital punishment is both ineffective and purposeless. The research speaks for itself. As an educator, you need not persuade your students into siding toward abolition because after you present the facts, they will sway this way naturally on their own. It is simply logical to do so....

Numerous researchers have concluded that the death penalty fails to deter murderers from killing. To name one social scientist, Richard Lempert’s United States- based, fifteen-year long study of the relationship between the number of executions and the number of killings showed that a relationship does not exist. After the completion of his research project, he reported, "The death penalty in general and executions in particular do not deter homicide" (Lempert, 1983). While some research simply proves that the death penalty does not deter, other research goes a step further to show the exact opposite of what deterrence theorists want us to believe. This research shows that wherever the death penalty exists, murders are more numerous. It also shows that wherever the death penalty does not exist, murders are less in number. In fact, over a twelve-year study span from 1973 to 1984, social scientists Ruth Peterson and William Bailey compared states with socio-economic similarities. The basic difference in these states were that some practiced executing their convicted murderers while others did not. Collaboratively, the two found that for every hundred-thousand people, states that executed their convicted murders had a murder rate of a whopping 8.64, while those states that did not had a murder rate of a much lower 5.35 (Peterson & Bailey, 1984). Back in the 1960’s, sociologist Thorsten Sellin’s findings resembled those of Peterson and Bailey for the years 1920 through 1955....

Moving onward from Deterrence Theory, I go ahead with asking students whether or not physical cruelty and unusualness is present while state sanctioned executions are being administrated. [Note: The Constitution prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment" -- one of the sections shredded or effectively repealed by the USA PATRIOT ACT and the Military Commissions Act. -- PHS]

ELECTROCUTION

"In 1985, Alpha Otis Stephens was strapped into the electric chair in Georgia. Stephens had to be hit with three separate 1,900-volt surges of electricity. After the first surge he ‘struggled for breath for eight minutes’. When the second surge was applied, ‘his body slumped when the current stopped… but shortly afterward witnesses saw him struggle to breathe. In the six minutes allowed for the body to cool before doctors could examine it, Mr. Stephens took about 23 breaths.’ When the doctors declared that he was still alive, the third jolt finished him off ten minutes later… Also in 1985, William Vandiver needed five separate charges of electricity and seventeen minutes to die" (Costanzo, 1997, p. 45 and Amnesty International, 1989). Let’s not fail to mention the time execution team errors led to the agonizing display experienced by the condemned Albert Clozza. There was such an abundance of steam pressure within Albert Clozza’s skull that during his electrocution, his eyeballs exploded and his chest covered with blood that was draining downward from the eye sockets....

GASSING

Dr. Richard Traystman of John Hopkins University verifies the truth regarding the condemned’s physical pain during the gassing process. He states, "The person is unquestionably experiencing pain and extreme anxiety. The pain begins immediately and is felt in the arms, shoulders, back and chest. The sensation is similar to the pain felt by a person during a heart attack, where essentially the heart is being deprived of oxygen" (The Gas Chamber, 2005). On the second day of 1983’s ninth month, Jimmy Lee Gray was seated in Mississippi’s gas chamber. After the gas had been released into the chamber for about eight minutes, Jimmy Lee Gray was convulsing so that officials removed the execution witnesses from the observation windows. Jimmy Lee Gray reportedly gasped eleven times and ultimately expired while slamming his head against the steel pole that was behind the chair he was strapped into.

LETHAL INJECTION

If it were only as simple as it is on the movie screen. People being executed via lethal injection are not necessarily in a state of restfulness and serenity as portrayed by Sean Penn’s character in the movie Dead Man Walking. "Although technological features of lethal injection create the appearance of a more humane and efficient form of execution, not all lethal injections occur without a hitch. In some cases, the drugs invoke violent choking, gasping, and writhing - forcing the condemned to squirm grotesquely under the leather straps of the gurney" (Welch, 1996, p. 311)....

And yet again, after reading account after account of "executions-gone-wrong", the class offers a collective, "Yes. Physical cruelty and Unusualness does exist while administering state sanction executions".

It really is this simple. All you need are some decent, published, accredited research examples to draw on. The same way a good product sells itself, the truth about capital punishment will reveal itself.

FOR FURTHER TEACHING - After students have completed their first two years, having earned status as a college junior and having fully understood Deterrence Theory and Physical Cruelty and Unusualness, I feel that they have obtained the logic and critical thing skills needed to move on to more complex topics like Psychological Cruelty and Unusualness, Error / Finality / Irreversibility, Moral / Religious Viewpoints, Financial Costs, Bias in Sentencing, Community Protection, Social Solidarity, and the Revenge Reflex. These more in depth topics, from my experience, should only be addressed in higher level courses designed for junior and senior upperclassmen.

CLASSROOM TEXT USED: 15,543 and Counting by D.L. Carcara

___________

COMMENT by Paul Stephens

Although the above is probably necessary in state-sponsored schools, where teachers are supposed to be "unbiased" and not have any opinions of their own (like American journalists, apparently), a real college or university would consider the political (ethical and legal) issues first. The above approach is apparently designed for students who have no background or training in ethics, morality, or "criminal justice" issues (due to failures in the K-12 systems). And so, it is the last section which is most relevant to political campaigns and judicial activism against the death penalty.

Most of us already knew that the death penalty is "cruel and unusual" and that it doesn't deter anyone from committing capital crimes. So much the better, most advocates for the death penalty would claim. The convicted murderer, rapist, terrorist, traitor, spy, etc. SHOULD suffer anxiety, physical pain, etc. That is what provides the alleged "deterrent!" And since it seems to actually increase the number of murders or other capital crimes, that's more work for the "criminal justice system" and an incentive to put "more police on the streets" and otherwise increase funding for the police state.

I would teach this issue mostly on the basis of two concerns. First, should the State be in the business of executing people, and what sort of example does that provide? Does the State have any RIGHT to execute people? If it does, it is taking on the mantle of God or some other ultimate authority (as would be the case in Islamic Republics), able to rightfully decide issues of life and death for certain people. It seems obvious to me that no State except a totalitarian theocracy can claim any such rights.

Another major issue is subsumed under the "Error/Finality/Irreversibility" argument mentioned above for the advanced classes. The State and any judicial proceedings is subject to all sorts of errors, and our present legal system is largely based on excluding various kinds of evidence or testimony which is essential to rendering an accurate decision. I have discussed this issue often in past Bulletins, a trivial example being when I served on a jury involving a traffic citation, and asked if we could see the police car video camera tape of the incident in order to determine what the facts of the situation had been. Both prosecutor and defense attorney agreed that we jurors should not be allowed to see the tape, and I was reprimanded by the judge for even asking to see it! So much for objective justice.

Most court-room verdicts are a carefully orchestrated charade of highly-paid lawyers who are not allowed to actually determine the facts of the case. This would be "judicial activism." All that they can do is to determine whether or not some particular statute, probably purchased by corporate lobbyists or other "special interest groups" (including opponents of the death penalty), has been violated. The merits of the law itself and the facts of the case are not to be discussed or determined in the courtroom, as they originally were under the English Common Law.

And a surprising number of verdicts are dependent on paid "snitches", who are promised immunity or release from their own sentences in exchange for "informing" on others. No prosecutor or her elected bosses wants to be considered "soft on crime," so there is all sorts of political pressure to over-prosecute, over-sentence, and otherwise pack the judicial system with cases and prisoners. This is why the U.S. locks up anywhere from 5-15 times as many people, per capita, as other democracies, and even more than totalitarian societies like Russia and China. It is one of the most obvious and certain characteristics of a police state, and the end of both individual freedom and the democratic process.

And so, my main argument against the death penalty is that the whole process is flawed, and we don't in fact have a real judicial system at this time. And if we did, the ethical, practical, economic, and all other considerations would clearly indicate that the death penalty is totally incompatible with a free and just society, and belongs only in totalitarian theocracies or other dictatorships. Most progressive Left historians see the re-imposition of the death penalty in Soviet Russia (within a year or two of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution) as the end of real communism, as well as socialism as a political ideal. The same sort of thing had happened earlier in the French Revolution, and the subsequent "reign of terror." Thus, it's not real "progress" or reform if the State must resort to the use of the death penalty, for whatever purpose or reasons.

-- Paul Stephens

____________

Amy Goodman | Felony Disenfranchisement Aids Republicans
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020808T.shtml
Amy Goodman, King Features Syndicate: "Since felony disenfranchisement disproportionately affects African-American and Latino men in the US, and since these groups overwhelmingly vote Democratic, the laws bolster the position of the Republican Party."

The New York Times | A Hopeful Year for Unions
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/020808LA.shtml
The editorial board of The New York Times writes, "By virtually every indicator, 2007 was a dismal year for American workers. Job growth slowed, unemployment jumped and wages lost what little ground they had gained against inflation since 2003. There is one sliver of good news: the percentage of American workers who belong to a union rose for the first time in three decades."

US Labor Leaders to Visit Colombia as Bush Presses for Vote
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/020808LB.shtml
Doug Palmer, Reuters: "US labor leaders opposed to a free trade deal with Colombia will visit that country next week to press for stronger government action to stop killings of trade unionists before Congress votes on the pact."

CDC: Quarter of US Women Suffer Domestic Violence
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/020808WA.shtml
Will Dunham, Reuters: "About a quarter of US women suffer domestic violence, US health officials reported on Thursday, with ongoing health problems that one activist likened to the effects of living in a war zone."

===============

THE MONTANA DEMOCRATIC-NECKTIE PARTY TRADITION - CONTINUED

Judy Wallman, a professional genealogical researcher, discovered that Hillary Clinton's great-great uncle, Remus Rodham, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889.

The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows. On the back of the picture is this inscription: 'Remus Rodham; horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889.'

Judy e-mailed Hillary Clinton for comments. Hillary's staff of professional image adjusters sent back the following biographical sketch:

'Remus Rodham was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory . His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad. Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to service at a government facility, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad. In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honour when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.'

....and THAT is how it's done folks.

/\/\/\/\

FROM GREEN LISTSERVS

FROM SCOTT MCLARTY, GPUS MEDIA COORDINATOR

I'm taking the extraordinary step of reposting a message I sent to this list last week about (1) the importance of down-ticket Green races in the 2008 election and (2) the value & winnability of Green campaigns for state legislatures, especially this year.

What can we do to work up some enthusiasm, support, & funding for Green statehouse and other local & state campaigns? (Hint: The Coordinated Campaign Committee should really be one of most active committees, with the most members.)

Can we get Greens to understand that a bunch of local & state victories will be a huge step forward for the GP? ... and, conversely, that a lack of such wins in 2008 could be a big step backward?

1,000 GREEN CANDIDATES IN 2008!

Scott

In my opinion, the most important races for 2008 might turn out to be neither the presidential nor congressional races.

It's the state legislative races that might be the real key to the growth of the GP.

Our presidential & congressional campaigns might do okay, with 3-5% for our presidential nominees and 10-30% or more for some of our US House & Senate candidates, and maybe even a congressional win somewhere.

On the other hand, we might do really poorly in these races in 2008, with less than 1% for the presidential candidates and less than 4% for our congressional candidates. In 2006, we had some of our best candidates & best campaigns for Congress ever, but we still got low percentages, because the sentiment of voters was that Congress needed to be handed to the Democrats. (The same sentiment didn't apply to gubernatorial races -- Green candidates Rich Whitney & Pat LaMarche got over 10% in Illinois & Maine.)

We need to win some significant races in 2008. If we don't, it'll be a sign to the public that the GP has reached a ceiling or has passed its time, is no longer capable of becoming a major party, and that we're permanently at the level of other stunted-growth third parties.

The state legislative races are the best way for the GP to show that we really are advancing. We have the ability to win statehouse seats, because we've done it before.

If Green candidates win three, four, five, or more seats in state assemblies & state senates
around the US in 2008, it'll be a major GP victory, regardless of how we do in the races for the White House & Congress.

A couple of months ago, Brent McMillan called for ONE THOUSAND GREEN CANDIDATES IN 2008. If lots of these candidates run for state legislature, and ran solid, well-organized, well-funded campaigns, it's very likely that some will get elected.

It's reasonable that Greens tend to get caught up in the excitement & spectacle (& controversy) of the presidential contest every four years. But it'll be really bad for us if we don't have any real victories to announce on the day after Election Day 2008.

Mayoral & city council races are winnable for Greens, too.

It may turn out that the future of the GP has less to do with Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader, et al., and more to do with the 2008 counterparts of John Eder (former state legislator in Maine), Gail McLaughlin (mayor of Richmond, California), and Chuck Turner (council member of Boston).

The national party should set a goal of ten state legislature victories in 2008. If we get even half this number, it'll be a major leap forward for the GP, regardless of what happens at the national level.

Scott

===========

Sam Smith, a longtime Green, is one of the most interesting political commentators around. Here, from The Progressive Review, are some of his thoughts on the 2008 election.

Peace. Richard Walton, RI.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
THE ELECTION IS OVER: WE LOST
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Sam Smith

That's a headline borrowed from a piece I wrote four years ago when John Kerry locked up the Democratic nomination. The lead: "The winner is a supporter of three of the worst government decisions of our time: the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, and the Bush education law."

It's a little different this time. None of the winning candidates will have been members of Skull & Bones and you can argue, as sadly many do, that Barack Obama's initial opposition to the war cancels his later acquiescence. In politics, the best shift is to do wrong initially and then correct it not the other way around.

There is, to be sure, a great difference between the two remaining major Democratic candidates: Obama has integrity, the Clintons do not; only one alleged crook has showed up on the Obama big backer list; with the Clintons they litter the place like packing peanuts on the floor after opening a package.

But while that provides a choice and an important one, there is another that we also need restoring the First American Republic and ending the second robber baron era which is no longer on the table with departure of John Edwards. We are left with corporatized, conservative compromisers who add mightily to the argument that the Democratic Party should be forced to change its name to end the consumer fraud it purveys.

So what do we do about it? Some will stay home on election day, others will support a Nader or a Green, likely Cynthia McKinney. The Democrats will be, as usual, furious that a certain number of voters still believe we live in a democracy and choose someone other than those assigned to them by the DNC. While Ralph Nader may make what seems to some the wrong political decision, it is a sign of the corrupt, cynical nature of our times to look into the face of moral integrity and dismiss it as an act of ego.

Even from a tactical standpoint, it is no worse than a Democratic Party that has known for eight years that it was unraveling and failed to do anything for progressives and Greens except to insult them. These folks deserve to be treated at least as well as soccer moms or a hedge fund traders, but instead they are ridiculed and scolded and then the party wonders why they don't get their vote.

So whatever happens, don't blame Nader or McKinney. It is absolutely inconceivable that one could have a party doing as poorly as the Democrats and not have a visible and active opposition.

People, including many of my friends, will take markedly different approaches to the dilemma. Some will place priority on personal witness i.e. the Nader or Green approach and some will take a more pragmatic course. My own view is that politics is inherently more of a pragmatic than a moral matter and that, besides, even if you have the most righteous cause, espousing it in the middle lane of Route 95 at rush hour may not be the best way to go about it. I have long considered myself a backyard Green, believing that history clearly shows the strength of such parties is in their local organizing and not in those all too rare chances to make an impact in a national election.

Far more important, though, is an approach to the next few years no matter who wins and what part one plays in the election. One of the biggest problems for progressives has long been the lack of an easily identifiable agenda. A new movement could be launched the day after the election. A broad coalition of groups and individuals could declare itself the real opposition to whoever ends up in the White House. Even those who work hard for the Democrat could make clear their commitment ends with the closing of the polls, after which they will join in the revival of the American republic.

The only ground rule between now and then should be that no one is allowed to argue over election strategy.

The morning after the election, a news conference could be held declaring the new movement and announcing a national conference at which delegates would select a handful of issues to guide the movement.

Two unusual rules could prevent this from turning into the sort of internecine blood bath that progressives seem to love. The first would be that the only issues discussed would be those about which there was a reasonable opportunity of agreement. The second would be that agreement would not be expressed by majority vote but by some form of census.

This is not a fantasy. One of the steps taken that led to the creation of the national Green Party - out of state groups and factions that had plenty of differences with each other - was a national conference attended by 125 members of over 20 third parties ranging from the socialists and one of the last members of the American Labor Party to Greens, Libertarians and members of Perot's Reform party. At the end of the weekend we had full consensus on 17 issues and a high degree of agreement on others. Even some of us who had organized the conference were stunned.

Great movements are not created by arguing over Roberts Rules of Order, by winning narrow parliamentary victories by dubious means against natural allies, by publicly scolding those who don't agree with you and by excoriating those whose view of virtue diverges from your own. They are created by the realization that there is something far greater that we all dream about and that we can only turn the dream into reality by compromising, sharing and talking honestly with others - recognizing that that each of us will be more powerful by marching with these others than if we continue to walk alone. And November 4 is only nine months away.

"The only way out of our crisis (terrorism) is to reduce the anger of the most rational, thus also reducing the constituency of the least rational." Sam Smith.

"When they come for the innocent without crossing over your body, cursed be your religion and your life." Anon. But often quoted by Dorothy Day.

==============

Montana Green Bulletin 4 Feb 2008

2008-02-17T22:42:00.005-08:00

Montana Green Bulletin

February 4, 2008 Volume VII, Number 6

A PROJECT OF THE CASCOGREENS

Paul Stephens, Editor and Publisher 406.216.2711 greateco@3rivers.net

THIS BULLETIN IS NOT AN OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF ANY GREEN PARTY (see disclaimers and selected resources at end)

Much of the content of this Bulletin is now being posted at http://greateco.blogspot.com/

and http://www.myspace.com/greateco

Table of Contents:

UPCOMING AND ONGOING EVENTS

Conservation Council meets Thursdays at noon, Penny's Gourmet to Go, 815 Central Avenue (New location!!)

ENDGAME; Planning for the American Holocaust now underway

Rule by Fear or Rule by Law?
by Lewis Seiler and Dan Hamburg, SF Chronicle
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/04/6824/

No New Coal Plants vs. "Big Green" - the Final Conflict?

Stopping Coal in Its Tracks - Loosely affiliated activists draw a hard line -- and hold it by Ted Nace
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/506
FROM DEMOCRACY NOW!:
"The Myth of a Maverick": Matt Welch on GOP Frontrunner John McCain
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/4/the_myth_of_a_maverick
Former Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney Seeks Presidency as Green Party Nominee
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/4/former_democratic_rep_cynthia

FROM CYNTHIA MCKINNEY: "Something for Which to Vote" MLK, Jr. Day 2008"

The idea of a Black president
Mumia Abu-Jamal Wednesday, 09 January 2008
http://www.sfbayview.com/News/Editorial/The_idea_of_a_Black_president.html

Peace movement collapses - Interview with Daniel Brezenoff, former California Green congressional candidate
Uprising, KPFK http://uprisingradio.org/home/?p=2308

ILLINOIS GREEN PARTY WELCOMES PROGRESSIVES AND POPULISTS TO
PARTICIPATE IN HISTORIC GREEN PRIMARY

GREEN SOLUTIONS by Paul Stephens, CasCoGreens

Is this the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning?

METIS HISTORY

What happened to Sacagawea’s children?

http://www.lewisandclarktravel.com/

COAL AND ENERGY ISSUES

Is the Air Force synfuels plant a good idea? - by Paul Stephens, CasCoGreens

FROM GREEN LISTSERVS

Martin Zehr on energy policy

Comment by Morgan D'Arc

FROM ORION MAGAZINE

Stopping Coal in Its Tracks - Loosely affiliated activists draw a hard line -- and hold it - by Ted Nace
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/506

FROM MONTANA ENERGY LISTS

Wind farm proposed in central Mont.; state hopes more to come http://www.heraldextra.com/component/option,com_contentwire/task,view/id,11820/Itemid,53/ By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press Writer, with comments from Russ Doty, Wilbur Wood, and Ben Brouwer of AERO

THE KACZYNSKI LEGACY

Interview with Ted Kaczynski http://www.primitivism.com/kaczynski.htm

FROM THEWIP.NET

According to Harold Bloom, "What we are seeing is…the fall of America" --by Eva Sohlman - Sweden -http://www.thewip.net/contributors/2008/01/according_to_harold_bloom_what.html

MEDICINE Genetic Fairness legislation pending http://www.geneticfairness.org/action_alert5.html

DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE http://dpa.convio.net/

POLITICS

Are you ready for the American Revolutionary Party? http://www.americanrevolutionaryparty.us/index.htm

A NOTE ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION

WEBSITES AND OTHER RESOURCES

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE GREENS SUPPORT:

HEALTH CARE DOLLARS FOR HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS -- NOT INSURANCE COMPANIES AND CORPORATE PROFITS

STOP THE WARS! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW! WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION ARE NOT A LOCAL GROWTH INDUSTRY!

COAL USE MUST BE MINIMIZED, NOT MAXIMIZED: GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL! http://www.ipcc.ch/

END CORPORATE DOMINATION AND PREDATION: CORPORATIONS AREN'T PEOPLE, AND THEY DON'T HAVE "PROPERTY" OR OTHER RIGHTS! http://reclaimdemocracy.org/

For an introduction to Green Party philosophy and programs, go to http://www.gp.org/welcome.shtml

You can join the Montana Green Party at the NEW MONTANA GREEN PARTY WEBSITE!! http://www.mtgreens.org

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

UPCOMING AND ONGOING EVENTS

Do you support the Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement?

Some local municipalities get it on the climate crisis and have been working to meet these objectives. There are now over 500 city, town and county governments representing over 50 million people that have signed onto the Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement, As explained on the website of Greg Nickels, the Seattle mayor who initiated this effort over two years ago.... [Billings and Missoula are already signed on to this. Tell your mayor to sign on, too!]

________________

GF Conservation Council

************************************
NEW MEETING PLACE: Penny's Gourmet (Central Avenue between 8th and 9th), Thursday's at noon.
******************************************

2/7/2008 - John Stephenson, "Review McKinsey Report - Greenhouse Gas Emissions: How Much at What Cost?" Note: John's son Jack was a team leader on this project which has received attention from the major newspapers and is now being studied by some members of Congress.
==============
FROM STEVE KELLY

This is what having a two-winged War Party and two-family government will get you:

There were only two Dems and Bernie Sanders standing up against giving Bush and his Pentagon almost 700 billion taxpayers dollars. The major Dem presidential candidates weren't there for the 91-3 vote.

The three were:
Byrd (D-WV)
Feingold (D-WI)
Sanders (I-VT)
----------------------------------------------
Not Voting - 6 :Clinton (D-NY)McCain (R-AZ) Menendez (D-NJ)Obama (D-IL) Thune (R-SD)
Warner (R-VA)

===============

TAPS - Taking Action for Peaceful Solutions - Butte
DOCUMENTARIES AT TECH -- Please call if you are in doubt as to how to find the
ELC building. Everyone's invited. Free will donations appreciated.
===========================
'BIG EASY TO BIG EMPTY' plus 3 Palast short films Tuesday Feb. 5 (Mardi Gras) documentaries at Tech

Butte's peace groups present two films by journalist Greg Palast on Tuesday February 5. "Big Easy to Big Empty: The Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans" is a fitting choice for Tuesday which is Mardi Gras, the date of traditional celebrations in New Orleans before Lent begins. It will be followed by a second film of three BBC reports on Latin America by Palast.

"Big Easy" is a 2006 documentary on New Orleans years after hurricane Katrina. During its filming, Greg Palast and his producer were charged with criminal violations of anti-terror laws by the Department of Homeland Security. The film shows why the Bush administration pressed those charges.

Tuesday's second feature consists of three BBCNewsnight reports that Palast filed from Venezuela, Ecuador and Mexico. One focuses on the near-assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Palast gives reasons why the US is working to remove Chavez from power. The Ecuador episode tells how "Big Oil" and the International Monetary Fund planned a financial coup. The third Palast BBC report tells why many consider the last Mexican presidential election to have been stolen.

This semester the films are shown in Room 203 of the ELC Building on the Montana Tech campus at 7 pm. The Engineering/Laboratory Classroom Building is between Park and Granite Streets, just north of (behind) of the Tech Library and the Mining Geology Building . Parking is available in the Library lot and another just to the east of the ELC. For information call 723-3851.
=============================
"INCIDENT IN I CORPS" is TUESDAY FEB. 12 DOCUMENTARY
Filmmaker Paul Edwards of Helena will come to Butte in a personal appearance to present his Vietnam War film to our audience as part of the ongoing Citizens Education Project of the Montana Tech Peace Seekers Club with TAPS and Sacred Ground. Paul Edwards was the director of Bobby Kennedy's personal film crew in 1968. He worked in Vietnam for nearly three years from 1965-67 and came to know the country and the war in depth and detail. He was a screen and TV writer for 30 years, starting with Gunsmoke in 1970 and ending up doing "Tecumseh", one of the badly botched Indian series that Turner made and wrote 40 movies in between. He is presently Chair of the Progressive Democrats of Montana and was Dennis Kucinich's Montana campaign manager both in 2004 and again this year.
=============================
"UNCOUNTED" film and national teleconference WEDNESDAY FEB. 13
"Did you think the 2000 election was stolen? And that maybe something was wrong in 2004 as well? Are you wondering what effect election fraud had in 2006? Do you want to know what really happened and how it'll affect this year's election?"
PLEASE RSVP !!! Click on this link or else paste it into your browser. (Democracy for America provides the film free of charge if a certain number of people are registered to attend.)

=============================
Excellent overview from Davos Economic Summit last week...
THE GLOBAL BATTLE FOR FOOD, OIL AND WATER
By Gideon Rachman Financial Times January 312, 2008

=============================
Read this week's newsletter from the Jeanette Rankin Peace Center in Missoula

=============

Montana Higher Education -- The Bitter Truth

Ever since I was in high school, Montana education leaders have been telling us how great our colleges and universities are. UM Missoula, for example, was long touted as having more Rhodes Scholars than almost any other public university in the United States (as if there were any merit in that! They could advertise themselves as "Leaders in the Reduction of Africa and Global Imperialism"). And MSU Bozeman has a similar, self-created reputation for engineering and scientific education excellence. Carroll College and the College of Great Falls (now University of Great Falls) have often been rated highly among small, liberal arts colleges for value and price - especially in the US News and World Report surveys. But they are Catholic institutions subsidized by the Church to carry on a number of other missions and purposes.

The UCLA Alumni newsletter recently announced that UCLA was considered 10th best in the nation in a Kiplinger analysis of the "100 best colleges and universities", based on value and price comparisons. (Schools like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford are there, too, mainly because of their lavish financial aid packages - the "list price" for these schools is upwards of $40,000/year). http://www.kiplinger.com/magazine/archives/2008/01/best-value-colleges-2008.html

So, how did Montana colleges and universities stack up? None of them were listed in the Kiplinger survey. And, according to recent studies of "peer institutions" in neighboring states, Montana's state universities are facing declining enrollments, lower than average faculty salaries, much higher tuition charges, and much less financial aid and accessibility for lower income and minority students. There have also been scandals about Montana university system chancellors or presidents being lavishly paid off with board seats and other percs from leading resource and other exploitative corporations. And that is why Montana's best and brightest high school students have long been going out of state - often by moving to low tuition states and working there for a year in order to qualify for their in-state tuition rates. That is essentially what I did to go to UCLA - a much less popular and prestigious school, then, than it is, today. Their basketball dynasty was just beginning when I transferred there in 1966, and now they hold the record for NCAA championships for all sports, - nearly a hundred of them. I never attended a basketball game when I was there - I was in Kareem Abdul Jabbar's class, though, and I knew who he was. If I had gone to a game, I'm sure they would have lost. --PHS

================

Introducing...

A New Magazine: The New West

Driving past most any Western city these days is a little like watching those time-lapse films back in grade school. Empty fields become bulldozed lots become framed houses become finished homes with trucks in the driveway and new grass in the yard.

It’s a time of dramatic change in the Mountain West. And I’m excited to say that we at NewWest.Net are now launching a quarterly print magazine to help us tell the big story of growth and change in the region.

The best way to check out our magazine is to subscribe. We want to know who’s interested in The New West, so we have made the magazine available free to qualified subscribers who answer a short questionnaire.

Click here for the questionnaire for a free subscription .

You can also subscribe for $9.95 a year by clicking here.

============

ENDGAME

Rule by Fear or Rule by Law?
by Lewis Seiler and Dan Hamburg
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/04/6824/
[This essay will appear in the February 4 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle.]

"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."
-- Winston Churchill, November 21, 1943

Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the US government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and non-citizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse.

Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."1 The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.2

According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists."3

Fraud-busters like Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles) have complained about these contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars shouldn't go taxpayer-gouging Halliburton.4 But the real question is: what kind of "new programs" require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the Union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people? According to whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, "Almost certainly this is preparation for a roundup after the next 9/11 for Middle Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters."5

read more>> http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/04/6824/

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No New Coal Plants vs. "Big Green" - the Final Conflict?

"The contrast between No New Coal Plants and Big Coal is obvious, but the contrast between such low-profile, leaderless entities and the large national groups typically identified with the environmental movement is equally striking. The largest of these groups, sometimes known as "Big Green" [disclaimer: this has nothing to do with the Green Party, its platform or agenda] include the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense, and the National Wildlife Federation. Typically based in Washington DC or New York and sporting annual budgets in the tens of millions of dollars, these groups, not unlike the corporate and governmental entities they oppose, are hierarchical, highly organized, and reliant on trained and seasoned attorneys, scientific experts, and lobbyists. Yet the "Twigs," as some small-scale activists have taken to calling themselves in a pointed distinction from "Big Green," have lately taken more militant positions and have, in many cases, been more effective in stopping new coal-fired power plants."

FROM Stopping Coal in Its Tracks - Loosely affiliated activists draw a hard line -- and hold it by Ted Nace
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/506
most of this article is reprinted in this Bulletin along with other discussion of the proposed Air Force synfuels plant and wind power projects in Montana
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FROM DEMOCRACY NOW!:
"The Myth of a Maverick": Matt Welch on GOP Frontrunner John McCain
Ahead of Super Tuesday, Senator John McCain is leading Republican polls, a significant comeback for a campaign that appeared expired just six months ago. We speak to Reason Magazine editor Matt Welch, author of "McCain: The Myth of a Maverick."
Listen/Watch/Read

Former Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney Seeks Presidency as Green Party Nominee
McKinney is among the most outspoken critics of the Bush administration and one of her last measures in office was to introduce a bill for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. She joins to talk about her new campaign and why she left the Democratic Party after more than a decade in public office.
Listen/Watch/Read

===============

FROM GREEN LISTSERVS

From Cynthia McKinney: "Something for Which to Vote" MLK, Jr. Day 2008"

"We cannot be satisfied so long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and the Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. August 28, 1963

Dear Friend,

Are you:
* Incredulous at the fact that two Presidential elections were stolen and no one was held accountable?
* Disappointed that, as a result, our country is at war, involved in torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace?
* Concerned, especially in light of New Hampshire, that your vote might not be counted in November and that the will of the voters will be thwarted yet again with election fraud or outright theft?
* Disquieted that the use of electronic voting machines, coupled with laws that restrict public access to election data "owned" by voting machine companies, might thwart your ability to verify election results if they are in question?

As acknowledged in the documentary American Blackout, I worked with investigative journalist Greg Palast and conducted my own Congressional investigation into election theft in Florida and across our country in the Presidential election of 2000. Those proceedings documented the role of Data Base Technologies, now a part of ChoicePoint, and election officials in Florida, in illegally "scrubbing" the voter rolls.

In 2001, with Al Gore presiding, I objected to the seating of the Florida electors. Not one Senator objected and so there was no discussion and no debate in the Congress about what happened in Florida and across our country in the 2000 Presidential election during the seating of the Electoral College. The same pattern of fraud and theft was planned and executed in the 2004 Presidential election. But this time, not relying on any political party, the people themselves demanded and funded an investigation into what happened in Ohio. More and more information comes to us about how the will of voters in Ohio was deliberately suppressed to produce a desired outcome.

This effort at discovering the truth of Ohio was led by independents, Libertarians, and the Green Party because the Democrats had already conceded the election.

In my own 2006 Congressional election, Georgia courts have ruled that the electronic election data cannot be made public because they belong to Diebold. The matter is going to be appealed all the way to the Georgia Supreme Court, but isn't that a shame? In my election night speech I declared electronic voting machines a clear and present danger to our Republic.

I want to keep election protection and a radical common sense approach to issues on the table. As the candidates with populist appeal, but without their party's support, are being pushed to the margins, I want to make sure that the election results are truly a reflection of the will of the voters. That will only happen if there is another voice raising critical issues.

Are you also:
* Waiting to hear the leading Presidential contenders say that it's past time to repeal the Patriot Acts, the Secret Evidence Act, the Bush tax cuts, the Military Tribunals Act, bring our troops home now, and institute a livable wage?
* Infuriated that 48 million of our neighbors have no access to health care while those of us with insurance have our claims too often denied?
* Ready to have the Parties' solutions to the shrinking dollar and the ballooning national debt explained, especially in light of rising food prices and unemployment?
*Tired of the belligerent talk being directed at Iran and Pakistan and ready for our country to become a leader in pursuit of peace? And finally, are you also
*Afraid that the issues you really care about won't get addressed in this election season and therefore the likelihood of them being addressed by the incumbent is almost nil?

I have traveled across our country to almost half its states. I have met too many people disillusioned by their fears that their issues won't be addressed in this campaign season. I've met many people who want to participate, but who long ago figured out that the system was rigged against the interests of working families and so, dropped out, but who want to have hope that our country can be delivered from its current morass.

Too many are feeling that they have nothing for which to vote, that their votes won't count, even worse, they might not even be counted. To them, I suggest looking another way. As I have done. On March 17th of 2007, I declared my independence from national leadership that deepens the slough in which our country finds itself today. That leadership has enabled our country to throw away traditional American values of justice, and peace, and freedom.

I have now become a member of the Green Party and am seeking its Presidential nomination.

I'm encouraging the people I've met to join me and do some things we've never done before in order to have some things we've never had before. I hope you will lend your support so we can press for election integrity and put real solutions to the problems faced by real people on the table in real talk that we all can understand.

This election in November is critical. The future of our country and the content of the current debate can be influenced by us. Please help me create the political space for real issues to stay on the table. I know you support the truth. I know you want to help the American people know the truth.

Please visit to review my record. Please
visit to donate to this effort.

Please take the time to view two youtube offerings:
and

After viewing these films, I hope you will agree that our work deserves your support. The time is too precarious, the issues too important, our futures too much at risk for us to lose any more critical voices on important issues.

Thank you again for your support of truth. I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

Cynthia McKinney

P.S. You can mail your donation by U.S. Postal Service to:

Power to the People Committee
Cynthia McKinney for President
P.O. Box 311759
Atlanta, GA 31131-1759

Please complete and include in your mail our contribution form to help us comply with federal election reporting requirements:

Please note: Campaign Contributions are not tax-deductible. Corporate contributions are not permitted. Only U.S. residents and citizens aged 17 or older may make contributions to federal elections.
--
"It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral." General Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Press Club, February 17, 2006

"My brother need not be idealized . . . beyond what he was in life. To be remembered simply as a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Eulogy of Bobby Kennedy by Teddy Kennedy, June 18, 1968

"Certain material weaknesses in financial reporting and other limitations on the scope of our work resulted in conditions that, for the 10th consecutive year, prevented us from expressing an opinion on the federal government's consolidated financial statements." David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, December 15, 2006

=============

The idea of a Black president
Mumia Abu-Jamal Wednesday, 09 January 2008

Image The revolutionary first Black president in the Americas, Vicente Guerrero of Mexico

For much of the U.S. populace, the very idea of a Black president is one so new, so novel, that it forces many people to think of it as if it is barely possible - as if it is the stuff of fiction, not fact. Fiction has indeed been the realm of this idea, as in movies and television series, actors have played the part; but that, of course, is on TV.

Of course, time will tell if that is more than imagination, but for millions of people who share this vast land space we call North America, the idea is neither new nor ground-breaking. That's because there are some 100 million people living in Mexico, and that country had a Black president, albeit briefly, some 173 years ago.

It was during their war for independence from Spain when a warrior emerged, a Black Indian named Vicente Guerrero. In his first battle, he was commissioned a captain. As the independence war raged on, many of the leading revolutionaries were either killed or captured. Guerrero fought on, leading some 2,000 men into the Sierra Madre mountains to continue the fight.

By 1821, the Mexicans were prevailing over the Spanish, and Guerrero was hailed as an incorruptible independence fighter. In 1829 he became president of Mexico, and as scholar William Loren Katz writes in his 1986 book, "Black Indians":

"He began a program of far-reaching reforms, abolishing the death penalty and starting construction of schools and libraries for the poor. He ended slavery in Mexico. Yet, because of his skin color, lack of education and country manner, he was held in contempt by the upper classes in Mexico City."

This president, who had, according to U.S. historian M.H. Bancroft, "a gentleness and magnetism that inspired love among his adherents," was still "a triple-blooded outsider."

Black historian J.A. Rogers summarized Guerrero's striking accomplishments by calling him "the George Washington and Abraham Lincoln of Mexico" (page 48). Guerrero, who in his youth was an illiterate mule driver, once bitten by the bug of Mexican independence, rose to the highest office in the land.

He learned to read when he was about 40 and helped craft the Mexican Constitution, of which he wrote the following provision: "All inhabitants whether white, African or Indian, are qualified to hold office." He wrote this in 1824, over 30 years before the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous Dred Scott decision, which announced, emphatically, that "a Black man has no rights that a white man is bound to respect," and that Black people weren't, and could never be, citizens of the United States.

In that era of revolution and social transformation, a Black man became president of the second largest country in North America. Today, 178 years later, we still wonder if such a thing is possible. What does that say about the United States?

Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal. Read Mumia's latest book, "We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party," winner of the 2005 People's Choice Award, available from South End Press, or (800) 533-8478. Keep
updated by reading Action Alerts at and . To download Mp3s of Mumia's commentaries, visit
or .
Encourage the media to publish and broadcast Mumia's commentaries to inspire progressive movement and help call attention to his case. Send our brotha some love and light at: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI-Greene, 175 Progress Dr., Waynesburg PA 15370.
========================

PEACE MOVEMENT COLLAPSES AS BOTH MAJOR PARTIES SUPPORT PERPETUAL AND EXPANDED WARFARE IN SOUTHWEST ASIA

Audio of KPFK interview with Daniel Brezenoff on retreat of antiwar groups

"Greens bemoan retreat of anti-war groups"

Interview with Daniel Brezenoff, former California Green congressional candidate

Uprising, KPFK (Pacifica station in Los Angeles), January 29, 2008
Listen:
__________________

ILLINOIS GREEN PARTY WELCOMES PROGRESSIVES AND POPULISTS TO
PARTICIPATE IN HISTORIC GREEN PRIMARY

With the recent departures of former Sen. John Edwards and Rep. Dennis Kucinich and other candidates, the Illinois Green Party called on progressives and populists abandoned by the Democratic and Republican Parties to consider voting Green in Tuesday's elections, the first statewide Green Party primary in Illinois history.

""Illinois voters who have been supporting Kucinich and Edwards will likely find the Green presidential candidates appealing," said Phil Huckelberry, national Green Party Co-Chair. "All of our presidential candidates staunchly oppose the occupation of Iraq and would bring our troops home now. Green candidates also support single-payer universal healthcare, a living wage, and other efforts to alleviate poverty.

To supporters of the Republican Rep. Ron Paul, the Green Party is the last best hope of bringing about a swift end to the disastrous Iraq occupation and restoring the civil liberties that have been eroded in the past several years through policies like the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens and torture of so-called enemy combatants -- just to name a few.

"Our refusal to accept contributions from corporations and opposition to their consolidation of political power speaks to our genuine concern for the people in America and across the world," said Charlie Howe, a local McKinney campaign organizer and candidate for state representative (115th district).

Green Party presidential candidates on the Illinois ballot are:

KENT MESPLAY - Air Quality Inspector at the Air Pollution Control District, San Diego, and also a Substitute Teacher; registered Green since 1995 in California, a delegate to the Green National Committee since 2004, and served as the President of Turtle Island Institute.

HOWIE HAWKINS (RALPH NADER) - Co-Founder of the US Green Party, a Green activist and past U.S. Senate candidate from Syracuse, New York, and a Co-Chair of the Draft Nader Committee has consented to serve as a "placeholder" candidate until Ralph Nader, longtime consumer rights activist and Green presidential nominee in 2000, who has recently announced his presidential exploratory committee. If Nader does declare for the Green nomination, Hawkins will pledge his delegates to support Nader at the convention.

CYNTHIA MCKINNEY - First African-American Congresswoman from Georgia, she served in Congress from 1993-2003 and 2005-2007. She has been an advocate for Hurricane Katrina victims and voters disenfranchised in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

JARED BALL - Assistant Professor of Communications Studies at Morgan State University, an independent journalist, radio host with Pacifica Radio Washington, DC, the Editor-at-Large of Words, Beats and Life Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture, and a Desert Shield / Desert Storm Navy veteran. Jared Ball has recently withdrawn his candidacy and has endorsed Cynthia McKinney.

Primary voters may also see the names of Green candidates for Congress, state representative, county offices, even precinct committeeperson offices in record numbers -- a direct result of lower ballot access requirements earned in the 2006 election, when Rich Whitney received 10% of the popular vote to "establish" the party.

"The message voters sent in 2006 was very clear: It's time to change the two-party system," said Howe. "Asking for a Green Party ballot on Feb. 5 is the best way to begin."

/\/\/\/\/\

GREEN SOLUTIONS by Paul Stephens, CasCoGreens

Is this the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning?

I must say that with all my work for, with, or because of the Green Party, I have become very depressed. It really seems like the more we do, the less progress we are making. The Democrats and Republicans have already effectively purged their candidate ranks down to two each - earlier in this election cycle than ever before, eliminating Kucinich, Edwards, Richardson, Ron Paul, and other anti-war and pro-freedom and justice candidates. As I write this on February 1 (in prior election cycles, there had been no primaries and almost no campaigning by this date), the primary season madness is already beginning to subside. The powers that be have already narrowed the field down to four safe, corporate, non-controversial candidates who only promise us more of the same. The fact that one of them is black and one a woman (and both of those Democrats) gives the appearance that there is something different this time. But as those who read this Bulletin and its sources know, it is nothing of the kind. And that is why Cynthia McKinney and other Green presidential candidates are so important for 2008.

The Nader candidacies in 1996 and 2000 led many of us to believe that, if nothing else, the major parties' candidates would now have to address the major issues and answer some of the questions which Ralph Nader had been raising since the 1960's. And in 2004, the Green Party seemed finally to have matured, with a "home-grown" presidential candidate who was an experienced organizer, speaker, and political operative - a veteran of both the Jerry Brown and Jesse Jackson campaigns, as well as being General Counsel and major strategist for the Green Party in 2000. Plus, Ralph Nader was running again in 2004, this time as an independent. So whatever negative baggage for the Greens remained from his 2000 run (where most Democrats, at least, believe that he "spoiled" Al Gore's election) would not attach to David Cobb or other Green Party campaigns.

We knew at the time (and it has since been conclusively proven) that Florida and other jurisdictions were actually stolen by Republican operatives, as well as the fact that very few Nader voters would have voted for Gore in any case. And they certainly wouldn't have voted for Kerry in 2004, who as a Senator voted for the Patriot Act and "war on terror" (and even supported expanding it - the "surge" before Bush and the Neocons even thought of it!) As a consequence, the Democrat Party has continued to wage what can only be called a coordinated war of extermination against the Greens - renouncing peace, environmental sustainability, social justice, and even such venerable traditions as public health, free universal education, and the rest of the social safety net. Instead of becoming more socialistic and public-spirited as a result of the Green challenge, nearly all Democrat candidates and officials have stampeded to the Right, in many cases actually taking positions far to the right of moderate Republicans from only a decade or two ago.

This should have been a boon to the Green Party and its political opportunities in 2004 and 2008. Nader and Cobb both held as a primary goal the idea of "growing the party." Nader said in 2000 that we could effectively compete with the Democrats and Republicans (and even win the Presidency) if 1 million people would contribute $100 and 100 hours of their time to Green campaigns. Although some 3 million people did vote for Nader in 2000, the campaign contributions and volunteer hours fell far short of what was needed.

And, of course, the game was rigged from the start. Nader was not allowed to participate in the debates. Had he done so, he believed that he would have gotten 20% or more of the vote. In fact, he was forcibly prevented (by Massachusetts Democrats) from even entering the hall where the debates were being held - even though he had press credentials and an invitation to be there. I've since visited Forbes Hall (named for one of John Kerry's ancestors) on the UMass Boston campus, and it is literally a stone's throw from the John F. Kennedy Library and museum. So much for Camelot. So much for the promise of peace and freedom. [And so much for the Patriot's hope of an undefeated season. I spent the first Patriot's Superbowl victory game in 2002 at Jordan Hall of the New England Conservatory of Music, at a 100th birthday celebration featuring the work of Sir William Walton. I spent yesterday's Superbowl in a variety of local bars and casinos where virtually everyone was cheering for the Giants. Such are the Winds of Change.]

But whatever the crimes and conspiracies of the major parties, we Greens have learned that we can't blame others for our own failures. The American people have lost all interest in good government, fairness, justice, and the other pre-requisites for a free, egalitarian, and sustainable society. A spirit of defeatism and the sense that our nation and civilization is terminal prevails. Many of the Green Party organizers and activists proved to have been eternally wedded to the Democrat Party (if not more radical authoritarian statist or totalitarian ideologies). They saw us as a bunch of naive idealists, who could be manipulated to punish rival factions with electoral defeat. They had no interest in "growing the party," but like some Republicans, cynically supported the Greens in order to get back at the DLC, DNC, organized labor, or other factions and organized interests who had rejected them. The Green Party was portrayed as a futile "protest party," incapable of winning elections or actually carrying on "the business of government." And so it continues, today.

Millions of people who might have voted for the devil himself rather than another Bush or Clinton were convinced by media brainwashing that they would be "wasting their vote" by voting Green, Libertarian, or otherwise in accordance with their real beliefs and values. And they believe that still.

Let's hope that Cynthia McKinney or whomever ends up being the Green Presidential candidate can do a little better. I have been supporting McKinney precisely because she is a fighter, and will never compromise or pander to the two party establishment. She has been burned by them too many times in the past. More importantly, she has won elections and served several terms in Congress. If it were up to me, the Green Party wouldn't even be running candidates for President of the United States at this point - and certainly not people who have never won an election or served in Washington.

We need to have Green Senators, Representatives, and probably even a Governor or two before we can demonstrate we're ready for the White House. And that is the main reason I support McKinney even over Nader (who is dancing on the outskirts of the Green Party, and still refuses even to call himself a Green). She has already received a majority of the votes for an important office - something which no other Green presidential candidate can claim. And so, she is by definition "electable" and up to the job. Her qualifications and experience are the same as Abraham Lincoln's were in 1860 (and also resemble his in that he changed parties before being elected President).

Let's hope she does as well. And in the meantime, we must focus on building the party and local, state, and regional Green Parties. The West has been the region most receptive to the Green message, but Illinois as well California - two of the largest states in terms of population - is also doing well. It may seem ironic that both Hillary Rodham and Barack Obama hail from Illinois, but so did Abraham Lincoln. I keep wondering where the Jeanette Rankin's and Burton K. Wheeler's may be hiding out. We had some major players from Montana in the 20th century, and both of them were far closer to modern Greens than they would be to today's Republicans or Democrats.

For this century, it's probably the Native American heritage we should be relying on the most. And if there ever is a Native American president, he or she could very well be from Montana. Winona La Duke, a Metis of both Ojibwa and Jewish heritage, is certainly the prototype for that. I've just recently learned that the White Earth band she belongs to in Minnesota is closely related to the Little Shell Tribe of Montana, centered in Great Falls. When I worked in the Nader-LaDuke campaign in 2000, my perception was that probably half or more of the 25000 Montanans who voted Green were Native Americans. Yet, the national Green Party did very little to publicize and support LaDuke's campaign.

This is an issue we must emphasize much more strongly in the future. And large percentages of both Black and Latino Americans also have Native American ancestors. The Green Party has always emphasized its connections with indigenous peoples and their values. As racist, imperialist, capitalistic, militaristic governments and institutions continue to self-destruct, we will be there to replace them. In the meantime, it is our mission to preserve whatever we can from the forces of global destruction. -- Paul Stephens

/\/\/\/\/\

METIS HISTORY

What happened to Sacagawea’s children?

http://www.lewisandclarktravel.com/

"The court appoints William Clark Guardian to the infant children of Toussaint Charbonneau deceased, to wit, Toussaint Charbonneau a boy about the age of ten years old and Lisette Charbonneau a girl about one year old." --Orphans Court record, St Louis, August 11, 1813

The earliest probate court records of St. Louis were discovered in an old safe at the courthouse last fall, containing guardianship proceedings regarding Sacagawea’s children.The story made the Fox News broadcast in St Louis on January 21, 2008. The record, shown here, is of an Orphans Court hearing held on August 11, 1813. William Clark’s name is added to the document, substituted for the name of the original guardian, John Luttig, who was the company clerk of the Missouri Fur Company.

What’s the story behind this? Lewis and Clark fans know that Toussaint, also known by his nickname "Pompey," or as Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, was born on February 11, 1805 at Fort Mandan near Bismarck, North Dakota. This would make him 8 ½ years old. However, William Clark was not in St Louis at the time the hearing was held. He would have known the precise age of his adopted son, who was already living in St Louis and attending a boarding school. The father, Toussaint Charbonneau, Sr. was also not "deceased" though he was believed to be so at the time. He lived until about 1840.

Toussaint and Sacagawea and their son Pompey came to St. Louis in 1809 with Manuel Lisa and Pierre Chouteau, who had successfully delivered the Mandan Chief, Sheheke, or Big White, back to his village in North Dakota where the Charbonneau family was living. William Clark had requested they bring Pompey to St Louis where he would provide for his education when he was old enough to go to school. The Charbonneau family lived in Florissant, the town next to St Charles, for a year or more before returning home. They went back up river with Manuel Lisa in 1811, leaving their six year old son in William’s Clark’s care.

Sacagawea’s Death at Fort Manuel in 1812

Sacagawea died on Fort Manuel in Kenel, South Dakota on December 20, 1812. The Orphan Court record confirms that it was Sacagawea, rather than Charbonneau’s other Shoshone wife, who died at Fort Manuel. John Luttig wrote in his journal on Sunday, December 20, 1812: "this evening the wife of Charbonneau a Snake Squar, died of a putrid fever, she was a good and the best Women in the fort, aged abt 25 years she left a fine infant girl."

The little baby girl, Lisette, and an Indian woman to care for her, must have been brought down to St Louis by Lisa’s men as they retreated back to St Louis after Fort Manuel was attacked by Indians allies of the British during the War of 1812. The attack occurred sometime after March 5, 1813, the last date of entry in Luttig’s Journal. According to Richard Oglesby’s biography of Manuel Lisa, fifteen men of the Missouri Fur Company died in the attack. Was Lisette named for Manuel Lisa? It’s a possibility.

Luttig’s Journal of a Fur Trading Expedition 1812-13 is very interesting to read. The 1920 version is available on the internet. Here’s the link:

The Missouri Fur Company expedition retreated down river to St Louis, stopping to build Fort Lisa near the site of Council Bluffs, where Fort Atkinson was later built, north of Omaha, Nebraska. Fort Lisa became the westernmost fort defending the American frontier during the War of 1812. Lisa returned and made his headquarters there in 1814, appointed as a special Indian Agent by William Clark.

I published a booklet, Defending the Western Frontier: Manuel Lisa and the War of 1812 in the Omaha-Council Bluffs Area, based on a paper I gave at the Missouri Valley History Conference in 1999. I will blog at other times about the children, and also about the War of 1812 out west.

Posted by Kira Gale on 01/28/2008 at 04:51 PM

/\/\/\/\/\/\

COAL AND ENERGY ISSUES

Is the proposed Air Force synfuels plant at Malmstrom a good idea?

The latest threat to our local Cascade County environment and economy is an Air Force proposal to build a huge "synfuels" plant at Malmstrom Air Force Base, on the east end of Great Falls. This facility would be about 3-4 times larger than the proposed Highwood Generating Station (a traditional coal-fired power plant), which would be sited 7 miles outside the city limits, although clearly visible from Great Falls and from a Lewis and Clark National Monument and the scenic Great Falls of the Missouri. Local environmentalists, economic development advocates, historical preservationists, and others have been working tirelessly for several years, now, to stop the Highwood Station from being built. We're confident it won't be, if only because this new proposal would use all the same water, coal, and rail capacity at three times the level for the Highwood Station.

So, is the Air Force synfuels plant a good idea? Absolutely not, for all the reasons outlined in the following stories. In fact, it is 3-4 times worse than the Highwood Station, and the backers of the HGS seem to understand that, even while they deny that the HGS is a bad thing in itself.

For awhile, I said nothing about the proposed synfuels plant, and for the following reasons. First, it was supposed to be a military project, and we have long advocated universal nuclear abolition and disarmament, starting right here. Any different mission for the base is preferable to its present "nuclear deterrent" of 150 nuclear-armed Minuteman ICBM's.

Local military people want to move the Air National Guard squadron and other Reserve and military operations now on Gore Hill (GTF, the commercial airport) to Malmstrom. This would involve re-opening its runway, control tower, etc., which is projected to cost $3 million or so - chicken feed in the present scheme of things. This would also free up the municipal airport for more economic development, aircraft maintenance, a UPS hub (there is already a regional FedEx hub there), etc. It already has a full customs facility, making it a "Port of Entry" for air freight shipments from any part of the world. Plus, Great Falls is well-placed on major Great Circle routes between Europe and California, and China-Japan and the American Midwest, Texas, etc. Some of us had hoped that Malmstrom might be converted to some of these uses, but with Great Falls' strong military connections and traditions, it seems more likely and feasible to maintain Malmstrom as a military base, while freeing up the municipal airport for commercial uses.

Why, then, is the Air Force interested in building a huge synfuels plant there - a project which was originally calculated to necessitate closing the runway forever? And would this synfuels plant replace Malmstrom's nuclear mission, resulting in all of the Minuteman missiles being retired, and the warheads de-commissioned and broken down? If so, we could probably swallow the idea of a synfuels plant here, but there is no mention of such a trade-off in the proposals, and few of the paranoid military boosters who live here would go for that, in any case. (They may have to, anyway. We doubt that the missiles will still be here after 2020, while the synfuels plant would last for 40 years or more).

There was a large public hearing last week with an Undersecretary of the Air Force in attendance. I've heard from those who attended that this will NOT be an Air Force project as such. Everything will be contracted out to existing refining and generating companies. This project is part of a mandated Air Force initiative to develop domestic sources for jet fuel which allow for carbon capture and re-use (not necessarily "sequestration", they said), and Montana's nearby coal fields and the existing infrastructure and large land area already encompassed by MAFB made this a logical choice for such a facility. We know, too, that Gov. Schweitzer and our congressional delegation have been fervent lobbyists and supporters of this kind of facility, and we have the political capital to make it happen, here - just as we were able to secure Malmstrom's Minuteman nuclear mission 50 years ago due to the influence of Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield. So, it looks like it could very easily happen, and there's little or nothing we can do to prevent it.

The environmental and economic impacts would be tremendous. Each day, the synfuels plant would burn 125 carloads of coal, and use 10 million gallons of river water - very little of which would go back into the Missouri River. This is twice what the entire City of Great Falls (pop. 65,000) uses per day, and much of that is returned to the river through run-off and the sewage treatment plant. It would also generate 100 megawatts or more of distributable electricity, which Electric City Power (ECP), the municipal power authority, could buy at subsidized rates, or it could be sold to co-ops or other commercial and residential customers. Thus, the need for the Highwood Station (and we deny that there ever was one) would disappear instantly. Plus, all the arguments in favor of "good jobs" and "economic development" (falsely attributed to the Highwood Station) would be increased by a factor of three or more with the synfuels plant.

All the other negative impacts would be similar (more or less) for the synfuels plant. Although it would look much the same, with a 350-foot smokestack (that alone might preclude re-opening Malmstrom for flying missions), it puts out much less pollutants, and the CO2 might be used locally for enhanced oil and gas recovery in existing fields, or otherwise stored, processed, or sequestered. The damage to Great Falls as a tourist destination, the emphasis on heavy industry and those kinds of jobs over green development, and other similar consequences would be similar for both plants. There would also be huge solid waste disposal problems - three times greater than those attributed to Highwood Station. After 30 or 40 years, there would be a mountain of such waste, covering many acres to a height of 40 feet or more, and these highly-toxic waste products would be difficult to isolate from the environment. Welcome to Montana - the last, best Superfund Site. -- PHS

/\/\/\/\/\/\

FROM GREEN LISTSERVS

Martin Zehr on energy policy

The current political leadership of both the Democrats and Republicans remain complacent and more focused on the Iraq war than on environmental concerns regarding the adoption of a strategy that is based on climate change and peak oil. All objections can NOT be addressed given the scale of the proposal, just like all unintended consequences cannot be anticipated. At issue is whether we will move beyond debate and move to implement a systemic change in energy production in the US.

It is important that we formulate a sound agenda that includes the following:

A. Establish the highest percentages for renewable energy production and alternative transportation systems that require the introduction of alternative energies in a twenty year period; http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PlanB_contents.htm

B. Economic compensation packages that address workers impacted by the transition http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/studies_cleanenergyandjobs ;

C. Monitoring systems to evaluate the changes in greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/ghg/ghg_home_e.cfm ;

D. Incentives for the development of alternatives to petroleum-based products http://www.greenbiz.com/toolbox/essentials_third.cfm?LinkAdvID=4151 ; "Petroleum is also the raw material for many chemical products, including solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, and plastics; the 16% not used for energy production is converted into these other materials." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum

E. Reduction in the production of single-user modes of transportation http://www.worldwatch.org/node/808 , increase in public investment in mass transit operated with renewable energy http://lrta.info/Facts/facts130.html ;

F. Transition of investment of public utility companies in solar and wind technology, decreasing proportion of energy provided by coal, nuclear and oil http://www.energybulletin.net/5000.html ;

G. Establishment of stakeholder boards for oversight and review http://maineghg.raabassociates.org/member.asp?sort=other , Public Utilities Commissions elected by energy users and represented by qualified advocates including environmental, residential, municipal, and rural;

H. Congressional budgetary commitments through carbon taxes http://www.carbontax.org/ that transition from military expenditures to energy conversion research and development, implementing Swenson's Law :" To avoid deprivation resulting from the exhaustion of non-renewable resources, humanity must employ conservation and renewable resource substitutes sufficient to match depletion." http://www.hubbertpeak.com/swenson/

I. Establishment of Green Building codes; http://www.smartcommunities.ncat.org/buildings/gbcodtoc.shtml

J. Revamping of commercial railroad system and increasing mileage of track- increase requirement for piggy-backing of trailers across states; http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/2229

After a brief compiling of a White Paper http://www.energywhitepaper.gov.au/ addressing the various mechanisms needed for a transition, it is imperative that there be established bio-regional, intercontinental and ocean-atmospheric interaction entities to increase data and develop recommendations for interventions to reduce gas house emissions and mitigate the impacts of global warming. Just as necessary is an international accord to update Kyoto and establish mandatory international requirements for the reduction of greenhouse emissions. http://www.climatechoices.org/impacts_overview/index.html

The development of a serious effort in this regard has not even begun. The first necessary steps is to establish a broad-based coalition of organizations that establishes a common, working strategy for the writing, passing and implementation of an Energy Transition Legislative Package. A five-year target date should be established at an appropriate Founding Congress of political action groups. Political action during that time needs to be prioritized in regards to the passage in Congress, and State Legislatures of the US. Presidential candidates need to be established in the context of presenting this issue on the political agenda in a serious and credible manner.

Time is not on our side. That does not negate the critical element of transformation that can take place rapidly and efficiently once the political will has been consolidated and institutionalized. The complexities are already being addressed. The alternatives are already modeled in locales and nations around the world. Sweden, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands have already established energy transition to renewable energy as national priorities.

The first obvious aspect of any plan is that it needs to be approved with more than just a Democratic working majority. It requires winning over non-ideologues in both parties. We should include Republicans such as U.S. Representative Roscoe Bartlett

(Rep., MD) http://bartlett.house.gov/Issues/Issue/?IssueID=2057 ; US Representative Jack Kingston (Rep., GA) http://kingston.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=45541 and others http://www.relocalize.net/node/1243 . Recent news indicates the formation of a bi-partisan Oil peak Caucus initiated by New Mexico's Rep. Udall and Maryland Congressman Bartlett. http://www.tomudall.house.gov/display2.cfm?id=11447&type=Issues Actions are already being taken by the Western Governors' Association http://www.westgov.org/wga/press/plenary1-pr.htm and the U.S. Conference of Mayors http://www.usmayors.org/climateprotection/ regarding climate change. As momentum is building public officials need to be encouraged to move faster and implement the transition legislation needed.

The unfortunate thing is that most people are not even spectators in this particular matter. The Liberals and Progressives prefer movies to legislation. The Neo-Cons never met a war they didn't like. The Conservatives have left their posts and rejected the Imperial Mandate of King Bush II but are asleep at the switch in regards to the science surrounding global warming. The Libertarians want to laissez-faire our way out of the oil peak and global warming. The Greens focus a little too much of our energy on demonstrations that are no longer renewable, and not enough time demonstrating workable plans for renewable energy and reduction of oil consumption. http://www.progress.org/2007/oil32.htm

In the meantime European Union is pledging to cut greenhouse emissions by 25% by the year 2025. Euro Greens have suggested that it didn't go far enough and that is certainly fair enough from their vantage point. But in the US, we have not even put our toe in the water regarding the transition to renewable energy applications. This complicates the task, as we saw when we failed to heed Jimmy Carter's call for the moral equivalent war on oil consumption as President in 1977. http://www.mnforsustain.org/energy_speech_president_carter.htm

As the Europeans and others are demonstrating addressing global warming takes concrete action in Congress. It takes the political will demonstrated through establishing new priorities for all political parties. It takes investment by the private sector in transition, as recently demonstrated in the TXU buyout deal. http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=10831 It takes action by the Governors of multi-state regions.

It is clear that the preliminary work has already been done. The issue at hand is this: Are we at all disposed to construct a work plan that others will sign on to in order to change current energy policies 180 degrees? Or do we content ourselves with the fatalism of the a deer in the headlights. The prioritization of these proposals is not something that can be assigned a place on the backburner for convenience sake. Even making the ratification of Kyoto a minimum threshold for candidate support is insufficient in addressing the profound impacts that climate change has already demonstrated the planet's bio-spheres. There has been action by the EU and European nations, but since this is a global issue it requires a global solution. It remains to be seen where the political leadership will come from on this issue.

Martin Zehr

=================

COMMENT by Morgan d'Arc

Martin Zehr wrote: The prioritization of these proposals is not something that can be assigned a place on the backburner for convenience sake.-

___________

Martin, this is... an important assessment and concern of the Green Party's place or lack of place in this powerful and overwhelming confluence of energy issues. (G)lobal warming ... was just not much on the radar of the Greens who founded this party and moved it along, creating our priorities....

Yes, we were the environmental party and still are but all the work and energy that went into establishing our issues and platform over the years has been somewhat replaced by more and more of an electoral focus. I support that, but part of what we seem to have lost or weakened is in being out front with various issues, including energy and environment.

Your document is also a great reference piece. I haven't even begun to look at them all, but I will be saving it to do so when I can. Yes, the electoral demands of the times are swamping me.

I would like to see this document added to the GPUS website. Maybe some platform members could review it for suitability.

What to do? The Green movement/party are beginning to be subsumed not so much by the democratic party as 3rd parties and movements usually are, but by an avalanche of scientific, non-profit, for-profit, corporate and general public sectors producing an enormous amount of information, products, interest, political pressure, as you say, on a global scale on the topic of global warming. Where are we with this? Are we going to lose all relevancy over it?

Sometimes in the best laid plans and trajectories, there comes a moment when unforeseen events can impact in a way to change everything, for better or for worse. This is such a time with global warming. Do we keep on with the same thinking and plans or do we coalesce to adapt, even if it might change the Green Party a lot?

We need a discussion that will move the party closer to relevancy. It's wonderful about our electoral politics. But if the party and candidates are not out front and even further out front than those already representing the issue, then of what use are our candidates?

We want to get into office, so we can begin to transform politics. Just as the information of this document is focusing on energy transition plans, we need to get some idea of what a transition plan would be for the Green Party to become more relevant.

We need a huge summit. But we could begin it at the convention with an energy transition work shop and publicize it in the media.

This is a make or break next four years. I would support a huge, well prepared and facilitated summit to revamp this party in 2009. A week-long summit, party, separate from the convention on in place of, party transition and energy transition being a couple of the topics. No doubt the next four years are going to bring more of the avalanche that is happening now...

Morgen D'Arc Chair, Cumberland County Green Party, Maine Co-Founder, National Women's Caucus

====================

100% Renewable Power Possible
The University of Kassel in Germany has teamed up with some major players in solar, wind and biomass to demonstrate that the issue of intermittentcy in supply isn't a terminal flaw in renewable energy development. No problem with 100% renewable providing 24/7 power to the grid. : The
Combined Power Plant -

"The secure and constant provision of power anywhere and at anytime by renewable energies is now made possible thanks to the Combined Power Plant. The Combined Power Plant links and controls 36 wind, solar, biomass and hydropower installations spread throughout Germany. It is just as reliable and powerful as a conventional large-scale power station."

There's also a nifty streaming 7.24 minute movie on the page that shows how it's all done. There's a

version too. [MPEG, 320x240, 35MB]

On a related theme there's a book on renewable powered futures that is downloadable (free or donation) from the Institute for Energy and Environmental
Research. Several other references on this page too.

Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy - IEER.org Executive Summary [PDF]

My personal opinion is that wind is the most important source of electricity for the US in coming decades. In many places it is cost-competitive now. As natural gas prices increase, wind will only look better. Solar thermal electricity is almost affordable, but it is only possible in large, centralized power plants. Solar photovoltaic is VERY expensive; its advantages are it is decentralized, and one can do it now.

+Orval Osborne
CA delegate

Read Orval's blogs: for
general politics, science fiction, etc; and
for SLO and urban planning issues.

/\/\/\/\/\/\

FORWARDED BY RICH LIEBERT, CITIZENS FOR CLEAN ENERGY

Too bad the rural electric co-ops in denial about alternative energy, net-metering, conservation and climate change.....they of all groups are locally controlled, but don't exploit it, and don't acknowledge the 21st Century yet and the challenges.......

I'm a co-op guy, and not thrilled about the 'corporatocracy'.......

==============

FROM ORION MAGAZINE

Stopping Coal in Its Tracks - Loosely affiliated activists draw a hard line -- and hold it
by Ted Nace
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/506
Published in the January/February 2008 issue of Orion magazine

...LaPlaca returned home and read the latest messages posted on the No New Coal Plants e-mail list, an Internet watering hole initiated in April 2006 by Philadelphia organizer Mike Ewall. Ewall founded the group Energy Justice in 1999 and has organized electronic mailing lists around other issues, including tire incinerators and nuclear power. Whatever the topic, the elements of each list are identical: messages from any member are forwarded to the entire group, responses may be directed either back to the group or to the original author, and archives of group messages are kept on the Energy Justice website.

Of course, to be useful to participants, a list has to achieve a critical mass, and for the first few months messages among No New Coal Plants participants were few and far between. But by midsummer 2006, Ewall had recruited several dozen members and the list had taken on a life of its own. Over the next year, it grew to include 140 people. A few, such as Matt Leonard of Rainforest Action Network in San Francisco, and Ted Glick of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council in Takoma Park, Maryland, are staff members with national environmental groups. Others, such as Drusha Mayhue in Bozeman, Montana, are volunteers with the Sierra Club or other membership-oriented groups. Most, however, are involved with small, locally based, mainly rural groups. Typical among these are Greg Howard, an attorney with the nonprofit Appalachian Citizens Law Center, a law firm in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, that represents miners suffering from black lung disease; Mano Andrews, a Hopi/Dine native affiliated with the Western Shoshone Defense Project in Nevada and the Save the Peaks Coalition in Arizona; and Leslie Glustrom, a biochemist in Boulder, Colorado, opposing Xcel Energy’s Comanche 3 coal plant. Most members of the list live in areas that have already felt the effects of coal projects and are facing more development. Elisa Young, an activist in Meigs County, Ohio, can count four coal-fired power plants within ten miles of her home and faces five more that are planned. Mary Jo Stueve grew up in Minnesota across the South Dakota border from the Big Stone I power plant; she’s now a staff member with South Dakota Clean Water Action, fighting a proposed second unit of the plant....

At first glance, No New Coal Plants has every appearance of a single-issue environmental group, if "group" is the right word for an entity with no office, no board of directors, no letterhead, no bank account, no organizational structure. "Swarm" might be a better term.

As fighting forces, swarms both preceded and eventually vanquished the orthogonal ranks of legionnaires that forged the Roman Empire. In a swarm, the emphasis is not on discipline, experience, and orderliness but rather on fighting spirit and individual initiative. Swarms are known for their tactical flexibility, sometimes using guerrilla-style harassment, as did the farmers who routed the British at Lexington and Concord; other times prevailing with overwhelming numbers in the manner of the Arapaho, Lakota, and Northern Cheyenne fighters who overran the U.S. Seventh Cavalry at the Little Bighorn.

The contrast between No New Coal Plants and Big Coal is obvious, but the contrast between such low-profile, leaderless entities and the large national groups typically identified with the environmental movement is equally striking. The largest of these groups, sometimes known as Big Green, include the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense, and the National Wildlife Federation. Typically based in Washington DC or New York and sporting annual budgets in the tens of millions of dollars, these groups, not unlike the corporate and governmental entities they oppose, are hierarchical, highly organized, and reliant on trained and seasoned attorneys, scientific experts, and lobbyists. Yet the "Twigs," as some small-scale activists have taken to calling themselves in a pointed distinction from Big Green, have lately taken more militant positions and have, in many cases, been more effective in stopping new coal-fired power plants.

IN THE SPRING OF 2007, a split between these two currents in the U.S. environmental movement broke into view over the prospect of a vast expansion in the use of coal in the United States. With the encouragement of the Bush Administration and coal subsidies in the 2005 Energy Act (variously estimated at between $4.8 billion and $9 billion), the number of coal-fired power plants either newly built or in various stages of proposal or construction had leaped from 92 in 2004 to over 150 in May 2007. Many climatologists noted the expansion with alarm. Speaking before the National Press Club in Washington DC on February 26, 2007, James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Sciences and one of the country’s most widely published and outspoken climate scientists, told the audience that the opportunity to avoid runaway global eating-wherein human-induced "forcings" would trigger enough amplifying feedback loops to ultimately produce "a different planet"-was rapidly fading. To address the problem, Hansen made five recommendations, the first of which was an immediate moratorium on the construction of any new coal-fired power plants until such plants are capable of capturing their carbon dioxide releases.

Coal plants are among the largest industrial facilities on the planet and collectively generate about 32 percent of America’s carbon dioxide emissions. A single 500 megawatt plant can burn its way through a 125-car trainload of coal in two days, releasing into the atmosphere nearly twice the weight of that trainload in carbon dioxide. To offset the global heating produced by that much carbon dioxide, two million SUV drivers would have to switch to Priuses. Even that comparison understates the consequences of a new power plant, since a car lasts about a decade, while a typical coal plant will continue to spew climate-torquing gasses for sixty years or more. Faced with the new coal boom, four groups-the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Clean Air Task Force-prominently advocated an approach that centered around a technical fix with the ungainly acronym IGCC/CCS, for Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle with Carbon Capture and Sequestration.

While coal gasification technology is not new (it helped power the German air force during World War II), its use for electrical generation is relatively recent. Four such plants are now operating in Europe and the United States, all built with government subsidies. Because it involves converting solid fuel into gas prior to combustion, IGCC technology is more readily suited than conventional coal plants for capturing waste products. As much as 88 percent of the coal’s carbon dioxide can be captured in an IGCC plant, along with 99 percent or more of its sulfur oxides and particulates, and 95 percent of its mercury. Once the carbon dioxide has been removed from the exhaust stream, it can be liquefied under pressure and injected into deep underground formations. Over a dozen IGCC plants are under development in the United States. Currently leading the pack is EURORA Group’s Cash Creek, Kentucky, facility, which could go online as early as 2011. But notably, none of the demonstration plants in operation, nor any of the proposed IGCC plants, actually includes carbon capture and sequestration.

The most outspoken advocate for IGCC/CCS has been David Hawkins, director of the Climate Center at the Natural Resources Defense Council. According to Hawkins, IGCC/CCS would allow the United States to continue using coal without heating the planet, since plants using the technology could store the captured carbon dioxide in geological formations thousands of feet underground. Hawkins’s support for IGCC/ CCS is based on the pragmatic calculation that coal enjoys too much political support for it to be taken out of the climate equation. In April 2007, he told the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee that "we will almost certainly continue using large amounts of coal in the U.S. and globally in the coming decades." For that reason, he concluded, "it is imperative that we act now to deploy CCD [carbon capture and disposal] systems."

Proponents of coal gasification typically call it "clean coal," though Hawkins and other environmentalists avoid that term. After all, using IGCC/CCS would not eliminate destructive strip-mining or mountaintop-removal practices. And critics have other objections: a big one involves how much we don’t know about sequestering carbon dioxide underground. While such pumping has been done to facilitate oil extraction by repressurizing oil fields, it has never been attempted at anything close to the scale that would be required to render the coal industry climate-friendly. According to MIT’s 2007 "Future of Coal" study, capturing and compressing just 60 percent of the carbon dioxide produced by U.S. coal-fired power plants would demand a new pipeline network big enough to move 20 million barrels of liquefied carbon dioxide each day from power plants to suitable sequestration sites (which depend on particular geology)-a volume equal to all the oil piped daily throughout the country. Sequestration sites would have to be honestly administered, closely monitored, and tightly sealed. Such demanding technical requirements led journalist Jeff Goodell to write that "the notion of coal as the solution to America’s energy problems is a technological fantasy on par with the dream of a manned mission to Mars." [Actually, in terms of costs and resources spent, it's more like establishing and maintaining a colony of a million or more earthlings on Mars. Or, for an actual historical parallel, the total costs and resources wasted on the nuclear arms race - $7 trillion and counting. And it could cost that much more to get rid of the damn things, along with the rest of the "nuclear industry." - PHS]

But there’s a more straightforward objection to IGCC/CSS: cost. The cost of building such plants is expected to be around 40 percent higher than conventional coal plants. And the cost of operating them would also be higher, since huge amounts of power are needed to separate and liquefy carbon dioxide, then pipe and pump it underground -in all, each plant would have to burn about 25 percent more coal to generate the same amount of electricity for market. Once those expenses are totaled up, this way of using coal may end up being more costly than solar thermal power plants or wind turbines backed up by natural gas generators that would make them as reliable as coal plants.

As it waits for IGCC/CCS to reach commercial readiness, Big Green has signaled a willingness to make deals with industry over new coal plants. The most widely reported compromise was reached in March 2007 between two large environmental groups and an investor group led by private equity firm KKR, which was in the process of buying Texas utility TXU Corp. In return for a promise by the new owners to cancel eight of eleven planned new coal plants in Texas, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense agreed to drop their opposition to the remaining three. Many grassroots environmentalists complained that the deal was nowhere near sufficient. Climate scientists were calling for a full halt on new coal, not a slowdown, they said. If this was the environmental movement’s batting average on a good day, it wasn’t good enough. A correspondent to Texas Monthly wrote: "I feel like I’m in some colonial third world outpost watching helplessly as my fate is being decided by a bunch of rich white guys with Marks-a-Lots in a map room thousands of miles away."

But whether the TXU deal was shrewd or foolish, one thing it clearly lacked was anything that might inspire and build a mass movement against climate change. In contrast, the message of the Twigs is simple and compelling: no new coal plants....

Can the environmental movement muster the necessary clout to overcome the combined forces of Big Oil and Big Coal? To Big Green advocates like Hawkins and Thompson, it’s a fantasy to think that America won’t continue using coal and oil. To grassroots activists like LaPlaca, Overland, and Muller, the fantasy lies in the opposite assumption: believing that the world can survive without a radical shift away from fossil fuels. "Big Green has the resources," said Muller, "but the grassroots is where it’s happening in terms of leadership, in terms of work, and in terms of results. To anybody who’s following this, I’d say don’t bet too much money on coal right now."

/\/\/\/\/\

FROM THE MTENERGY LIST

From: Elizabeth & Wilbur Wood [mailto:rewood@midrivers.com] To: Ben Brouwer; AERO Energy Task Force Cc: Montana Energy

Re: Martinsdale Windfarm Proposed/a decentralized perspective from AERO

To All:

The perspective that AERO puts forth in our "Repowering Montana: A Blueprint for Homegrown Energy Self-Reliance" (see www.aeromt.org) is that we would prefer one hundred 3-megawatt windpower facilities, widely dispersed, to a single centralized 300 MW windfarm.

This follows a recommendation to install 3 megawatts of windpower at every power substation where there is a decent breeze, which was first enunciated (to my knowledge) by Bob Quinn at an AERO energy task force meeting in 2005. It was Quinn's company that developed the Judith Gap windfarm, did all the studies, secured all the permits, etc, to the point where it needed the largescale capitalization required by all centralized projects, whereupon it was purchased by the Chicago-based Invenergy corporation.

(Quinn now prefers to work on windpower--and other forms of renewable energy such as biodiesel--on a more decentralized scale.)

Such a decentralized model would be more resilient; windpower could come on more gradually without massive all-at-once outlays of capital; ownership could be more widely dispersed, and more of the profits would stay at home, circulating around in local communities, buoying up rural economies.

This would also buy us time so that we would not jump into building expensive powerlines in order to export electrons (whether "green" or "dirty") to distant markets which actually may end up not existing by the time corridors for those lines can be sited and the lines built. The reason? Utilities in those areas of high demand more and more are choosing to reduce demand by investing in energy conservation and efficiency, and implementing things like differential pricing for different times of day. California, Oregon and Washington are rejecting electricity from coal. And when more supply is needed, they are investing, more and more, in generating sources (such as wind and solar) closer to where the power is needed.

Wilbur Wood

StoneHouse Productions

rewood@midrivers.com

Elizabeth & Wilbur Wood

Box 12 Roundup, Montana 59072

==============

Wilbur is right, we need to emphasize the non-monopoly model. Further if wind farms are owned by folks other than the local utility, then the property is not rate based. That means that once it is paid for, it does not drop out of the rate base but continue in service. It continues in service and the owners make lots more money on it. It would be like saying you paid for your car and when that was done, the finance company owned it and could charge you by the mile to drive it.

Further if all the capacity is taken up on our lines by large wind farms, there will be none left for individual farmers to get the power to market. Like having a toll road that only rich guys can drive on but which the masses have paid for.

Russ

===============

Wind farm proposed in central Mont.; state hopes more to come

By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press Writer

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) -- A Texas company with Portuguese backing is working with state natural resource officials in central Montana to develop a 300-megawatt wind farm - twice the size of the state's largest existing wind project.

Horizon Wind Energy would erect up to 100 turbines near Martinsdale, about 80 miles east of Helena, to tap into winds sweeping through the Musselshell River valley. Horizon had been solicited to develop in the area by the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. The agency owns about 2,400 acres of school trust land within the 19,000 acre project site.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer and the Montana Legislature have aggressively pursued wind energy over the past several years by courting developers, offering tax incentives that favor wind over fossil-fuels and pitching state lands as potential project sites.

However, progress to date remains slow: The state's total energy production from wind remains less than that generated by a single coal-fired power plant. Only one major project - a 135-megawatt wind farm near Judith Gap - has been completed. And late last year, the administration's efforts suffered a setback when another Texas company, GreenHunter, scaled back a 500-megawatt proposal near Glasgow to 50 megawatts after running into opposition from conservation groups.

But with several new projects now moving forward, state officials insist the industry will ramp up quickly in the next couple of years. Horizon's Martinsdale Wind Farm is one of at least seven totaling more than 900 megawatts being pursued along a swath of central Montana stretching from Big Timber north to Shelby. That's an area buffeted by strong winds coming off the Rocky Mountains and onto the Great Plains - winds that federal energy officials say are among the best in the United States. Statewide, officials say, wind farms totaling more than 3,700 megawatts are at various stages of development.

"We're going to see a number of projects coming through here very, very soon," said Chantel McCormick with the state Energy Infrastructure and Promotion Division, part of the Department of Commerce. McCormick said another major wind company with European roots, Spain's Naturener, is preparing to break ground in March on a 103-megawatt project near Shelby. The company's McCormick Ranch Wind Park could eventually expand to more than 500 megawatts, she said.

As with Horizon's Martinsdale Wind Farm, the ultimate size of the project will be governed by the availability of transmission line capacity to carry power to markets. Horizon representative Chris Taylor said the company's first 100 megawatts could be sent through an existing NorthWestern Energy line that runs through the area. After that, the company will need to find additional capacity to complete the project. "Transmission constraints are the big issue for us, like they are for everybody in Montana," Taylor said. He said the power will be for both in-state and out-of-state markets.

A major new transmission proposal that would carry power from central Montana to Canada, the Montana Alberta Tie Line, has run into concerted opposition from local landowners and farmers and some environmental groups. If the line is blocked or delayed, that could significantly choke future wind development.

The first signs of similar opposition with Martinsdale already are emerging. Gene Leary, 67, owns a ranch within a few miles of the proposed wind farm site. He described wind farms as "visual pollution" and said he worries such projects could mar central Montana's scenic vistas, driving down property values and discouraging tourism. "It's a feel good energy thing - clean power appeals to everybody," he said. "A lot of them really haven't thought about the consequences of what it would do in this area."

Horizon's Taylor said he was not aware such complaints were being made and said local officials were supportive of the project. Houston-based Horizon has built wind projects in at least six states and Costa Rica. Founded in the 1998, the company was bought last year for $2.15 billion by Energias de Portugal, in a deal that made the Portuguese electric utility one of the largest wind producers in the world.

The Department of Natural Resources and Conservation is holding a public meeting on the Martinsdale Wind Farm on Tuesday at the youth center in Harlowton. An open house will begin at 3 p.m., followed by a presentation on the project beginning at 7 p.m.

***

BEN BROUWER

Renewable Energy and Conservation Program Mgr.

Alternative Energy Resources Org. (AERO)

bbrouwer@aeromt.org

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EPA Staff Finds Emissions Threat

Janet Wilson and Richard Simon, reporting for The Los Angeles Times, write: "The Environmental Protection Agency's staff concluded last month that greenhouse gases pose a threat to the nation's welfare, which would require federal regulations to rein in emissions from vehicles, factories, power plants and other industrial polluters under the Clean Air Act, sources in the agency told The Times."

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THE KACZYNSKI LEGACY

Interview with Ted Kaczynski

http://www.primitivism.com/kaczynski.htm

Kaczynski's story represents a parable:

"Once upon a time there was a continent covered with beautiful pristine wilderness, where giant trees towered over lush mountainsides and rivers ran wild and free through deserts, where raptors soared and beavers labored at their pursuits and people lived in harmony with wild nature, accomplishing every task they needed to accomplish on a daily basis using only stones, bones and wood, walking gently on the Earth. Then came the explorers, conquerors, missionaries, soldiers, merchants and immigrants with their advanced technology, guns, and government. The wild life that had existed for millennia started dying, killed by a disease brought by alien versions of progress, arrogant visions of manifest destiny and a runaway utilitarian science.

"In just 500 years, almost all the giant trees have been clear-cut and chemicals now poison the rivers; the eagle has faced extinction and the beaver's work has been supplanted by the Army Corps of Engineers. And how have the people fared? What one concludes is most likely dependent on how well one is faring economically, emotionally and physically in this competitive technological world and the level of privilege one is afforded by the system. But for those who feel a deep connection to, a love and longing for, the wilderness and the wildness that once was, for the millions now crowded in cities, poor and oppressed, unable to find a clear target for their rage because the system is virtually omnipotent, these people are not faring well. All around us, as a result of human greed and a lack of respect for all life, wild nature and Mother Earth’s creatures are suffering. These beings are the victims of industrial society.

"Cutting the bloody cord, that’s what we feel, the delirious exhilaration of independence, a rebirth backward in time and into primeval liberty, into freedom in the most simple, literal, primitive meaning of the word, the only meaning that really counts. The freedom, for example, to commit murder and get away with it scot-free, with no other burden than the jaunty halo of conscience.

"My God! I’m thinking, what incredible shit we put up with most of our lives--the domestic routine, the stupid and useless and degrading jobs, the insufferable arrogance of elected officials, the crafty cheating and the slimy advertising of the businessmen, the tedious wars in which we kill our buddies instead of our real enemies back home in the capital, the foul, diseased and hideous cities and towns we live in, the constant petty tyranny of the automatic washers, the automobiles and TV machines and telephones-! ah Christ!,... what intolerable garbage and what utterly useless crap we bury ourselves in day by day, while patiently enduring at the same time the creeping strangulation of the clean white collar and the rich but modest four-in-hand garrote!

"Such are my thoughts-you wouldn’t call them thoughts would you?-such are my feelings, a mixture of revulsion and delight, as we float away on the river, leaving behind for a while all that we most heartily and joyfully detest. That’s what the first taste of the wild does to a man, after having been penned up for too long in the city. No wonder the Authorities are so anxious to smother the wilderness under asphalt and reservoirs. They know what they are doing. Play safe. Ski only in a clockwise direction. Let’s all have fun together."

--Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire, 1968

"I read Edward Abbey in mid-eighties and that was one of the things that gave me the idea that, ‘yeah, there are other people out there that have the same attitudes that I do.’ I read The Monkeywrench Gang, I think it was. But what first motivated me wasn’t anything I read. I just got mad seeing the machines ripping up the woods and so forth..."

-Dr. Theodore Kaczynski, in an interview with the Earth First! Journal, Administrative Maximum Facility Prison, Florence, Colorado, USA, June 1999.

Theodore Kaczynski developed a negative attitude toward the techno-industrial system very early in his life. It was in 1962, during his last year at Harvard, he explained, when he began feeling a sense of disillusionment with the system. And he says he felt quite alone. "Back in the sixties there had been some critiques of technology, but as far as 1 knew there weren't people who were against the technological system as-such... It wasn't until 1971 or 72, shortly after I moved to Montana, that I read Jacques Ellul's book, The Technological Societv." The book is a masterpiece. I was very enthusiastic when I read it. I thought, 'look, this guy is saying things I have been wanting to say all along.'"

Why, I asked, did he personally come to be against technology? His immediate response was, "Why do you think? It reduces people to gears in a machine, it takes away our autonomy and our freedom." But there was obviously more to it than that. Along with the rage he felt against the machine, his words revealed an obvious love for a very special place in the wilds of Montana. He became most animated, spoke most passionately, while relating stories about the mountain life he created there and then sought to defend against the encroachment of the system. "The honest truth is that I am not really politically oriented. I would have really rather just be living out in the woods. If nobody had started cutting roads through there and cutting the trees down and come buzzing around in helicopters and snowmobiles I would still just be living there and the rest of the world could just take care of itself. I got involved in political issues because I was driven to it, so to speak. I'm not really inclined in that direction."

Kaczynski moved in a cabin that he built himself near Lincoln, Montana in 1971. His first decade there he concentrated on acquiring the primitive skills that would allow him to live autonomously in the wild. He explained that the urge to do this had been a part of his psyche since childhood. "Unquestionably there is no doubt that the reason I dropped out of the technological system is because I had read about other ways of life, in particular that of primitive peoples. When I was about eleven I remember going to the little local library in Evergreen Park, Illinois. They had a series of books published by the Smithsonian Institute that addressed various areas of science. Among other things, I read about anthropology in a book on human prehistory. I found it fascinating. After reading a few more books on the subject of Neanderthal man and so forth, I had this itch to read more. I started asking myself why and I came to the realization that what I really wanted was not to read another book, but that I just wanted to live that way."

Kaczynski says he began an intensive study of how to identify wild edible plants, track animals and replicate primitive technologies, approaching the task like the scholar he was. "Many years ago I used to read books like, for example, Ernest Thompson Seton's "Lives of Game Animals" to learn about animal behavior. But after a certain point, after living in the woods for a while, I developed an aversion to reading any scientific accounts. In some sense reading what the professional biologists said about wildlife ruined or contaminated it for me. What began to matter to me was the knowledge I acquired about wildlife through personal experience....

Kaczynski soon came to the conclusion that reformist strategies that merely called for "fixing" the system were not enough, and he professed little confidence in the idea that a mass change in consciousness might someday be able to undermine the technological system. "I don't think it can be done. In part because of the human tendency, for most people, there are exceptions, to take the path of least resistance. They'll take the easy way out, and giving up your car, your television set, your electricity, is not the path of least resistance for most people. As I see it, I don't think there is any controlled or planned way in which we can dismantle the industrial system. I think that the only way we will get rid of it is if it breaks down and collapses. That's why I think the consequences will be something like the Russian Revolution, or circumstances like we see in other places in the world today like the Balkans, Afghanistan, Rwanda. This does, I think, pose a dilemma for radicals who take a non-violent point of view. When things break down, there is going to be violence and this does raise a question, I don't know if I exactly want to call it a moral question, but the point is that for those who realize the need to do away with the techno-industrial system, if you work for its collapse, in effect you are killing a lot of people. If it collapses, there is going to be social disorder, there is going to be starvation, there aren't going to be any more spare parts or fuel for farm equipment, there won't be any more pesticide or fertilizer on which modern agriculture is dependent. So there isn't going to be enough food to go around, so then what happens? This is something that, as far as I've read, I haven't seen any radicals facing up to....

"The big problem is that people don't believe a revolution is possible, and it is not possible precisely because they do not believe it is possible. To a large extent I think the eco-anarchist movement is accomplishing a great deal, but I think they could do it better... The real revolutionaries should separate themselves from the reformers… And I think that it would be good if a conscious effort was being made to get as many people as possible introduced to the wilderness. In a general way, I think what has to be done is not to try and convince or persuade the majority of people that we are right, as much as try to increase tensions in society to the point where things start to break down. To create a situation where people get uncomfortable enough that they’re going to rebel. So the question is how do you increase those tensions? I don't know...."

"While I was living in the woods I sort of invented some gods for myself" and he laughs. "Not that I believed in these things intellectually, but they were ideas that sort of corresponded with some of the feelings I had. I think the first one I invented was Grandfather Rabbit. You know the snowshoe rabbits were my main source of meat during the winters. I had spent a lot of time learning what they do and following their tracks all around before I could get close enough to shoot them. Sometimes you would track a rabbit around and around and then the tracks disappear. You can't figure out where that rabbit went and lose the trail. I invented a myth for myself, that this was the Grandfather Rabbit, the grandfather who was responsible for the existence of all other rabbits. He was able to disappear, that is why you couldn't catch him and why you would never see him... Every time I shot a snowshoe rabbit, I would always say 'thank you Grandfather Rabbit.' After a while I acquired an urge to draw snowshoe rabbits. I sort of got involved with them to the extent that they would occupy a great deal of my thought. I actually did have a wooden object that, among other things, I carved a snowshoe rabbit in. I planned to do a better one, just for the snowshoe rabbits, but I never did get it done. There was another one that I sometimes called the Will ‘o the Wisp, or the wings of the morning. That's when you go out in to the hills in the morning and you just feel drawn to go on and on and on and on, then you are following the wisp. That was another god that I invented for myself."

So Ted Kaczynski, living out in the wilderness, like generations of prehistoric peoples before him, had innocently rediscovered the forest's gods. I wondered if he felt that those gods had forsaken him now as he sat facing life in prison with no more freedom, no more connection to the wild, nothing left of that life that was so important to him except for his sincere love of nature, his love of knowledge and his commitment to the revolutionary project of hastening the collapse of the techno-industrial system. I asked if he was afraid of losing his mind, if the circumstances he found himself in now would break his spirit? He answered, "No, what worries me is that I might in a sense adapt to this environment and come to be comfortable here and not resent it anymore. And I am afraid that as the years go by that I may forget, I may begin to lose my memories of the mountains and the woods and that's what really worries me, that I might lose those memories, and lose that sense of contact with wild nature in general. But I am not afraid they are going to break my spirit. "And he offered the following advice to green anarchists who share his critique of the technological system and want to hasten the collapse of, as Edward Abbey put it, "the Earth-destroying juggernaut of industrial civilization": "Never lose hope, be persistent and stubborn and never give up. There are many instances in history where apparent losers suddenly turn out to be winners unexpectedly, so you should never conclude all hope is lost. "

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Rich Countries Owe Poor a Huge Environmental Debt

According to The Guardian UK, "The environmental damage caused to developing nations by the world's richest countries amounts to more than the entire third world debt of $1.8 trillion, according to the first systematic global analysis of the ecological damage imposed by rich countries."

Nuclear Waste Concerns Resurface

The Associated Press reports: "Thousands of canisters of highly radioactive waste from the world's most nuclear-energized nation lie, silent and deadly, beneath this jutting tip of Normandy. Above ground, cows graze and Atlantic waves crash into heather-covered hills."

The New York Times | Until All the Fish Are Gone

A New York Times editorial states: "Scientists have been warning for years that overfishing is degrading the health of the oceans and destroying the fish species on which much of humanity depends for jobs and food. Even so, it would be hard to frame the problem more dramatically than two recent articles in The Times detailing the disastrous environmental, economic and human consequences of often illegal industrial fishing."

Plan to Allow Logging in Alaskan Forest

According to The Associated Press, "More than three million acres in Alaska's Tongass National Forest would be open to logging under a federal plan that supporters believe will revive the state's struggling timber industry."

As Congress Talks Stimulus, Labor Leaders Fear Losing Their Voice

Jeffrey H. Birnbaum of The Washington Post says, "Organized labor, a fundamental constituency of the Democratic Party, is unhappy about lots of things these days, even though Democrats are in the majority in Congress."

Highly Skilled and out of Work

The Washington Post's Michael A. Fletcher writes: "An unusually large share of workers have been out a job for more than six months even as overall unemployment has remained low, a little-noted weakness in the labor market that analysts said threatens to intensify the impact of the unfolding economic downturn."

Abortion Rate Drops as Use of RU-486 Rises

Rob Stein, The Washington Post, says, "Thirty-five years after the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision, a pill that has largely faded from the rancorous public debate over abortion has slowly and quietly begun to transform the experience of ending a pregnancy in the United States."

Cell Phone Radiation Wrecks Your Sleep

Writing for The Independent UK, Geoffrey Lean reports: "Radiation from mobile phones delays and reduces sleep, and causes headaches and confusion, according to a new study."

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