http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/blog en gerritt@mindspring.com Copyright 2008 2008-09-25T09:31:00-05:00 http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/wall_sty_versus_the_planet/ http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/wall_sty_versus_the_planet/#When:09:31:00Z {summary}Wall St versus the planet The collapse of the investment banks and the destruction of ecosystems.  An intertwined tale.  Greg Gerritt 9/24/08 The Collapse of the investment banks and the corporations that insured them against their own greed is a startling turn of events.  The masters of the universe, the wealthiest crew on the planet, ran out of productive things to do, started creating new ways to manufacture money out of froth, whipped the froth into a frenzy, made billions, and had no idea what to do except ask for big hand outs from the government when the froth collapsed.  The answer of the bought politicians is to give buckets, no boatloads, of money to the same people who created the big mess that threatens the lives and livelihoods of people all over the world, and ask them to do it again, only this time to be a bit more careful in the name of keeping everyone employed. People are reacting to the Bush agenda bailout in nuanced ways, mostly denouncing the specifics, which are horrible, but generally stating that a bailout of Wall St is the right approach, if only done this way or that.  Critics on the left are denouncing it saying if the tax payers are buying all this stuff, they ought to get the rights associated with community ownership in saying how it will be run, and while the critics on the left are correct, if we own it, it ought to be run in ways that are open to the community’s input and benefit the community, but the analysis still lands short of what is needed to actually resolve the problem. What most observers seem to be missing is the idea that the fundamentals of the economy have changed over the years, primarily the situation in the realms of natural resources and ecology on planet earth.  The reality is that in an economy based on ever faster growth it is becoming harder and harder to make fortunes in the on the ground economy. Too many ecosystems are disappearing and collapsing, too many natural sinks are full, minerals are becoming harder and harder to recover, and ever greater quantities of almost anything are becoming very difficult to find. We all know about peak oil, the idea that from now until forever it will be harder and harder to bring more barrels of oil out of the ground on a daily basis, and that a civilization built on cheap energy is in serious peril.  No one is starting new oil companies, though there is money being invested in new drilling equipment in the ever more desperate efforts to drill ever more difficult oil fields for ever diminishing pools of oil.  Have we considered the role of forests in our economy, from paper, to lumber, to furniture, to fire wood, to a place of recreation, to a source of food?  That forest products still under gird civilization, that deforestation is one of the primary causes of the collapse of economies through time?  Have they looked at what is going on in the forests? How they disappear before our eyes, even in a place like New England in which forests return easily and had partly done so from previous deforestation?  The only cut and run forests left in the world, the forests that in the past would have provided the raw materials to fuel the economic recoveries from Wall St insanity, are the two hardest forests to work, tropical rainforests and the far north. Then consider the massive amount of ever more expensive oil it takes to exploit these forests, and the greenhouse gas emissions that come from deforestation, and consider whether any natural resources will be able to help Wall St end this latest speculative mismanagement monster. You can not start the next Great Northern Paper, it would be a joke. Fisheries all over the planet are overfished and collapsing.  In agriculture, think Monsanto and patented seeds, an attempt to make a fortune by cornering markets rather than develop global agriculture.  Manipulation ballooned because all the farmland is already in production, and much of it is already severely depleted and eroded.  Using genetic engineering, patented seeds and no longer allowing farmers to save their own for next year’s planting, bait and switch and watch Indian farmers commit suicide appears to be the business model these days.  Then think about higher prices for food as the ethanol craze gets hotter.  The airline industry is going broke, funny how that happened right about the time of peak oil. Are we actually seeing the demise /transmogrification of the automobile industry? It appears to be rapidly going bust in the US.  One might say this is because there is more money to be made in the mental gymnastics economy and that corporations in other countries do not have to pay for retirees health care costs, but an idea that needs to be discussed much more is that there are physical limits that we are running up against on Earth and it will be harder and harder to make money in the production of things or in shipping them.  If those seeking great fortunes can no longer rely on actual production to make money they seem to resort to the financialization of the economy, the use of innovative trickery to manipulate investments, to funnel more resources to them and their friends.  More and more money has flowed into the financial sectors of the economy, aided and abetted by politicians at every turn handing over big subsidies for local jobs in the industry.  What the “smartest guys in the room“ came up with this time for their aggrandizement was vastly inflated housing prices, partly because their friends in government helped create the policy of building no housing people could actually afford.  This was then followed by selling unaffordable houses to people who had few other housing options, and then turning debts by people who could not afford the payments after the interest rates jumped on their bait and switch mortgage into investments for speculators.  It was based on pretending the housing boom would last forever and therefore this was a very safe way to invest money. It is the economy of turning everything into an investment because the buddies of the rich in government will always say we can not afford to let the wealthy, the powerful, the providers of campaign funds, and the investment that drives our ever MORE fail. Just the little guy is allowed to fail. The apologists for the the failed economic model will point out Microsoft, Dell, Google as the future of the economy, but you can not eat a google or software.  But how about Windmills, solar panels, and geothermal electricity as clean and essentially boundless and a place to see major investment and fortunes? Or pharmaceuticals, plastics, communications and nanotechnology? Yes, we shall have some Green Jobs building windmills, some jobs in modern manufacturing that seeks to dematerialize manufactured products, but ultimately unless we actually stop the shenanigans and start to really try to live within our means on Earth, the collapsing ecosystems will push those seeking fortunes into ever wilder and stranger financial instruments to make more money and hold on to their power, triggering financial collapses faster and faster followed by more funny money bailouts that we pay for so they can prop up the economy of more a little longer. Are we hoping for some miracle like a second planet to exploit?  Yes, we can eat the planet faster for a little longer. Buckminster Fuller thought we might figure out how to make that transition, turning into a truly sustainable economy as we drained the last of the fossil fuels. But he also knew it would take sharing and an end to war as well as the end of the fossil fuel economy, and he figured it was a close race between a thriving sustainability and the demise of modern industrial civilization. Can we make that transition if we continue to let speculators steal us blind and then get bailed out by the government on the taxpayers dime?  Can the banks continue to rob the people without spending ever more money on war, both to steal resources and to prevent outbreaks of people power when people get tired of the robber barons? Today, no one can prove that the ever more creative financialization of the economy is driven by ecosystem collapse, that the collapse is constraining investments in actually meeting the needs of the 6.7 billion of us that inhabit the planet, but the trend seems pretty obvious when you think about it, so maybe we ought to talk about this a bit more before we bail out Wall St with $700 billion that could heal ecosystems, generate clean energy, feed people, and before we feed the war machine to defend what Wall St seeks to impose on us.  There is a big hole in my argument.  Currently capital flows fastest to short term investments, quick buck schemes.  One can not say that one can not make a fortune in the wood cutting business, there are still people getting sweetheart deals with tin horn dictators, and war criminal presidents and making money cutting wood despite the collapse of forest and forest ecosystems around the world and the moving of their residents to shanty towns.  It is likely that over the short term people will expand some resource based businesses, the planetary resource base still exists, it is still large compared to the demand, even if it is shrinking, depleting, dieing.  But it is still a diminished investment possibility.  Yes, one can found the next mental gymnastics giant, a google or microsoft, but for the most part fortunes are made in the financial industry, the phony manipulation of money, and the rules the politicians write are designed to help that speculation rather than rein ii in.  I can not prove that the financialization is currently driven by resource depletion. I am not sure if the right things are measured to prove it, and ferreting out the human motives behind any particular investment is impossible.  But we can clearly see the sinks fill up, the forest, fish, soil and oil disappear and the smaller and smaller percentage of the economy based on actual production of tangible goods.  We can not yet prove the ever more highflying gymnastics of the financial sector is related to running into the limits of the earth, but it is what we see, it seems the most logical explanation for what is going on, and it gives us fair warning of what lies ahead unless we return our economy to a sound environmental footing.  2008-09-25T09:31:00-05:00 http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/withpalin_mckain_weds_the_worst_of_americas_past/ http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/withpalin_mckain_weds_the_worst_of_americas_past/#When:01:59:00Z {summary}Palin an albatross for McKain? McKain and his “smart” crowd have crowded out a failed sitting president. In trying to turn a new leaf, they seek to co-opt the Obama litany of change. On the other hand, with the governor of Alaska in their attack pack, they are stuck with something really “old”, an out-of-date right-wing factional extremist on “social” issues. I don’t think the Independent vote can stomach that crap—the Independent vote will decide this election.  If the Democrats have any brains left, or real courage, they will take Palin to the cleaners for her identification with a reactive and narrow faction representing the worst features of America’s past. They have a great opportunity to blunt and make nonsense of McKain’s in-authentic appeal to “change”. It’s something he clearly cannot claim with Palin on his team. With Palin he’s turning the clock back.  But do the Dems have the intelligence, savoir faire, and courage—and just plain common sense honesty to make that argument and make it stick?  I doubt it. They will as usual temporize, temporize, temporize on this and on foreign policy as well. And they will lose the election. John Rensenbrink Respect for Diversity 2008-09-09T01:59:00-05:00 http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/obama_in_denver_we_must_take_seriosly_what_he_says_and_does_not_say/ http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/obama_in_denver_we_must_take_seriosly_what_he_says_and_does_not_say/#When:15:59:01Z {summary}Obama in Denver: We Must Take Seriously What He Says . . . and Does NOT Say On Friday morning last week, the New York Times did big stories on Obama’s speech of the night before to the Democratic National Convention, the 75,000 people in the stadium, and a TV audience even bigger than the one that viewed the opening of the Olympics in Beijing on August 8. The lead story dealt a lot with the hoopla of the event and when it turned to what he said, it was described, and dismissed, by the reporter as a series of broad generalities. But that’s not true. Not far into the speech, Obama specifically outlined the major things he will do as president. Apparently, the media, whether left or right or in between, have gotten so used to slotting Obama as a rhetorician, and nothing more, that even when he specifically states that he is being specific, and serious about the specifics, he is not heard and what he says is not taken seriously. That is a big mistake, in addition to being patronizing, and lazy. Obama was being serious that night and we should take what he says with serious attention. Only then can we also see what he does NOT say.  What he does not say speaks volumes about him and his party. It is very disturbing. I will explain. Departing from the noble generalities that have often dominated his major speeches, Obama launched into a recitation of specific things he will do if elected. These include such substantive and very much needed policies as the following: --cut taxes for 95% of all working families; --launch a 10-year program to end U.S. dependence on Middle-East oil; --budget $150 billion for the rapid development of renewable energy; --make health care affordable for everyone, and providing those who in any case cannot afford it “the same coverage as members of Congress” (Obama’s words); --provide a world-class education (his words) for all children in America; --provide higher salaries for teachers; and, looking directly into the camera for emphasis --“we’ll make sure you can afford a college education”. Having said these and other similar things, some of them equally costly, he paused to observe that, of course, this will cost money. Where will this come from? he asked. At this point, he still seemed on track with an honest and straightforward and truly caring message. He answered that he will close corporate loop holes and subject the federal budget to a line by line scrutiny that will trim any bureaucratic fat that’s there. He spent less than a minute saying this, after having spent more than ten minutes of a 45-minute speech detailing his substantive cost-related program.  Less than a minute!  He quickly went on to utter moral homilies about individual responsibility. I shook my head. I felt like shouting at the TV screen. “Are you kidding!” You were serious but now you are simply self-deluded or you are knowingly deluding your immense audience. He had just said that his program will cost big bucks.  But he won’t get nearly enough from closing corporate loopholes or trimming bureaucratic excess.  Where, then, oh where, could Obama turn to find the bucks he needs for fulfillment of his promises? Or, in other words, what is it that Obama is NOT saying? Can you, dear reader, answer the question?  It’s really a no-brainer.  The money can only come from funds diverted from the huge and overwhelming military budget. That’s where the money is. That’s where by far most of the tax dollars of all Americans are going. Closing income tax loopholes and trimming bureaucratic excess is nice and helpful but it is peanuts by comparison to what will be needed to accomplish Obama’s domestic program. Does Obama know this?  Of course, he must know this!  If not, he is truly in deep denial about the reality of political priorities in the U.S. government. The national government is top-heavy with expenditures for 750 military bases in foreign countries and with a Pentagon that sops up money for military hardware as if it were a gigantic sponge. It is a government of, by, and for two major parties that is top-heavy with a yearning by Washington and Wall Street elites to play super-big wheel in the world.  So, yes, of course Obama knows this. He was not born yesterday. The wretched truth is that he does not want to deal with this reality— the somber reality of the military industrial complex about which President Eisenhower already warned us 50 years ago. Was Obama pulling a sleight of hand in his stirring speech?  One would be hard pressed not to think so. For what else can one think: he makes promises to do things that are desperately needed – which is why he makes them. But when it comes to really facing up to what’s needed if the money for it is to be forthcoming, he retreats into silence. It’s the silence of a man who faces a huge and inconvenient truth and blinks. He and his party with him must face up to the reality of a choice. It is the choice between America as the world’s policeman (with all that that entails for endless expenditures for endless wars) or an America  (a) that rejects dreams of world domination—whether pursued by force of arms and intimidation (the Bush/Cheney approach) or pursued by “tough diplomacy” with force ever ready at hand (the Obama/Biden approach);  that relies on collaborative policies with other nations in search of solutions that many nations can and will support;  c) that relies on an approach in which the U.S. is one among many other nations who together build strong international institutions for security and world social justice; and  d) that thus trims its military budget to a point where funds for desperately needed programs at home become available. Obama flies away from encountering that choice.  His party does the same.  His silence, his party’s silence, is the denial that there is that choice. It is the most crucial choice that must be faced and must be made if our communities, the nation, other nations, and the human race itself is to be saved. So in his most important, and most serious, speech to date, Obama deceives his fellow citizens with promises he and his party cannot fulfill – and are not prepared to fulfill. The one small and bright spot in the horizon of national and world politics is the existence the Green Party, both here and abroad. The Green Party has made that choice. It is a choice for a war-less world – and all that that entails for the survival and thriving of all peoples. Personal & Social Responsibility 2008-09-01T15:59:01-05:00 http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/mckinney_and_nader_are_votes_for_them_of_equal_value/ http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/mckinney_and_nader_are_votes_for_them_of_equal_value/#When:01:03:00Z {summary}John Rensenbrink There is this notion that progressive-minded people, who can’t see voting for Obama, have a choice between two outstanding candidates, Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader.  I agree that they are both outstanding candidates.  But I firmly disagree that a vote for one or the other is of equal value. Allow yourself to think beyond the present power structure. Envision a different situation in which the present power structure has been dismantled. Surely, no power structure is permanent. The present one is dominated by megacorporate predatory giants and their Democrat and Republican minions. It will not last. It is not permanent. Please savor that thought. With that firmly in your mind, ask yourself what is needed to reach beyond the present power structure.  Ask yourself whether what McKinney brings and what Nader brings are the same or different.  No, I am not talking about “the issues”, that favorite of liberals and progressives. On “the issues” the two are pretty similar. Where they are not similar at all is on the question of power to change the power structure.  Here we must confess that Nader’s campaign begins and falls with him, begins and falls with just this current campaign, good for this day and train only. On the day after the election in November, that’s all done. Nor is there any reason to believe that there will be any impact of any kind on the existing power structure. Now take another look at McKinney’s campaign.  She is running not as an Independent like Nader.  She is running as the candidate of a proven political party. The Green Party has been in existence since 1984 and is well established in almost all parts of the country. It has a courageous past and a promising future. It is dedicated to contesting for power.That means—given the Green Party’s values and principles—that it is dedicated to altering fundamentally the existing power structure—ending the stranglehold on public policy by the megacorporate giants and their Republican and Democratic minions.  Cynthia is running full tilt as a Green. For the Green Party. She has stated that her goal is to get at least 5% in November.  This will qualify the Green Party candidate for President in 2012 for millions of dollars in public funding.  It will make the national Green party a substantial force and lay the basis for greater victories in the future.  Now, that’s really thinking! Even if she does not get the 5%, her campaign will strengthen the Green Party and give it greater internal fiber and exposure to the public. This will help all future Green campaigns for all offices, including for president.  Hooray for Cynthia!  She really gets it.  She knows that the powers-that-be are a power structure – and a bad one to boot. And that it must be dismantled if the issues people hold dear are to get a chance at being resolved.  She puts first things first. Cynthia will not win the White House in November, but she is helping to lay the groundwork for “painting the White House Green” in the future.  Thus a vote for her is a vote for our future. It carries far more value than a vote for Nader, however fine a candidate he is. Thinking to the Seventh Generation 2008-08-01T01:03:00-05:00 http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/not_just_with_life_like_life/ http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/not_just_with_life_like_life/#When:19:58:00Z {summary}I’ve been working on a book called “Critical Mass: Why everything’s going wrong everywhere at once & how to fix it.” It’s premise is that our activities in a global economy under the influence of an imperial socio-political system, often called by its critics, the Domination System, have given Earth the equivalent of AIDS. The viral global economy targets, takes over and undermines Earth’s equivalent of an immune system—its network of natural and (some) human communities.It does that by breaking rules life has evolved over four billion years precisely to prevent living things and systems from exceeding Earth’s means of providing for them. Paul Hawken has begun to explore this idea from the other end. In “Blessed Unrest” he proposes that the millions of organizations around the world that are dedicated to various of the 10 Green principles are functioning as antibodies do, spontaneously self-organizing and reacting the planetary infection that the global economy and Domination System represent. What’s needed is for each of these antibodies to become more aware of and connected with the others. Then they would function as a healthy immune system does to restore health to the body, only in this instance to the biosphere. Immune systems are high-functioning, closely linked and tightly coordinated communities comprised of many different kinds of cells, proteins, etc in possession of complementary skills and roles. These communities of cells are disperced throughout the body so that every part of the body and the body as a whole is protected. There is no central authority, no top down from which orders come, no elite in receipt of most of the benefits of the system. There is only the totality of a community of communities working together toward the same ends. Immune systems are deeply, organically democratic. Natural communities, ecosystems and bioregions and the biosphere, share these fundamentally, organically democratic characteristics. Life knows when it has a good thing. Democracies as we know the, democracy as we know it hasn’t gotten nearly as far as these biochemical, natural systems have. But then it’s only had at best a couple thousand years to find its way in the world. So what I want to propose here, and what I propose in my book, is that when we’re considering the ways in which we can radically overhaul democracy to “green” it we could do worse than reorganize ourselves so that we live, produce and consume the way living systems do those things, organically and democratically, in order to live within Earth’s means. It seems to me that “green” in this regard means not only living, producing and consuming in ways that work with life but living, producing and consuming in ways that are life like. This would be to apply Janine Benyus’ et als “biomimicry” to every aspect of our personal and and public lives. In my next several blogs I’d like to share some of my thinking and research along these lines and to hear responses that validate, support or criticize this line of thought. It was actually Lloyd Wells, Green Horizon supporter and democracy visionary, who got me started thinking about communities as the basic unit of democratic practice as well as economic activity. So far, his thinking has proven to be right—along life’s lines. Ellen LaConte 07/13/08 Grassroots Democracy 2008-07-13T19:58:00-05:00 http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/why_are_we_surprised_that_obamas_fudging_the_issues/ http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/why_are_we_surprised_that_obamas_fudging_the_issues/#When:04:00:00Z {summary}There’s widespread dismay at Barack Obama’s softening his stance on a number of issues, even among those of us who would never vote for him. He’s backtracking, sidestepping, and being frustratingly evasive. This should not surprise any member of the Green movement, let alone dismay us. Electoral politics in a representative system the size of the entire US demands this sort of behavior. Representative government has had its detractors at least since Rousseau, who pointed out that under such a system the people are only sovereign on the day they vote. Let’s face it – representative government is a concession to scale.  It is used when the system has grown too big for meetings at which collective decisions can be easily made. Unfortunately, even Greens, who are committed to small-scale politics, have become used to organizations, cities, and political systems that have grown too large for their own good. Everyone shrinks from attributing their unwieldiness to their scale. When things start going wrong we tinker with organizational structures or attempt other temporary adjustments. Representative government was one of those structural tinkerings. It wasn’t so bad in the 1780s when the population of the United States was 3 million and when the political elite knew each other – or were related (hmm, not much has changed on that score!) As Gore Vidal depicts in his novel about Aaron Burr, everyone knew that George Washington was overweight and that Chief Justice John Marshall was the cousin of Thomas Jefferson. When Jefferson put Burr on trial for treason in Richmond, Virginia, that meant Marshall would be the presiding judge. During the trial, Burr and Marshall shared a pint at the local tavern, where most of the lawyers in the case were also tippling. (Footnote: Marshall ruled against his cousin’s interests.) As the population of the United States grew, the electoral college became more and more of a rubber stamp, more and more of us were allowed to vote, and political parties became institutionalized. Parties, of course, played an important role in providing reference points for voters who hadn’t a clue who their local candidates were because the system had grown too large. However, this cluelessness extended to knowledge about the workings of government. The larger the system, the less information voters had about what was being done on their behalf between elections. For a while, newspapers and radio station competed with each other on digging up sensational dirt on politicians’ shenanigans. With corporate media monopoly nearly complete, and with the US population soaring past 300 million, it is hardly surprising that electoral campaigns have become exercises in public relations and can never be intelligent debates over the direction of public policy – even if every voter had a degree in political science. And once the winners take office, as Rousseau foresaw, they seldom if ever set about fulfilling their electoral promises because they know that elections in a system this size never confer a policy mandate. Besides, they have work to do, behind closed doors: using their power to follow their real agenda, and laying the groundwork for getting re-elected. Why on earth, in such a system, would we be dismayed at Barack Obama’s fancy rhetorical footwork as he seeks to appeal to as many voters as possible? If he said what he really thought and remained consistent to his ideals – whatever they may be – the system would chew him up and spit him out in little pieces. His ideals and his team may perhaps be slightly less toxic than the program and personnel of the scary incumbents, but they both have to follow the same rules. There’s nothing inherently wrong with noting Obama’s shape shifting, but let’s do it in the spirit of showing the need to dismantle the system into workable political communities. These would be small enough for their members to feel competent to define their locality’s problems and to figure out what steps the members themselves need to take to solve them. Terry Fowler Grassroots Democracy 2008-07-09T04:00:00-05:00 http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/ron_pauls_critique_is_better_than_his_solutions/ http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/ron_pauls_critique_is_better_than_his_solutions/#When:09:21:00Z {summary}Libertarianism has part of the critique right. But Libertarians disparage “government” without distinguishing between remote, overly-centralized government vs. local, communitarian self- administration. Libertarianism sounds good when it references “self-reliance” and “freedom,” but its conceptions of these things are hyper-individualistic. There has never been and will never be a Libertarian society because human beings do not live primarily as atomized individuals interacting through contractual relations. Human society is and will always be collective in one form or another. As a principled Libertarian, Ron Paul sounds good in his critiques of the current Leviathan. But as a typical Libertarian his solutions are flawed. We do need devolution of power from Big Government and more in the way of self-reliance. But it must be a communitarian self-reliance. We do need freedom from the oppression of the centralized power elites. But the viable alternative is not a Libertarian-individualist form of freedom, but rather a re-localizing form of communitarian autonomy. Greens share some of the critiques Ron Paul articulates, but our solutions are quite different from his. Ours correspond to the lifeways that have been most viable and healthy for people over the long millennia of our species-being. SW ------------------------------------------ From Ron Paul’s Congressional web site 7/7/08 Something Big is Going On By Ron Paul http://www.house.gov/paul The following statement is written by Congressman Paul about the pending financial disaster. He will introduce this statement as a special order and insert it into the Congressional Record next week. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I have, for the past 35 years, expressed my grave concern for the future of America. The course we have taken over the past century has threatened our liberties, security and prosperity. In spite of these long-held concerns, I have days - growing more frequent all the time - when I’m convinced the time is now upon us that some Big Events are about to occur. These fast- approaching events will not go unnoticed. They will affect all of us. They will not be limited to just some areas of our country. The world economy and political system will share in the chaos about to be unleashed. Though the world has long suffered from the senselessness of wars that should have been avoided, my greatest fear is that the course on which we find ourselves will bring even greater conflict and economic suffering to the innocent people of the world - unless we quickly change our ways. America, with her traditions of free markets and property rights, led the way toward great wealth and progress throughout the world as well as at home. Since we have lost our confidence in the principles of liberty, self reliance, hard work and frugality, and instead took on empire building, financed through inflation and debt, all this has changed. This is indeed frightening and an historic event. The problem we face is not new in history. Authoritarianism has been around a long time. For centuries, inflation and debt have been used by tyrants to hold power, promote aggression, and provide “bread and circuses” for the people. The notion that a country can afford “guns and butter” with no significant penalty existed even before the 1960s when it became a popular slogan. It was then, though, we were told the Vietnam War and a massive expansion of the welfare state were not problems. The seventies proved that assumption wrong. Today things are different from even ancient times or the 1970s. There is something to the argument that we are now a global economy. The world has more people and is more integrated due to modern technology, communications, and travel. If modern technology had been used to promote the ideas of liberty, free markets, sound money and trade, it would have ushered in a new golden age - a globalism we could accept. Instead, the wealth and freedom we now enjoy are shrinking and rest upon a fragile philosophic infrastructure. It is not unlike the levies and bridges in our own country that our system of war and welfare has caused us to ignore. I’m fearful that my concerns have been legitimate and may even be worse than I first thought. They are now at our doorstep. Time is short for making a course correction before this grand experiment in liberty goes into deep hibernation. There are reasons to believe this coming crisis is different and bigger than the world has ever experienced. Instead of using globalism in a positive fashion, it’s been used to globalize all of the mistakes of the politicians, bureaucrats and central bankers. Being an unchallenged sole superpower was never accepted by us with a sense of humility and respect. Our arrogance and aggressiveness have been used to promote a world empire backed by the most powerful army of history. This type of globalist intervention creates problems for all citizens of the world and fails to contribute to the well-being of the world’s populations. Just think how our personal liberties have been trashed here at home in the last decade. The financial crisis, still in its early stages, is apparent to everyone: gasoline prices over $4 a gallon; skyrocketing education and medical-care costs; the collapse of the housing bubble; the bursting of the NASDAQ bubble; stockmarkets plunging; unemployment rising;, massive underemployment; excessive government debt; and unmanageable personal debt. Little doubt exists as to whether we’ll get stagflation. The question that will soon be asked is: When will the stagflation become an inflationary depression? There are various reasons that the world economy has been globalized and the problems we face are worldwide. We cannot understand what we’re facing without understanding fiat money and the long-developing dollar bubble. There were several stages. From the inception of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 to 1933, the Central Bank established itself as the official dollar manager. By 1933, Americans could no longer own gold, thus removing restraint on the Federal Reserve to inflate for war and welfare. By 1945, further restraints were removed by creating the Bretton-Woods Monetary System making the dollar the reserve currency of the world. This system lasted up until 1971. During the period between 1945 and 1971, some restraints on the Fed remained in place. Foreigners, but not Americans, could convert dollars to gold at $35 an ounce. Due to the excessive dollars being created, that system came to an end in 1971. It’s the post Bretton- Woods system that was responsible for globalizing inflation and markets and for generating a gigantic worldwide dollar bubble. That bubble is now bursting, and we’re seeing what it’s like to suffer the consequences of the many previous economic errors. Ironically in these past 35 years, we have benefited from this very flawed system. Because the world accepted dollars as if they were gold, we only had to counterfeit more dollars, spend them overseas (indirectly encouraging our jobs to go overseas as well) and enjoy unearned prosperity. Those who took our dollars and gave us goods and services were only too anxious to loan those dollars back to us. This allowed us to export our inflation and delay the consequences we now are starting to see. But it was never destined to last, and now we have to pay the piper. Our huge foreign debt must be paid or liquidated. Our entitlements are coming due just as the world has become more reluctant to hold dollars. The consequence of that decision is price inflation in this country - and that’s what we are witnessing today. Already price inflation overseas is even higher than here at home as a consequence of foreign central bank’s willingness to monetize our debt. Printing dollars over long periods of time may not immediately push prices up - yet in time it always does. Now we’re seeing catch-up for past inflating of the monetary supply. As bad as it is today with $4 a gallon gasoline, this is just the beginning. It’s a gross distraction to hound away at “drill, drill, drill” as a solution to the dollar crisis and high gasoline prices. It’s okay to let the market increase supplies and drill, but that issue is a gross distraction from the sins of deficits and Federal Reserve monetary shenanigans. This bubble is different and bigger for another reason. The central banks of the world secretly collude to centrally plan the world economy. I’m convinced that agreements among central banks to “monetize” U.S. debt these past 15 years have existed, although secretly and out of the reach of any oversight of anyone - especially the U.S. Congress that doesn’t care, or just flat doesn’t understand. As this “gift” to us comes to an end, our problems worsen. The central banks and the various governments are very powerful, but eventually the markets overwhelm when the people who get stuck holding the bag (of bad dollars) catch on and spend the dollars into the economy with emotional zeal, thus igniting inflationary fever. This time - since there are so many dollars and so many countries involved - the Fed has been able to “paper” over every approaching crisis for the past 15 years, especially with Alan Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, which has allowed the bubble to become history’s greatest. The mistakes made with excessive credit at artificially low rates are huge, and the market is demanding a correction. This involves excessive debt, misdirected investments, over-investments, and all the other problems caused by the government when spending the money they should never have had. Foreign militarism, welfare handouts and $80 trillion entitlement promises are all coming to an end. We don’t have the money or the wealth-creating capacity to catch up and care for all the needs that now exist because we rejected the market economy, sound money, self-reliance and the principles of liberty. Since the correction of all this misallocation of resources is necessary and must come, one can look for some good that may come as this “Big Event” unfolds. There are two choices that people can make. The one choice that is unavailable to us is to limp along with the status quo and prop up the system with more debt, inflation and lies. That won’t happen. One of the two choices, and the one chosen so often by government in the past is that of rejecting the principles of liberty and resorting to even bigger and more authoritarian government. Some argue that giving dictatorial powers to the President, just as we have allowed him to run the American empire, is what we should do. That’s the great danger, and in this post-911 atmosphere, too many Americans are seeking safety over freedom. We have already lost too many of our personal liberties already. Real fear of economic collapse could prompt central planners to act to such a degree that the New Deal of the 30’s might look like Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. The more the government is allowed to do in taking over and running the economy, the deeper the depression gets and the longer it lasts. That was the story of the 30s and the early 40s, and the same mistakes are likely to be made again if we do not wake up. But the good news is that it need not be so bad if we do the right thing. I saw “Something Big” happening in the past 18 months on the campaign trail. I was encouraged that we are capable of waking up and doing the right thing. I have literally met thousands of high school and college kids who are quite willing to accept the challenge and responsibility of a free society and reject the cradle-to-grave welfare that is promised them by so many do-good politicians. If more hear the message of liberty, more will join in this effort. The failure of our foreign policy, welfare system, and monetary policies and virtually all government solutions are so readily apparent, it doesn’t take that much convincing. But the positive message of how freedom works and why it’s possible is what is urgently needed. One of the best parts of accepting self-reliance in a free society is that true personal satisfaction with one’s own life can be achieved. This doesn’t happen when the government assumes the role of guardian, parent or provider, because it eliminates a sense of pride. But the real problem is the government can’t provide the safety and economic security that it claims. The so-called good that government claims it can deliver is always achieved at the expense of someone else’s freedom. It’s a failed system and the young people know it. Restoring a free society doesn’t eliminate the need to get our house in order and to pay for the extravagant spending. But the pain would not be long-lasting if we did the right things, and best of all the empire would have to end for financial reasons. Our wars would stop, the attack on civil liberties would cease, and prosperity would return. The choices are clear: it shouldn’t be difficult, but the big event now unfolding gives us a great opportunity to reverse the tide and resume the truly great American Revolution started in 1776. Opportunity knocks in spite of the urgency and the dangers we face. Let’s make “Something Big is Happening” be the discovery that freedom works and is popular and the big economic and political event we’re witnessing is a blessing in disguise. Ron Paul http://www.house.gov/paul Copyright Dr. Ron Paul Decentralization 2008-07-08T09:21:00-05:00 http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/an_image_of_the_revolution_of_lowered_expectations/ http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/an_image_of_the_revolution_of_lowered_expectations/#When:15:48:01Z {summary}Brunswick, Maine is a town across the river from where I live in Topsham. It has a wide main street, and it is appropriately called Maine Street. Brunswick has a tradition of years-standing that pedestrians crossing Maine street need only to enter the crosswalk, or need only to be seen waiting to enter it, and immediately all the traffic stops. People walk across, sometimes slowly as if savoring the moment, sometimes at their regular gait, and maybe sometimes they walk a little faster as if out of courtesy to the drivers.  Clearly, it’s a matter of people being more important than cars. But mark this. On occasion, one will see a person, having started across, and having seen that all the cars have respectfully stopped, will nevertheless break into a run. Sometimes the body language is apologetic, sometimes even desperate. Seems to me that the person’s mind has been colonized by the prevailing modern assumption that cars are more important than people. He or she is also the victim of a widespread dis-ease that has begun to afflict the American people. There are a number of names for this, but the one that strikes me as most apt is “the revolution of lowered expectations.” Brunswick’s tradition on Maine Street, and the local laws and enforcement that back it up, stands like a beacon pointing back, and hopefully forward, to a culture and a practice in which people are more important than machines—where the people have the presence and power-of-self to believe in, and pursue, a revolution of high expectations. John Rensenbrink Personal & Social Responsibility 2008-06-25T15:48:01-05:00 http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/the_shallow_politics_of_americas_concerned_intellectuals/ http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/the_shallow_politics_of_americas_concerned_intellectuals/#When:00:58:01Z {summary}[This hard hitting article, published in Green Horizon Magazine this spring, has claimed the attention of the Utne Reader and stirred commentary on their website. Here is the entire article as published.] For years I have been baffled by the disconnect between what American intellectuals say in their think tanks, journals, websites, books and articles about our national and planetary crisis and their tepid and shallow political stance when it comes to doing something about it.  The work of Lester Brown is instructive. His latest book, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (published by Earth Policy Institute) tells us that the eco-eco crisis gripping the planet is of epic proportions; and it offers pertinent remedies to alleviate the crisis and prepare the way for a healthy economy and ecology (eco-eco) for all peoples. But the book ignores the telling question: how can these specific remedies be translated into actual governmental policies? What kind of political organization or party or coalition of forces is needed to make that happen? He Misses the Number One Problem He seems to assume that, somehow, someone will take up the proposed remedies and get them translated into policy. He misses the number one problem. He misses or chooses not to put up front the fact that we are saddled with a power structure that is either deaf; or immersed in bureaucracy; or so dominated by entrenched interests who benefit from the status quo that action on behalf of the remedies is squelched; or all of the above. In his book of 400 pages he devotes the equivalent of two pages to the question, “What Can You and I Do?” His answer is to read up on the problem, contact your representative, get others to go with you to meet with him or her, and lobby them. And write an op ed.  This is so “old”!  It’s good things that people can do who themselves are caught up in conventional ways of being “political”.  No hint here of the reality of power and the nature of the power structure we’re faced with.  His skimpy two pages of advice are totally inadequate and out of proportion to the immensity of the crisis that he pictures for us in the other 398 pages of the book. Lester Brown’s Institute has been sending gratis their impressive annual analyses and policy recommendations to all members of the U.S. Congress for twenty years.  You can see how much impact that has made! Mike Gravel, former Senator, spoke out to Democratic candidates for president in early January. He said, “Congress could do a good job theoretically, but it can’t. Why?  It’s owned lock, stock, and barrel by corporate America. So you think you’re going to become president and you’re going to say, ‘Let’s really straighten out corporate America.’ This is foolishness. It’s fantasy.” One may demur and say that this is not Lester Brown’s problem. But it is!  If he and so many others put these analyses and remedies out there and yet say not much of anything about the huge political barriers and what we can do about them, then what are they doing? Simply sighing into the wind?  As Ralph Nader would say:  are you just concerned, or are you really serious? It is interesting that Lester Brown has more than a glimmer of consciousness about this for he does talk about “political will”.  Yet, so many people are saying this, who like him make the analysis and offer the remedies. And yet where is the follow through – by them? The Crisis and the Remedies Before going further on this theme, I cast a quick look at what Lester Brown’s book says, and says so well, about the crisis and the remedies. Two years ago, oil was $50 a barrel. In late 2007, it jumped to $90 a barrel and was reaching to the one hundred mark. U.S. corporations and government have continued to build distilleries to convert grain into fuel. The U.S. now has enough distilleries to convert one-fifth of its grain crop into fuel for cars. A disturbing – and wholly predictable – result is that corn prices have nearly doubled. So have wheat prices.  And, of course, food prices are going up steadily (since, as Michael Pollan points out in Omnivore’s Dilemma, corn is a major ingredient in most of our foods). The book declares that the backlog of unresolved problems grows. These include rapid population growth, spreading water shortages, shrinking forests, eroding and depleted soils, deteriorating grasslands, rising temperatures, and – ominously—weaker governments around the world that are breaking down under the mounting stress. We are violating deadlines that we do not recognize The book warns that we are crossing natural thresholds that we cannot see and we are violating deadlines that we do not recognize. These deadlines are set by nature. Nature is the timekeeper, but we cannot see the clock. The book identifies four overriding goals for public policy: climate stabilization, population stabilization, poverty eradication, and restoration of the earth’s ecosystems. These are absolutely pertinent and necessary. The key policy initiative is to get the market to tell the environmental truth. The book proposes lowering income taxes and offsetting this with a carbon tax that will reflect the costs of climate disruption and air pollution. [This, incidentally has long been a foremost policy goal of the German Green Party and of many other Green Parties in the world, but the book ignores their stands.] The book proposes a worldwide carbon tax of $240 per ton to be phased in at the rate of $20 per year from 2008 to 2020 – it would be offset at every step of the way with a matching reduction in income taxes. This would discourage fossil fuel use and encourage investment in renewable sources of energy. Dodging the Implications of Their Own Analyses One might have thought that by this time Lester Brown would have “discovered” the Green Party, both here and in the other 75-plus countries of the world with a Green Party. But no such party exists in his circumscribed view of the political world. He touts warm blurbs such as this from Bill Clinton: “Lester Brown tells us how to build a more just world and save the planet . . . in practical, straightforward way. We should heed his advice.” Presumably, Lester Brown must think that it is through the Democratic Party that help must come. This seems to be the default position of most of the self-styled progressive voices in the media and academe. And yet they know full well that the kind of action they know is needed to save the nation and the planet has not been forthcoming from the Democratic Party for decades. Nor has the latter’s abdication of responsibility changed in any way as we head into the 2008 presidential election. Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe wrote in late December, “The inconvenient truth of the 2008 election year is that climate change is still way down the dance card of most-talked-about topics. It’s ranked No. 12 among Democratic candidates, and No. l5 among Republicans. Out of 2,275 questions on the Sunday morning talk shows, the League of Conservation Voters counted only three on global warming.” The Historic Example of Polish Intellectuals I visited Poland often during the 80’s. I was seeking to understand and learn from the struggle of Solidarity with the entrenched Communist Party elite. The conversations with Polish intellectuals (I would call on them to discuss “economic reform”) had to be very guarded and I was careful not to reveal the names of the many people I interviewed for my book on Solidarity, published in 1988.  My respect for them grew and grew. The intellectuals of Poland, a very large and influential portion of that country’s intelligentsia, goaded the ruling elite with analyses and they found many, often ingenious, ways to support the Solidarity political opposition.  That example comes to mind with striking force as I see the lamentable failure of America’s intellectuals to do likewise. The Money and the Power in the United States Let’s remind ourselves once again of what we face politically in terms of money and power. It is not so different from what the Polish intellectuals faced in their confrontations with the Communist regime. As I write this, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office has issued a report on income distribution in the United States. In 2005, the last year for which the Budget Office has data, the total income of the 3 million Americans at the top (1% of the population) was roughly equal to the total income of the bottom 166 million Americans (out of a total U.S. population of 300 million).  Put in terms of households, the total income of the top 1.1 million households was an astounding $1.8 trillion. Over the years, other studies consistently show that the top 1% of the population own and/or control over 50% of the nation’s wealth.  It is also the case that the great bulk of all campaign contributions to candidates for office come from this same 1%.  They also decide, through their ownership and control of the mass media, what the people hear and see—and what they don’t hear and see—about state, national, and international affairs. Thus, it’s not only the mountains of money they have – not as such.  It’s the political power and muscle this gives them to protect what they have and to maintain the social, economic, and political structures that produce these monstrous inequalities of wealth and political power – and that constitute a deadly war with nature and the planet.  Small wonder that they can pull most of the rest of the population around by the nose. But there are new political forces Yet there are political forces in the U.S. body politic who are determined not to take it anymore. These forces go beyond the usual protest and “you’re pinching my toes” demonstrations of anger and distress.  They are serious about directly contesting for political power – using the time honored ballot box as a means to this end – and, like Poland’s Solidarity—eschewing violence.  The most durable of these forces is the Green Party – which makes sense given the centrality of green issues facing the body politic. And, in companion style with the Green Party, voices like Sam Smith’s Progressive Review help show the way to a serious and credible political alternative to the Democrats and the Republicans. The question remains, why do so many eloquent voices, especially those like Lester Brown who see and proclaim the particular importance of ecological issues – why do they hang back, why do they not seize the opportunity the Green Party provides them. Indeed, why wouldn’t—why shouldn’t!—the entire intelligentsia, whether conservative, liberal, progressive, or socialist go full throttle in full support the Green Party?  Vaclav Havel did it in the Czech Republic in the spring of 2006, giving the Green Party there a huge leg up. The only person of similar stature to do that in the United States is Ralph Nader. But he has done it in a tentative and quixotic way. He ran for president on behalf of the Green Party in 1996, but at quarter speed. He ran full out in 2000, again on behalf of the Green Party and that helped a lot to build the party. But in 2004 he ran as an Independent parallel with Green party candidate David Cobb’s campaign—and both campaigns suffered. Nor has he joined the Green Party.  But at least he has done something. No other prominent member of America’s progressive community, going back 20 years, has come forward to arouse and rally the American public to build a strong, credible, political alternative to the corporate-tethered two major parties. Cynthia McKinney Steps Up to the Plate But hold! On Christmas Eve, 2007, I tuned in to Cynthia McKinney’s Yu Tube announcing her run for the U.S. Green Party’s nomination for President. It is a brilliantly crafted, beautifully delivered, convincingly argued, and courageous political speech. One of the best I have heard or seen for decades.  Her stepping up to the plate to go to bat for the Green Party full out is the most hopeful sign so far for a possible change in the politics of prominent and influential leaders in this country. McKinney’s action brings even more sharply into focus the really astounding failure of the U.S. intelligentsia to go into action in support of the Green Party. Their failure is exhibited week by week and month by month in The Nation; the Atlantic Monthly; In These Times; Earth Island Journal; The Progressive; Yes! Magazine; E Magazine; Utne’s Reader and hosts of other publications – plus thousands of websites.  They expostulate and call attention to all kinds of warts in the dominant political and economic system, and present to their readers many important things that can be done; and they celebrate what individuals and non-governmental organizations are doing to alleviate distress and/or point a way forward. And, by and large, they give aid and comfort to the Democratic Party political machine that at best simply goes along with the status quo and at worst fosters it. They make no move to stir up and back a political force that can change the world– they don’t even discuss in any serious way the things that are needed if a credible political force is to grow and develop in this and other countries I just finished reading several articles in the Winter 2008 issue of Earth Island Journal.  My eye caught a headline, “Green Parties”.  I pounced on it.  The article was about politics in the United Kingdom. It spoke of green ideas and proposals for policies in the Conservative Party, the Labor Party, and the Liberal Democratic Party. But not a word about the U.K.’s flourishing Green Party.  I try to understand such things, but my powers of understanding are severely taxed.  Is the article saying that the three named parties are Green Parties? And, do interesting green ideas and policy proposals, done out of sheer fear of the real Green Party in the UK, convert these three status quo parties into Green Parties? The silence is not accidental and it is not excusable. Or consider this example of what seems like deliberate silence in Yes! Magazine during this past year. The entire issue was devoted to ten leading examples of hopeful things happening in the world that should make us take heart and realize that all is not lost.  One might have thought that the existence worldwide of over 75 Green Parties might, just might, be included in the ten.  But not so. Indeed, there was a meticulous effort made, it seems, not to mention politics at all. The examples could go on and on. America’s intelligentsia is full of talk, talk, talk. But they look the other way when it comes to following through politically. Or they go along with a supine Democratic Party and wring their hands at its failure.  As I said. It’s astounding. Is There, Nevertheless, a Way? But maybe there is a way. It is a long shot. It isn’t easy by any means. But it is something that can be done, however improbable it may seem.  It’s not a shortcut, it’s not a silver bullet.  We must go right to the heart of the matter. Simply put, what we must do is this: WE MUST CONQUER POLITICS. Conquer it?  Yes! Means four things: - Politics must be owned by everyone. - Politics must imitate good housekeeping. - Politics must be rooted in the dialogue of persons. - Politics must henceforth be rooted in a deep commitment to the earth on the order of Albert Gore’s admonition in his Nobel speech “to make peace with the planet.” The earth is our home. If our species can begin now to truly believe this, that belief will be the animating force that requires politics to be owned by everyone; it makes politics a homely matter of good housekeeping; and it roots political decisions in the dialogue of persons. Politics has been practiced by human beings in the last 8000 years (since the Neolithic revolution that ushered in settled agriculture) primarily in terms of top-down control, booty for a conniving and usually docile elite, and a combination of manipulation and force to keep the many in line. This has been true of the many agrarian civilizations that have come and gone and has been fine-tuned to the point of self-immolation in the three hundred years of industrial civilization.  Maybe we have reached the fullness of time, when it’s either total failure and catastrophic disarticulation of all that the species has attained hitherto, or a turn at last to the politics of earth sharing and earth-keeping. John Rensenbrink ______________ John Rensenbrink is President of the Green Horizon Foundation, a blogger on their website and Editor of the hard copy of Green Horizon Magazine. John is a founding member of the United States Green Party. His books include, Against All Odds: the Green Transformation of American Politics (1999). He is Professor Emeritus of Government at Bowdoin College. He lives with his wife Carla on the banks of the Cathance River in Topsham, Maine. 2008-06-20T00:58:01-05:00 http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/life_in_our_schools_1948_2008/ http://www.green-horizon.org/index.php/site/life_in_our_schools_1948_2008/#When:22:45:01Z {summary}Life in our Schools, 1948—2008 Or What is Happening to Us? I. Scenario:  Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in rack. 1948 Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack’s shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack. 2008 School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. II. Scenario: Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school. 1948 Mark shares aspirin with Principal out on the smoking dock. 2008 Police are called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons. III. Scenario: Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by Mary, his teacher. Mary hugs him to comfort him. 1948 In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing. 2008 Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy. IV. Scenario: David takes apart leftover firecrackers from 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, and blows up a red ant bed. 1948 Ants die. 2008 BATF, Homeland Security, FBI called. David charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, David’s Dad is put on a terror watch list and never allowed to fly again. Personal & Social Responsibility 2008-06-19T22:45:01-05:00