The Destruction of America: It's What They Want

Introduction

"Government can't solve the problem. Government is the problem."
-Ronald Reagan

No, the title is not referring to the terrorists. At least, not the ones in other countries, who commit conventional terrorism with bombs and airplanes and vans. These terrorists are a small group of elitists who wish to bring America to its knees unconventionally; through the Democratic process, of all things. Not because they necessarily hate their country, but because they love their money, their power, and their campaign contributors more than their country. And if making the country weaker makes them more powerful, you'd better believe they'll do it.

So who are "they?"

The Reagan Revolution

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
-Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform

America's resounding wish 30 years ago materialized through the "Reagan Revolution." One of unfettered, deregulated, unrestrained capitalism, compounded with "starving the beast." The "beast," of course, being government. Even if that beast was educating our children and caring for our poor and our sick, the American people wanted that beast out of their lives. And they elected Ronald Reagan the the presidency by overwhelming margins in both 1980 and 1984, and they even liked him so much that they elected one of his deputies, George H. Bush, after Reagan's two terms were up.

And the two Democratic presidents who have followed both tread carefully when stumping for social welfare programs, because the "GOVERNMENT BAD, CORPORATIONS GOOD" mantra had been stuck in the heads of constituents for a generation and was there to stay.

President Clinton deregulated banks by repealing the Glass-Stegall Act of 1936 in his second term as per the advice of Rubin and Summers, a decision he now openly regrets. And President Obama doesn't dare raise top income tax rates to what they were under other Republican administrations (50% under Reagan, 70% under Nixon, 91% under Eisenhower) for fear of a corporate lynch mob. Barack Obama is already being called every demeaning term under the sun for letting the Bush tax cuts expire in 2011 (39.6 top tax rate after Bush tax cuts for the wealthy sunset), so it isn't likely he'll impose higher taxes on the richest, at least in his first term.

So the people have spoken, right? Taxes are bad? Government is bad? Corporations, deregulation and obscene profits are all good? If you have absurd amounts of wealth, then you obviously worked for every penny and any taxation on those profits is socialism/communism/fascism/nazism/terrorism? The only reason poor people are poor is because they don't know how to work hard?

Well kids, the Reagan Revolution has come true in every way. We are reaping the fruits of our labor, of the seeds we have sewn three decades ago. I invite all of you to read on, and see just exactly where the Reagan Revolution and 30 years of fiscal conservatism and libertarian unfettered free-market philosophies has led our country.

The Dawn of the Re-Gilded Age

"The only social responsibility of corporations is to make a profit."
-Milton Friedman, economic adviser to President Reagan

Take a look at any economic chart graphing just about anything in this country after 1981, and you'll notice a pattern. That pattern is usually a line that takes a sudden drop, or a sudden rise.

For example, after 1981, when Reagan was sworn in, we steadily went form the world's largest creditor, to the world's largest debtor.

Working people's share of the profits from increased productivity also took a sharp turn for the worst.

This led to increased concentration of wealth at the top.

Because of this, working folks had to deplete their savings just to get basic needs.

Without a reserve of savings, this soon led to increased working-class debt, which has only worsened since the Reagan Revolution.

Obviously, none of this helped economic growth, because the majority of working Americans were cutting back their spending, which hurts local economies and jobs.

Do you see the pattern yet? The source of our economic woes should be painfully obvious right now, but the vested powers that be like it that way, and have plenty of money to lobby Congress so they can make sure the cards remain in their favor. Even if that means the rest of us get the short end of the stick.

So why complain? According to today's conservatives, this sort of economic inequality is not only sustainable, but it is just. And they're going to fight as hard as they can to make sure the status quo stays. But what is that status quo today, after three decades of Reaganomics from both parties?

The Status Quo

"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

"They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

"Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred."
-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1936

The status quo today is one that is slowly destroying the American middle class, to where nearly one in five of us are unemployed, underemployed, or have just stopped looking for work.

The gap between the richest and everyone else is slowly turning into a chasm, thanks to fiscal policy that fills the pockets of the rich while the working class toil longer hours for lower wages. The debt mentioned in the previous section has grown to such an alarming rate that one in 9 working families can't even make the minimum payment on their credit card debt. The housing situation hasn't improved much since the subprime bubble burst in late 2008; now, one in eight mortgages is either in foreclosure or default, and homes are still emptying all over America today, and it's estimated we'll have ten million more foreclosures before 2012.

While Wall Street bankers used our bailout money to give themselves obscene bonuses, Americans who suffered from their greed had $5 TRILLION of their pension and savings wiped out.

Sure, the 1960's saw a boom where median income rose for working families by 33%, but the economic surge that was celebrated by the end of the Clinton presidency was only a 1.5% jump for folks like us. However, the real gains were made on Wall Street- champagne corks were popping through the latter half of the 20th century as productivity has steadily been on the rise while middle-class wages have been relatively flat since the 1970s.

The top 10% of the country has seen great gains in their wealth since 1980, thanks to Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush policies. However, prices have continued to rise while wages have stagnated for the other 90%. Now, the hunger rate in this country, arguably the most wealthy on the planet, has increased by 37 million in just the past year. And here in the South, it's estimated that nearly half of the children in 15 states are undernourished. And according to the article above, a third of Americans- 100 million people- are at or below 200% of the federal poverty level of $21,834 in annual income for a family of four. And as the author said, that figure really should be adjusted, because that amount of money isn't capable of supporting a family of four today. And as if that wasn't enough, 50% percent of kids growing up today will require food stamps/EBT just to eat three meals a day.

So despite the astonishing levels of disparity and income inequality in America, the likes of which we haven't seen since pre-1929, the Republicans in power and the Libertarians making up the majority of the Tea Party would have you believe that such a lack of income and crippling poverty is your own fault. Their meme is that if you live on food stamps/EBT cards, then you're a lazy, good-for-nothing government mooch. Their reasoning for earning insufficient wages is that you just don't work hard enough.

If that seems like an over-generalization, read on and see just how the Republicans in power feel about the poor and unemployed who survive only on a government-provided safety net. Since the onset of the Reagan Revolution, they have sought to not only abolish all regulatory agencies, but to eliminate all social welfare programs.

They are succeeding.

The Right-Wing War on the Poor

"Tough shit."
-Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) after being asked to drop objections to 30-day unemployment extension

In February, Jim Bunning drew the scorn of Democrats across the country for his callousness toward the plight of America's jobless. Republican senators Jon Kyl and Bob Corker had lukewarm support for his viewpoints, but the rest of the Republican caucus turned their heads in shame, refusing to join their colleague in blocking emergency aid to the poor.

Fast-forward to Thursday, June 24th, when an up-or-down vote on an emergency spending bill to extend unemployment insurance through December 30th was blocked- not just by Sen. Bunning, but by the entire Republican caucus. Conservative Democrat Ben Nelson (D-NE) joined the Republicans, and "moderate" Republicans like Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Scott Brown (R-MA) voted in lockstep with their party.

Along with keeping the safety net for millions of jobless Americans intact, the bill also included $16 billion in state government aid, aimed at preserving public sector jobs that would otherwise be lost. Governors of 47 states, including top GOP strategist Haley Barbour (R-MS) all signed a letter begging Congress to extend them the $16 billion to save their state employees. Already, 231,000 state government employees across the nation have lost their jobs since the beginning of the recession because of severe budget cuts.

As if this wasn't enough, in their never-ending, fruitless effort to reach across the aisle, Senate Democrats even compromised the bill down from $190 B to $30 B. However, Senate Republicans vowed to filibuster regardless of the amount in the bill. The only alternative offered by the Republicans would be to severely cut the budget to where the federal government would effectively shut down for almost 80 days. For the GOP, a compromise means that the Democrats do what the Republicans want.

The GOP casts themselves as martyrs, saying that blocking UI is necessary to save the federal deficit from exploding. However, worrying about the deficit while people are starving and losing their homes is a lot like worrying about the furniture on the Titanic if it gets wet. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) joked about the emergency spending bill, calling it the "Deficit Extenders Act."

Mind you, Mitch McConnell is the same deficit hawk who gleefully voted with the rest of his caucus to spend $4 TRILLION that we didn't have on tax cuts for the rich 1%, two wars on countries that didn't attack us, and a Medicare package that put money into the pockets of Big Pharma at the expense of America's senior citizens while George W. Bush was president. He is the same senator who voted to give himself a "cost of living" pay raise while America was reeling from the deficits created by irresponsible spending from those in his party.

Mitch and his Republicans in the US Senate won't cut anything from the $1 trillion spent on wars overseas since 2001, but he draws the line when it comes to keeping a safety net intact for 15 million Americans suffering from an economic crisis created by his party's failed fiscal policies.

It isn't just Bunning being a mean old curmudgeon now- every Republican is now Jim Bunning.

The Destruction of America: It's What They Want

"I want Obama to fail."
-Rush Limbaugh

Eliminating the only source of income left for 15 million Americans will only lead to even more widespread poverty; the lack of money coming into local businesses will have a ripple effect in every state. No longer will the jobless have money coming in so they can buy shoes for their kids, put food on the table, make copays to see the doctor, or change the oil, or even put gas in their cars. The Republicans would like us to believe that this will somehow further enable the jobless to find work, despite the fact that corporate profits are up while hiring is down. The jobs just aren't out there.

When families are pushed out onto the streets because they no longer have UI checks coming in to pay rent, when they lose the money they were getting to gas up their car so they can drive around town and drop off resumes and fill out job applications, when local mom-and-pop grocery stores, hardware stores, shoe stores and service stations go belly-up because there's no money being spent, the economy will likely crash again, just in time for the 2010 midterm congressional elections in November.

The average American doesn't have the time to follow political news- they don't see Republicans crassly voting against emergency aid for millions of families and households. They don't see a vow by the Republicans to filibuster any and all legislation that helps spur job growth. The average American will only see "Congress" sitting on their thumbs, accomplishing nothing while people starve. And come November, the average American will be in an angry, throw-the-bums-out, anti-incumbent fervor. And since the Democrats have the majority, they will be saddled with the blame, despite the Republicans purposefully failing to govern in the people's interest.

This is not about fiscal policy. This is simply the Republicans playing politics with people's livelihoods.

Conclusion

The Republicans seek not to create jobs, or help the economy recover, at least not while the Democrats are in charge of the White House and the Capitol. They want this president and this congress to fail, so they can win more seats in the next election. Their political strategy is to break the economy, increase poverty, widen the gap between rich and poor, and then point the finger at the Democrats and say,

"See? We told you they couldn't get anything done!"

If voters refuse to stay informed on legislative affairs, if voters become apathetic with the political process and decide to stay home on election day, then the Republicans will get what they want. And they will continue to fight against the interests of the working poor as long as Barack Obama is in the White House. They will continue to side with their corporate contributors and Wall Street in their class war against the dwindling middle class and impoverished.

But don't take my word for it- let them say it for you. They are not on your side.

It's a risky political strategy, but they will succeed unless the Democrats come out with guns blazing. The extreme right has taken over the Republican party, and they are waging war with anyone not in line with their philosophy of "screw you, I got mine." The Democrats ignore this partisan warfare at their own peril.

My Final Plea For Your Help

Intro

"Die with your boots on. Gonna try? Well stick around. Gonna cry? Just move along. The truth of all predictions is always in your hands."
-Iron Maiden

I just need to convey a point here. And I try not to be known for vulnerability, but I am openly scared for the future. Not just of this country, or our generation, or our society, but for our posterity and our planet and for all living things. I am frightened, and I'm asking for your help. Why?

Because all logic points to the conclusion that we are accelerating quickly down a path that is becoming rockier and steepier and narrower. Unless we find a way to stop and find a better, safer way to travel, I fear the human species will tumble right off the side. This fall will be gradual at first, but it will nonetheless become cataclysmic, and will remain irreversible for generations. And we will doom this planet's life along with us. This could all happen within a 5 to 10 year window at our current pace.

I'm just going to list some recent happenings in the news, then a few facts afterward. There are many more than what has been listed here, but these are just the few that come off the top of my head from paying attention to the news for the past few weeks or so. Then I will lead you to the extremely logical and simple conclusion I've come to, and hopefully you'll have come to the same conclusion by the time you've finished reading this.

Major Environmental Disasters in America Since 4/20/2010

Ice age coming
Ice age coming
Let me hear both sides
Let me hear both sides
Let me hear both
Ice age coming
Ice age coming
Throw them in the fire
Throw them in the fire
Throw them in the

We're not scare mongering
This is really happening
Happening
We're not scare mongering
This is really happening
Happening
Mobiles quirking
Mobiles chirping
Take the money and run
Take the money and run
Take the money
-Radiohead, Idioteque

Mind you, this is simply MAJOR disasters. Since April 20th. In America. I define "major" as one where human beings are killed or injured or otherwise directly affected. I will not be including things like the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska just two decades ago. Or the massive oil spill in the Persian Gulf during the Iraqi/Saudi conflicts back in Saddam Hussein's heyday. Nor will I discuss the Venezuelan oil rig that sank in the Caribbean this past May. Or any of the ten world's worst oil spills, none of which have happened in the USA. Just major happenings, here in the states, in the past 60 or so days.

April 20, 2010
BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded deep in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people. Estimates by the oil company started at 5,000 barrels a day (around 200,000 gallons of oil per day) and then independent and government scientists analyzed the drilling depth, the amount of oil in the well, and the consequences of a major blowout, and placed that figure around 10,000 to 20,000 barrels a day. Now that figure is between 70,000 and 80,000 barrels a day. It could be higher. But it's already gushed more than four Exxon Valdez-sized spills into the Gulf of Mexico. And that's a very, very conservative estimate.

This will effect undersea plant, fish, bird, turtle and whale species, local economies, tourism, and the country's domestic seafood supply very likely for the rest of our lives. And if, God forbid, a major hurricane hits the Gulf of Mexico, which scientists say is very likely this year, then imagine miles and miles of concrete ribbons of expressway closed down indefinitely because they're covered in oil. Lost homes. Lost cultures. Lost ways of life. For at least a generation. Maybe more.

June 6 2010
A natural gas well leaked toxic gases into water supplies for 16 hours in Pennsylvania, due to a failure in the well's blowout preventer. A plume of polluted water and gas shot 75 feet into the air at the time of the incident, and crews were evacuated until the next day.

June 7, 2010
A natural gas line in Cleburn, Texas ruptured, ending one worker's life and sending seven to the hspital. Nobody could walk through the area for several hours, and the worker's charred remains were found later in the day, a good distance from the site.

Also on this day, in Moundsville, West Virginia, a natural gas line drilling project ran into a pocket of methane, injuring 7 people. A 70-foot pillar of flame shot from the gas line, and the flames were still 40 feet high several hours later.

June 8, 2010
Two men digging clay out of a pit in the Texas panhandle were killed when a natural gas line suddenly exploded. Three other workers bulldozing near the blast were hospitalized.

June 13, 2010
Creeks and nearby water supplies were polluted after a Chevron oil well dumped 33,000 gallons of crude oil near Salt Lake City, Utah. Chevron takes responsibility for this one, and reports are surfacing of oil-soaked wildlife emerging from surrounding waterways.

June 15, 2010
A natural gas pipeline exploded in the Dallas area, taking a man's life and injuring 8 others. Authorities are still trying to figure out what caused the fatal blast.

Rapid Climate Change

"Can you read signs? Can you read stars?
Can you make peace? Can you fight war?
Can you milk cows, even though you drive cars?
Can you survive, against all odds?"
-Damien Marley, "Patience"

At the Bonnaroo music festival this year, in a treeless field an hour South of Nashville, Tennessee, one attendee actually died from the heat. I remember heat indices reaching past 100 on Friday, and climbing steadily on Saturday and Sunday. The brief rain we got Saturday just compounded Sunday's wet, sticky humidity, not to mention exacerbating the prevalent stink of 80,000 unwashed bodies of myself and other hormone-ridden hipsters, rastas, peaceniks and other such scalawags in Manchester.

But that's something we're just going to have to get used to, just like these environmental disasters that keep sticking their ugly heads up in the news each day. Because this year is on track to be the hottest year on record. The facts are bearing out all over the place.

-Did you know that global surface temperature records have been shattered every week since the second week this past January, when compared to the year before?

-Did you know that ocean temperatures are currently at their second-hottest of all-time, other than 1998? And that record temperature anomalies are now being reported on all of the world's majorly-populated continents?

-Did you know that arctic sea ice volume has drastically declined over the last two months, far beyond what would be considered normal in the planet's climate cycles? That temperatures in the arctic are ten degrees fahrenheit warmer today than the norm? And that this past brutal winter and what is predicted to be an historically destructive hurricane season are being directly linked to this arctic meltdown?

-Most importantly, did you know that scientists are estimating that half of the WORLD will suddenly find themselves in a severe water shortage 20 years from now?

This cycle compounds and becomes worse, exacerbated by an overabundance of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere, which lingers above, absorbing sunlight and focusing it on the arctic areas. Before the industrial revolution's onset, the Earth naturally equalized atmospheric CO2. Now, the Earth has far more CO2 than it knows what to deal with. When arctic ice melts, seas grow warmer and ice becomes more isolated. Warmer, saltier water then flows into the arctic from the North Atlantic, which causes more ice to melt. Lather, rinse, repeat.

These greenhouse gases, largely put in the air by humanity's industrialization, consist of carbon dioxide and methane. Both of which humans excrete just by sitting still, which the Earth can normally equalize if kept at manageable levels. But with so much rapid melting of sea ice, methane pockets in the Siberian shelf are starting to seep into the atmosphere. Methane stays in the air for much longer and channels much more heat than regular CO2, and climate scientists warn that this is steadily increasing global temperatures incrementally over the years, to where we are literally starting to see catastrophic effects of climate change take place worldwide before our own eyes.

-Like the Aral Sea drying up to a fraction of what it was just twenty years ago.

-Like glaciers collapsing in Argentina, killing three tourists and their guide.

-Like water supplies in one of the world's most populous countries suddenly drying up because of rapid glacial melt.

-Like how we're already seeing conflicts in the hottest parts of the world not over religious, ethnic of political differences, but because there's not enough food and water to go around.

Like the recent environmental disasters, the effects of climate change are numerous in the media, and I could devote pages to just sharing links and figures and data. But that isn't what I came here to do tonight. I came to ask for your help.

My Final Plea For Your Help

"Come mothers and fathers, throughout the land.
And don't criticize what you can't understand.
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command.
Your old road is rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one,
If you can't lend your hand,
For the times, they are a-changin'."
-Bob Dylan, "The Times, They Are A-Changin'"

This is usually the part where I ask you to call your congressmen and senators and urge them to push for strong climate legislation for the sake of our planet. But I'm going to just start small here, and hope you, the readers, will take it upon yourselves to make a collective call to action in government and society. My plea?

Climate change is NOT to be up for debate any longer.

Evolution used to be an issue up for debate. As did the Earth being the center of the universe. Or the Earth's shape. Or the origin of the universe. But eventually, a scientific consensus concluded that the facts were overwhelmingly on their side, and they moved on.

This is the part where the deniers come out of the woodwork and link me to studies put out by the Heritage Insitute, or the Heartland Institute, or some other think tank funded with oil company money scoffing at proven climate science. Or to a petition from the religious right-wing's Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, where 30,000 scientists who DON'T study the climate deny that climate change is man-made, or that it's even happening.

Or maybe the deniers reading this are fuming under their breath, preparing a lengthy response chastising me about ignoring the economic implications of a strong climate bill. Please don't waste your time. Any economic implications of a carbon tax or ban on oil drilling are outweighed by far by the economic implications of 3 billion starving people in Africa and Central/Eastern Asia. Or by every major coastal American city underwater by the midpoint of the 21st century.

It could be that the climate change deniers are about to post links to the "climategate scandal" at the University of East Anglia, where tens of thousands of private emails between climate scientists were illegally hacked and taken out of context by those working in the interests of Big Oil. Where, in reality, the actual conclusions about drastic climate change came to by a consensus of climatologists were never thrown into question, despite so much manufactured outrage and nonsense.

Or maybe it's just the sad cry of the FOX news watchers and Glenn Beck-ites and Rush Limbaugh dittoheads of "B-b-but...AAAAALLLLL GOOOOOOORRRRREEEE!"

I've wasted far too much time repeatedly debunking those petitions, those studies, those faux scandals and those organizations and I'm tired of debate, for once. I'm thirsty not for debate, but for action, and our planet needs us. And I'm moving on. We all must move on.

We must plead for our media to stop pitting scientists vs. non-scientists against one another and framing it as a legitimate debate. The debate is over. Like evolution, climate change is no longer up for debate. It is happening. It is real. Our actions are directly influencing the climate's rapid change. And incidents like the ones above are all indicative that we are very quickly hurtling down an unsustainable path, and that the only thing that can come of it will be a very swift, sharp, painful end for all of us.

Conclusion

"What's the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?"
-Henry David Thoreau

Our generation will either be remembered as the ones who finally swallowed our pride, wised up and organized a collective effort to reverse our planet's inevitable decay before it was too late, or the ones who got lazy, who consumed with reckless abandon, who spat in the faces of the more knowledgeable among us. And if a fraction of humanity does survive the pending crises that will already await us in the not-too-distant future, they will look back on us with scorn, and tell their progeny of how our laziness and apathy caused species to die off en masse, for soil to only become fertile again once our decomposed corpses were taken back into the Earth.

I'm asking for your help. What will you do for the planet? For yourselves? For your grandchildren?

How will you be remembered?

New Age Charlatans and the Overton Window

(Disclaimer: There are far too many sources to individually link to, and I frankly don't have the time for the tedious task of hyperlinking every claim made in this note. However, should anything I say here make you scoff, feel free to point me to where you'd like to see sources backing me up, and Id be more than happy to provide you with links.)

The Power of the Media

“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”
-Malcolm X

Here's how dictionary.com defines the word "charlatan."

–noun
a person who pretends or claims to have more knowledge or skill than he or she possesses; quack.

Pretty harmless, right? That word can describe thousands of people. I imagine some of my more critical readers would probably love to associate that word with me. But I'd like to use this space to focus that word on the cable news demagogues that plague our public discourse with blatant and outright lies and misinformation, and a general poisoning of the public discourse.

Sure, there are the minor-league pundits like Keith Olbermann, Joe Scarborough, Lou Dobbs in his heyday, and the like. But they don't even hold a candle to the voices on right-wing morning talk radio like Michael Savage, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, and of course our friends on FOX news like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. The FOXers don't even make an effort to hide their bias. Right-wingers could argue that MSNBC is the liberal equivalent of FOX, but as John Stewart put it in a baseball analogy, MSNBC is like the Toledo Mud Hens to FOX news' New York Yankees. There really is no equivalence between the two.

Maybe a lot of you are sighing or slapping your foreheads, and wondering why I'm dedicating a piece to blasting cable news demagogues instead of researching and tackling more presing issues. But this IS a pressing issue, because our political discourse, since the inauguration of President Barack Obama, has become posionous to a most extreme level. I fully place blame on Glenn Beck/Sean Hannity/Rush Limabugh's hate speech and misinformation campaigns, and how they've skillfully shifted the Overton Window to the far right.

I've always said that the media is the fifth branch of American government (the Federal Reserve has earned the title of the fourth branch after the bailouts, their autonomy and lack of transparency and accountability) and in many ways, has more influence over the public than the other four. We in the media decide what the public talks about. We are in charge of creating the public discourse. What you discuss at parties, in coffee shops with the cute girl sitting at the table next to you, with your parents over the phone, with your friends at the bar after work, all comes largely from what the media puts on the airwaves and in print. We are a force to be reckoned with, although many of us are unaware, as we all complain of being overworked and underpaid. And of course, media folks are in one of the most hated professions in America; we're right there at the bottom with congressmen, seedy car mechanics and lawyers. But our power is prevalent and far-reaching.

Which brings me to this point- when you are a pundit with your own cable TV show watched by millions, and you knowingly mislead the public and propagate extremism, you create an environment where millions suddenly find such hate speech and posionous dialogue as acceptable discourse. Particularly when these pundits parade themselves as legitimate journalists who are "just asking the hard questions."

Look at Glenn Beck, for instance. Here is a man with a primetime cable show on the most-watched cable news network, who-

-has attacked the president's deceased mother and grandmother, calling them "Marxists,"
-has openly endorsed an anti-semitic author,
-has once used his radio talk show to harass a woman who had a miscarriage,
-has called a caller on his show (along with Sec. of State Hillary Clinton) a "bitch,"
-has called Katrina victims "scumbags,"
-has said he openly hates 9/11 victims' families,
-has asserted that the United States is not a Democracy, but that progressives are trying to make it one, and that that's a bad thing. (Which leads to the assertion that we're a Republic, not a Democracy, leading to the unspoken assertion that Republicans are the only true Americans, and that Democrats are un-American and un-patriotic, among other such nonsense)
-has called for his audience to leave their churches if they advocate social justice or economic justice,
-has called the president a "racist" who has a "deep-seated hatred for White people" and the "White culture,"

He does this through contrived tears, choking up out of a fear that our country's very principles are under attack by an evil, oppressive, liberal agenda by those who want to take your guns, jobs, bibles, and babies. While chastising liberals for poking fun at Bristol Palin's pregnancy despite her mother being an advocate for abstinence-only sex education, he has used airtime on his program to blast Melea and Sasha Obama, the president's two teenage daughters. In spite of so much hatred and hypocrisy, his TV show and radio program garner millions of listeners and viewers every day.

Anyone with an ounce of sanity knows Glenn Beck is a clown. Many of you have scoffed at my calling Beck's hate speech a threat to Democracy, because clearly, there can't be that many people who take him seriously. But the thing is, there are. And they are being woefully lied to and misled every day, being fed a steady diet of hatred and fear and ignorance. It is poisoning our dialogue, and it is shifting the Overton Window to the extreme right. Beck, in and of himself, is harmless. But he is succeeding in a larger goal of manipulating the shift of the Overton Window, which is indeed a very dangerous thing.

The Overton Window

"The most effective propaganda is simple- stick to a few certain points, and repeat them over and over again until they are accepted as fact.
-Joseph Goebbels

So what is the Overton Window? Political gurus describe it as the realm of acceptable public discourse in society. The more extremism, hate speech, and outlandish claims get broadcast to millions upon millions of listeners across the country each day, the less extreme those claims sound. thus, the Overton Window moves steadily to the right. We've heard these guys call liberals, the president, his administration, and his policies Nazi/Communist/Fascist/Anti-American for so long that they don't sound extreme anymore.

Beck, Hannity and Limbaugh have been at the forefront of extreme discourse since the Democrats took control of Congress and the White House. Since the onset of the Obama presidency, we've seen the onset of the corporate-supported Astroturf (fake grassroots) effort, the Tea Party. the Tea Party has managed to get the majority of poor, uneducated, underserved white Americans to vehmently rail against their own self-interests, citing Democratic social welfare policies like Health Care Reform, Wall Street Reform, Immigration Reform and Campaign Finance Reform as "socialism," "communism," "nazism," and the like. The Tea Party, despite being exposed a front group established by the mainstream GOP, despite being funded by Big Oil, Big Coal and Big Insurance, has managed to get away with touting a populist label, and has had its principles extolled 24/7 as virtuous by the FOX news pundit regime.

Now, approximately just 17 months into Obama's presidency, where he has historically accomplished far more than any other president has at that point in their tenure, where he has made good on nearly all of his campaign promises to this point, where taxes are at their lowest since the Truman administration, a paranoid, knee-jerk, reactionary 24-hour news cycle on FOX has managed to convince their viewing public of the exact opposite. Their pundits have insinuated that the president is a secret Muslim who wants to place the United States under Sharia law, that taxes on the poor and middle class are rising far higher and quicker than at any other point and time in history, that he has accomplished nothing since holding office, and that his agenda is succeeding in converting us from a Republic to a Socialist haven.

Such extreme dialogue, when forced down the throats of millions every day, is now not so extreme. The Overton Window has shifted. And the far right has succeeded in their dominance of this country's political discourse once again.

Consequences of a Rightward Overton Window Shift

"Those who control the access to the minds of children will set the agenda for the future of the nation and the future of the western world."
-Rev. James Dobson

We've seen bricks thrown through congressmen and congresswomen's campaign office windows, gas lines cut at the home of a Congressman Tom Perriello (D-VA) brother, tea partiers collectively mocking and throwing money at a man with Parkinson's who advocated for universal health care, cheering when being referred to as "Tim McVeigh wannabes," a plane flown into an IRS building in Texas, and a gathering in Washington, DC of tea partiers, all heavily armed, threatening to stage a violent revolt if their right-wing agenda was not adhered to in Washington.

Simultaneously, Democratic successes in passing Health Care Reform and moving on other items in their legislative agenda has invited an onslaught of racial slurs, death threats, threats of armed insurrection, sedition, secession, and other hateful acts by the Tea Party activists. These acts have been encouraged and spurred on by right-wing talk radio and FOX news pundits. For example, Ann Coulter said the man who crashed his plane into the IRS building should have flown it into the New York Times building instead. This is the same woman who has openly called for liberals to be shot in the streets. A former pastor and armed serviceman has talked about grabbing his guns and "doing what has to be done" if Washington continues to move forward with a progressive agenda.

With a right-wing media and blogosphere cheering on such extremism, and with a mainstream Republican establishment in Congress and the Senate who has refused to denounce hateful extremist acts, America has fostered a climate where violent extremism is encouraged. And until something is done to regulate such hate speech, it will only get worse from here.

What Can Be Done to Fight Extremism

"For the first time ever, everything is in place for the Battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ."
-Ronald Reagan

Currently, it is not against the law to lie to the public in the news media. This was the ruling of the Florida appellate court, when two investigative reporters sued their former employer, a FOX affiliate, for manipulating a scathing report they had done about BGH in milk products to make it more corporate-friendly. Journalists have a responsibility to uphold the truth, and to tell the story as accurately as possible. However, so many are parading as journalists while simultaneously lying to and deceiving millions of Americans on a daily basis. They use their influence on the networks to spread misinformation and obstruct necessary progress and reforms in Washington. They are waging a war on both the truth and on our Democracy, but nothing is currently stopping them from from spreading lies, fear and hate and masking it as journalism.

Our president and speaker of the house are too timid to support a reinstatement of the "Fairness Doctrine," which would require broadcasting outlets to equally air differing points of view on their stations. Thanks to the right-wing talk radio monopoly, millions of people are privy to hate radio for several hours each morning, with nothing on the other side to balance it out. As controversial as it is for me to say, I believe the Fariness Doctrine is a necessary first step to combat the charlatans' manipulation of the Overton Window and extreme right-wing dominance of our political discourse. And of course, nobody will pay attention to it unless you, the reader, take the time right now to take two minutes and call the Washington switchboard (202-224-3121), ask for your congressmen and senators, and urge them to sign on their support of the Fairness Doctrine. It's a long shot, but a crucial first step in restoring our political discourse back to an acceptable level.

What about you? Do you care enough about American discourse to help save it from the far right?

War Profiteering: The Biggest Threat to Democracy

Opening Statement
(Disclaimer: I have nothing but respect for our troops and our veterans. I did want to write this piece on Memorial Day, to give everyone else something to think about while we're honoring the memory of our fallen heroes. This is a discussion that should be renewed not just on Memorial Day, but every day that we're entrenched in two pointless wars. I hope that what you read here will shock you, and will cause you to scoff. Feel free to read any of the links posted here to learn more. I'm just scratching the surface.)

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
-Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower

The beloved Dwight D. Eisenhower, WWII general and two-term Republican president, made a chilling, cryptic prediction in his 1961 farewell speech. One can imagine that Eisenhower put much importance in conveying this message, as he chose these words to be the last he would ever say as leader of the free world, to a free people.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizen can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense, with our peaceful methods and goals. So that security and liberty can prosper together.

Eisenhower was a five-star general, or General of the Army. It is the second-highest rank in the Army, next to the honor bestowed upon George Washington and General John Pershing, General of the Armies. If anyone knew the inner complexities of the defense sector and the grave implications of a power-grab by the arms manufacturing industry, it was Eisenhower. And his warning to us was grave. We did not listen, and we grew complacent. And now, nearly 50 years after the speech, the military industrial complex is alive and well, and has taken hold of our government, and indeed, the global economy as well. In this piece, I'll be delving into exactly how much power the military industrial complex wields in Washington, and what we can do as citizens to restore democracy.

A Brief History of War and Money

"...As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
-Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21st, 1864

As Commander of the Allied Forces during World War II, Eisenhower was likely privy to the onset of corporate war profiteering through John Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company. More specifically, Standard Oil's sister company, IG Farben.

At the time, IG Farben was the fourth-largest company in the world behind General Motors, U.S. Steel, and Standard Oil. IG Farben had a facility near Auschwitz, and manufactured Zyklon B, which was the gas that murdered millions of Jews in concentration camps during the holocaust. Meanwhile, Standard Oil provided the fuel for both American military strikes on German arms factories, and for the Luftwaffe as they bombed Britain. Rockefeller profited from all of this, as IG Farben was the next largest stockholder in Standard Oil behind the Rockefeller family. Essentially, John Rockefeller was making big bucks off of World War II from both the Allied and Axis forces. From the above link-

"...The planes that made up the Luftwaffe needed tetraethyl lead gasoline in order to fly. At the time, only Standard Oil, Du Pont, and General Motors had the ability to produce this vital substance. In 1938, Walter C. Teagle, then president of Standard Oil, helped Hermann Schmitz of I.G. Farben to acquire 500 tons of tetraethyl lead from Ethyl, a British Standard subsidiary. A year later, Schmitz returned to London and obtained an additional 15 million dollars worth of tetraethyl lead which was to be turned into aviation gasoline back in Germany."

Rockefeller's war profiteering was the first most egregious example of a wealthy corporate entity lining its pockets with money made from the blood of thousands. This is perhaps what led Eisenhower to urge the citizenry to become aware and take action against such corruption and greed.

The Influence of Today's Military Industrial Complex

"You know it's funny when it rains it pours
They got money for wars, but can't feed the poor
Say there ain't no hope for the youth and the truth is
it ain't no hope for the future."
-Tupac Shakur, Oct. 28, 1993

While teachers are losing their jobs, children are being pushed into larger classrooms, states are cutting budgets, closing facilities and terminating public sector jobs all across the nation, when America is still in dire need after bankers ran off with billions of our tax dollars, Congress has just approved $600 billion in war funding for Afghanistan and Iraq. These two wars that have lasted almost ten years, and arguably very little progress has been made. Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, is still suffering from bad PR after he was embroiled in a scandal where he essentially rigged the election in his favor. We are withdrawing troops in Iraq, and are on target for the Iraqi government's demand that we vacate their borders by 2011. However, withdrawing troops and equipment still takes time and money, and Iraq still manages to eat into the budget, even with a new administration and different objectives.

Here are a few examples of astonishingly corrupt war profiteering, just in Iraq.

(Gruesome and disturbing content ahead)

1. At the Abu Ghraib prison, private intelligence contractors CACI and Titan, paid with US tax dollars, were caught torturing, beating and sexually abusing prisoners.

"We believe that CACI and Titan engaged in a conspiracy to torture and abuse detainees, and did so to make more money," says Susan Burke, an attorney hired by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), whose lawsuit against the companies is proceeding into discovery before the Federal Court for the District of Columbia.

2. Bechtel, contracted to build Iraqi infrastructure, was awarded a $2.4 billion contract by the Bush administration, but went wildly over their budget while far exceeding time constraints to complete those projects.

Additionally, Bechtel neglected to train Iraqi operators in maintenance of these facilities, and many of them have since fallen into disrepair. However, Bechtel still ran off with billions of profits made from American tax dollars for not doing their job.

3. Because there's no draft, private contracting of security and military forces has led to 48,000 such mercenaries in Iraq, doing jobs normally done by US Armed Forces, all paid for by US tax dollars. It's estimated that these mercenary contractors will be a $200 billion industry by the end of this year.

Most of us know about the notorious Blackwater (now known as Xe) firm, where mercs massacred Iraqi civilians in a city street, and whose founder, Erik Prince, has personally spoken about Blackwater being used as a religious crusade against Muslims. But one contractor not mentioned much is Aegis Defense Services.

Aegis, a U.K. based firm, was awarded a $293 million contract (taxpayer money) to supply forces in Iraq, despite lower offers from American competitors. With public money going toward the private sector, and with a private company not operating within the states, it could be argued that Aegis was chosen specifically to avoid accountability for any Blackwater-like incidents.

However, as one can see in this video, these mercenaries are clearly firing on civilian cars in Iraq. From the link above-

"...Moreover, An audit of Aegis activities conducted in April 2005 had reported that several of Aegis recruits had not received appropriate training in the use of weapons. In fact, 11 out of 20 surveyed were considered to be inadequately trained with regard to the handling of an AK 47.

...In addition to criticizing Aegis Defence Services Ltd., the audit took aim t the Army's contracting office in Iraq for poor oversight. It reported that the official who was supposed to keep watch over Aegis's contract had not been trained in either monitoring contracts or security. The office was also severely short-staffed: At the time of the audit, 41 officials were administering 6,500 contracts and task orders.

...A random survey of 20 Aegis employees who had been issued weapons -- including AK-47 and M4 assault rifles -- showed that the company did not have the needed weapons training documentation for 14 of them. As a result, auditors could not say whether "all contractor personnel are qualified on the weapons that they had been issued."

Despite these shortcomings, Aegis was found to be in compliance with its contract.

Additionally, Aegis and the Pentagon have yet to apologize to families of the civlians killed in that video. Aegis has defended its actions, saying they were operating under the rules of engagement. Untrained mercenaries, killing civilians, being paid with US tax dollars. And we're seeing more of this, not less.

There are numerous other examples of corporate malfeasance and criminal activity overseas. But let's take a look at how those guys operate in Washington.

Corporate Lobbying For More War
At the time President Obama announced the Afghan troop surge, top defense contractors had reported spending $27 million pushing for more war. In fact, their spending had gone up by $7 million in the 4th quarter of 2009, according to lobbying records. This, coincidentally, is around the time the president announced the deployment of 30,000 more young men and women to Afghanistan.

One of those contractors, Northrop Grumman, has even recently announced that it's moving its corporate HQ to Washington DC, in order to be closer to legislative action. As congress approved a $635 billion war appropriations bill in December, lobbyists for defense firms cited "appropriations" as their chief objective in public records.

As of January, the number of private contractors in Afghanistan have doubled in just a four-month span. Mercenaries purchased with tax dollars now account for 30% of all forces in Afghanistan. The military industrial complex is paying top-dollar for control of defense policy. And they're getting what they've paid for.

Conclusion

"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our
moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our
government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of
our country."
-Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1816.

Eisenhower's prediction has come true. The military industrial complex has usurped the democratic process, and private companies can legally make absurd profits directly from the murdering of young men and women. With war now seen as a business opportunity instead of a country's last line of defense of freedom from agressors, the military inudstrial complex can bypass international law and make money. To them, war is not the wanton destruction of lives, homes, and natural resources, but simply as another way to get rich.

As citizens, we have the power to stop this. We must do as Eisenhower asked us, and get informed about the complexities and dangers of the military industrial complex's erosion of freedom and democracy. Hopefully, reading this piece and the links within have helped you reach that step.

And as I implored all of you to do in my last piece, I urge all of you once again to find your Congressman and Senators, put their office numbers in your cellphones, and call them every day to end these wars. Ask your lawmakers to write and sponsor legislation that forbids the outsourcing of war. Vote for politicians who promise to make war a last resort, instead of succumb to the influence of war profiteers. Organize call-in days to Washington in your community. Bombard congressional offices with calls from constituents, and demand that your voice be heard and understood.

As we remember and honor our veterans today, let's take a stand as taxpaying Americans, as defenders of liberty, and demand our elected leaders put a stop to the corporate cheerleading of war.

The Death of the Gulf Coast, and What Must Come

The End of All Gulf Life
Unlike my last piece on the oil volcano in the gulf, this article doesn't offer a small glimmer of hope. It's great that Bobby Jindal wants to build sand dunes to protect beaches, and that hair salons are donating used hair for more booms, and while that all may prevent the billionth gallon from leaking ashore, the damage has already been done. The Gulf Coast isn't dead yet, but by the time this leak is finally stopped, the damage will be irreversible. I would be highly surprised if even a fraction of the life that was in the Gulf of Mexico will be able to live in the toxic bile created by millions of gallons of oil and harmful chemical dispersants. This oil slick could very possibly kill every living thing that doesn't escape its perimeter. By the way, the slick is now estimated to be 45,728 square miles. To put that into scale, that's 728 square miles more than the Gadsden Purchase, which is basically the Southwesternmost corner of Arizona all the way to about halfway through New Mexico. The entire state of Mississippi is 48,430 square miles.

Oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill has Louisiana's marshes, the prime breeding ground and hatchery for the country's fishing industry. We're confronted now with pictures of oil-covered birds in the news media. A toxic mixture of dispersants and oil could now be even more threatening to the already fragile ecosystems of the Gulf Coast. In fact, even if just three of the Gulf Coast's 1400-1600 sperm whales are killed by oil, that could endanger the Gulf's entire sperm whale species. That's an entire species, at risk of being wiped out because of an oil rig exploding 30 miles from the shore, and with no clear end to the leak in sight.

A lot has developed from the spill since I last wrote about it; the 5,000 barrel a day estimate is likely merely a tenth of what is actually being belched into the ocean each day. And that's a generous estimate. This spill could be gushing an Exxon Valdez-sized figure each week. BP and the government had been saying 5,000 barrels per day (42 gallons of oil in each barrel) and the media had been repeating that figure ad nauseam until a video emerged showing a natural gas and oil gusher. Through particle analysis, comparing scale of distance between the camera and the strength of the gusher, to be much, much more than the 5,000 barrel figure. It could actually be between 50,000 and 100,000 barrels. That's up to 4.2 MILLION gallons of oil leaked every day. At the time of this writing, May 25, oil has been gushing from the Deepwater Horizon well for 35 days. Which means so far, the oil volcano a mile undersea could have regurgitated up to 147,000,000 gallons into the Gulf Coast ecosystem. That's about 12 Exxon Valdez-sized spills. And counting.

And there is MUCH more natural gas leaking than there is oil, and you can see the natural gas via the video of the spill released by BP after pressure from the Coast Guard and the Obama administration. Natural gas sucks oxygen out of the ocean, which is a problem for all of us because the ocean and trees produce the world's oxygen. Along with sea life dying by the truckload, the ocean's natural functions are also in danger due to the Deepwater Horizon gusher. (If you've notice, I refuse to call it a "leak." This is far worse than a "leak" or a "spill." Can we phase those words out now when referring to this disaster?)

This oil volcano will affect marine species in the gulf for literally the rest of our lives. It may very likely wipe out all marine life in a 50,000 mile radius. And you can imagine the residual effects this will have on people who make their living through fishing, renting out charter boats, or through tourism. The damage is already done. And it is literally incomprehensible.

What We Can Do, Post-Oilpocalypse
A few months ago, in a 5-4 decision in the Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission ruling, the Supreme Court decided that because corporations are legally people, they can donate as much money as they want to a political campaign. My question is this- if corporations are people, then can we give them the equivalent of a death sentence if they commit acts that warrant such punishment?

Now, first of all, I sincerely hope that the "topkill" method of shooting mud and concrete into the pipe will work, and cap the flow of oil still gushing into the ocean. BP says there's only a 60-70 percent chance that it will work, because it's never been tried at a mile below sea level before, where up to 15,000 psi of pressure will have to be quelled. If this doesn't work, BP will likely follow through with their plan to drill an alternate well from another rig and siphon the oil that way, which means the oil gusher will continue for possibly several more months before it's finally stopped.

But frankly, the president has surprised me in how he let BP control the oil cleanup efforts, given that they frequently overlooked several red flags that showed the well they were drilling wasn't safe. And the fact that they grossly misunderestimated the severity of their mistake at 1,000 barrels a day being leaked daily. Of course, Mineral Management Services (MMS), the federal agency that was supposed to inspect the Deepwater Horizon rig at least once a month failed miserably at their job, as well, and allowed BP to get away with a vast array of safety violations.

But what's most surprising is that the strongest action that the federal government CAN take, legally, under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, has yet to be taken. That is, completely kick BP off the site and take over cleanup efforts. By allowing BP to clean up the site, and by failing to not deploy the national guard, or to divert extra military and civil resources to booming, barricading, and doing all they can to protect the marshes and the shores, damage has been caused that might not have had to happen. EPA Director Lisa Jackson can also push to debar BP from any further federal contracts, which would cost them about $12 billion per year.

Bush's historical legacy will likely be dominated by both his decision to invade Iraq in spite of international outrage, and by his administration's gross mishandling of Hurricane Katrina relief. Obama's legacy, while he's already accomplished far more in his first 16 months than any president in recent memory, has his legacy in jeopardy because of his lackadaisical, play-it-safe attitude towards BP and this oil spill. Even when I talk to die-hard Southern Republicans, they all talk about how they wish the government would do more about BP and the oil slick. The American people, conservatives included, all want the president to take a liberal, forthright, tough stance on the oil giants who all share responsibility for this catastrophe. Politically, there is everything to gain and everything to lose for this president when it comes to this crisis. I don't know what Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod are telling the president to do, but I have a feeling he needs to stop listening to them and act like the progressive he was when he was campaigning, instead of being a play-it-safe centrist to BP and Big Oil.

Speaking of shared responsibility, I want to close with this.

Point the Finger at the Mirror
BP is guilty. Transocean is guilty. Halliburton is guilty. But this is not their fault, at least not directly. (Here's the part where a lot of you will stop agreeing with what I say and type something angry in the comment box.)

This incomprehensible disaster which will literally ruin the Gulf Coast's life for decades to come, is all our fault.

Maybe not you and I individually, but our lifestyle and extravangant petroleum-based culture, and our collective outrage whenever gas prices go up a dime, is what caused this mess. If you drive a car, fly in an airplane, or drink from plastic bottles, this is your fault.

If you live in America, this is your fault, because while we are 5% of the world's population, we use 24% of the world's energy.

If you live in a rural area, this is your fault, as city dwellers use less energy per capita than those who live in the hinterlands but still depend on city-provided utilities and electricity and drive cars.

And if you have children, this is also your fault, because your kids are also born and bred into a culture that encourages excessive consumption of resources, and will grow up consuming like we do unless our generation collectively decides to drastically change our lifestyle.

We can point fingers at BP and the government all we want, but there's still sludge dripping from our outstretched fingers. As long as our carbon footprint is what it is, then companies like BP, Exxon, Texaco, Citgo, Chevron, Shell and others will continue to drill deeper and deeper out into the ocean in order to satisfy consumer demand. As long as we demand cheap gas to fuel our excessive lifestyles, these companies will continue to engage in environmentally unconscionable acts so their stock prices will stay up. So we can keep living unsustainably.

To put this all in perspective, let me offer three key points-

-Exxon Valdez spilled 11,000,000 gallons of oil into the Prince William Sound.
-So far, the Deepwater Horizon gusher is spewing up to 2,000,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico per day.

And here's the kicker-

-The United States consumes 350,000,000 gallons of oil per day.

So, as bad as the BP oil gusher is, it's still only about half a percent of our DAILY consumption.

Do you see a problem here yet?

Conclusion
This is our fault. And if something good is to come from the death of the Gulf of Mexico, it must be comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation. We must fight for it like the progressives fought for health care and financial reform. And unlike those two pieces of legislation, it cannot be seen as a child's vitamin (hard to swallow without being immensely watered down) but as vital to our survival and progression as a culture, as a society and as a species. We must become stewards of our planet.

This could mean sharply increasing the gas tax and using that money to put bike lanes on all highways. It could mean a tax on carbon emissions, forcing us to depend on energy sources that don't emit CO2. It could mean electing leaders who promise to uphold the environment for our future generations, instead of look out for the profits of Big Oil. It should definitely mean NOT electing candidates who say it's "un-American" for the government to criticize an oil company over their mistakes. Candidates and political parties who support unregulated, privatized, "free market" ideologies that showcase such an astounding disconnect with reality shouldn't be getting votes from any seriously concerned citizens. Period-point-blank.

Whatever the solution is, we must actively work towards it and not become lazy, cynical, apathetic, depressed, or discouraged. The 24-hour reactionary news cycle will, of course, put this story on the backburner after awhile when some new crisis arises, when an innocent is affected by tragedy, when some celebrity has a lusty affair. We'll be tempted to mindlessly drool in front of our TV screens, shrug our shoulders, say "well howabout that" and go on about working and shopping and playing.

Not taking action means that this environmental genocide will have meant nothing. And that history will likely repeat itself down the road. So vote. Keep the DC offices of your congressmen and senators in your cellphone, and call them every day and tell them to fight for clean energy legislation. Make phone calls for concerned candidates. Knock on doors. Sign petitions. Spread awareness.

We must not grow complacent.

We must fight.

We must change.

The American Chernobyl: Causes and Consequences of the BP Oil Spill

Intro
21 years ago, when Exxon's Valdez tanker spilled 10 million gallons of oil into the Alaskan shore, it was referred to as the worst man-made ecological disaster in history. That was 10,000,000 gallons, which made the ocean look like this. But it's looking right now like BP's Deepwater Horizon spill is going to be exponentially worse before the leak is finally contained.

So yes, there are undoubtedly going to be severe, long-lasting environmental problems that will take decades of recovery for the Gulf Coast. But as you dig deeper into the gritty truth of this massive catastrophe, one can't help but be paralyzed by the loathsome greed that was ultimately behind this particular disaster.

Comprehending the Magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon Catastrophe
The BP oil spill has been leaking at a rate of about 5,000 barrels per day since the rig blew up about a week and a half ago. There's a small wellhead on the pipes that stops oil from leaking anything more than that, although 200,000 gallons of oil per day is still extremely hazardous. But if that wellhead breaks from the erosion of the pipes, then that 5,000 barrel figure could instead mean 50,000 barrels per day. That's an Exxon Valdez-sized spill each week into the Gulf of Mexico, and it could still be months before the spill is contained. In the link above, the phrase "order of magnitude" basically means a multiplier of ten. That means as bad as it is now, if this wellhead breaks, this spill will literally become exponentially worse.

Nobody really knows how much oil is going to spill into the Gulf, because of how deep the drilling had gone. However, even more alarming comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), whose leaked report fears a worst-case scenario of 2.1 million gallons of oil per day being leaked into the Gulf. Gov. Bob Riley (R-AL) says he is fearing even 150,000 barrels of oil leaked per day, or 6 million gallons. Again, it could be almost a quarter of a year before the oil stops leaking.

Choosing Between Bad and Worse
No matter how you look at the containment efforts currently underway, we can only choose between a bad scenario or a worse scenario. There could be a 4-story, 70-ton dome that would be placed underwater to contain the oil leak, where the oil would be pumped out from above the surface. However, positioning the dome is going to be tricky, seeing as going that deep underwater would mean that dome has to be incredibly resistant to pressure. And by the time it gets there, the damage could already be too great for the dome to have any effect.

Gov. Barbour (R-MS) told me about "dispersing" the oil. But as others have pointed out, dispersing is a term that basically means breaking up the oil slick into particles that will settle on the ocean floor. the oil doesn't actually go away, but instead just settles on the bottom of the ocean. Much of the Gulf Coast's economy revolves around the shrimping industry, and shrimp, along with much of the oceanic food chain, relies on bottom-feeding. There's no telling what kind of disasters, both for species and for the economy, could come from miles of oil on the ocean floor.

There's talk of drilling an alternate well that would funnel the oil out from the source through another pump. However, the source is 22,000 feet deep, and drilling down that far would take 3 to 4 months, even at the quickest possible pace. By that time, there's no telling how much oil will have leaked, and it could very well be a too little-too late endeavor.

No matter how you cut the cake, it's gonna be real hard to swallow for folks in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, or Texas. And given the pattern of the winds and Gulf currents, other states along the Eastern seaboard could be put in danger if the oil leaks around the Florida peninsula.

The Unconscionable Greed of Big Oil
No disaster like this has ever occurred in any other part of the world where oil drilling is done, because every country has a certain regulation that keeps something like this from happening. Every country except the United States, anyway.

That regulation is a $500,000 device called an "acoustic shutoff switch," which shuts off the flow of oil at the source in case of an emergency. Oil companies who drill in the United States have Dick Cheney to thank for the removal of that regulation. Dick Cheney, Bush's Vice President, used to be an executive of the Halliburton energy company. And you can bet Halliburton's stock went several points above the competition when the acoustic shutoff switch regulation was removed.

Let's also consider that the estimated cleanup figure for BP in this oil spill is $12.5 billion, which they have grudgingly said they would pay for out of their own pocket. To put that in perspective, BP's annual profit was $25.6 billion in 2009. I'm not the best at math, but let me try to break this down.

$25,600,000,000-$12,500,000,000=$13,100,000,000

So, to set the record straight, BP, whose CEO was quoted as saying, "What the hell did we do to deserve this?" is going to have to forgo just under half of their 2009 profits to clean up the worst man-made ecological disaster in the history of Planet Earth. A disaster that will take decades to clean up and recover. That will ruin fishing and tourism industries in the South, and potentially along the East Coast. That thousands of species and ecosystems will possibly never fully recover from. Just under half of one year's PROFITS. Which means after all the operational and personnel costs have been paid out from their total revenues, they'll still cash an 11-digit check at the end of the year.

As mentioned earlier, the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded was drilling at a depth of 22,000 feet. Their federal permit only allowed them to drill at a maximum depth of 20,000 feet. So not only was BP allowed to bypass a law that had to be followed by every other oil-producing country in the world, but they were breaking oil-drilling laws in the country with the most lackadaisical regulations on the planet. So they could make $25,600,000,000,000 a year.

And by the way, I wouldn't have needed to write this if Dick Cheney didn't feel that $500,000 was too much of a burden for BP to bear before it started drilling offshore.

Conclusion
I don't have a positive or hopeful way to end this post. I could say that no matter how much the spill's cleanup will cost, or no matter the damage already done, the 11 families of those who died on the oil rig will never get back what they lost.

I could choose to mention how the oil spill will kill or taint the food eaten by species like shrimp or red snapper, which humans buy and eat themselves, which means we'll be eating tainted seafood.

I could mention that an Exxon Valdez-sized spill per week for 12-16 weeks will ruin beaches in the South and maybe the East, and will hurt the tourism/hotel/restaurant industries in coastal states. But we've all already heard the gloom and doom from the media, and repeating it won't make anyone feel any better, or reverse the damage that's already been done.

However, I can at least offer a glimmer of hope; maybe this will shake America out of its addiction to fossil fuels, and finally illustrate that a fierce dependence on finite resources can only lead in destruction such as this.

Maybe this will make Americans realize that the mild convenience of our petroleum-driven culture is of little importance when it comes to preserving the planet for our posterity. Maybe this disaster will finally scare our policymakers into incentivizing growth of green energy jobs in solar, wind, biofuels, geothermal, hydroelectric, or even nuclear power.

Maybe American voters will overcome their apathy towards our political system and work to elect leaders who put the environment first, and corporate greed second.

And maybe those tax breaks can grow our economy into a green one that not only provides jobs and powers our homes here in the USA, but spurs other oil-dependent nations to do the same.

After all of this, I can still say I'm hopeful.

Are you?

Republicans Sure Do Love them Some Big Government

Opening Statement

(If you don't feel like reading, watch Rachel Maddow dismantle the GOP's stimulus hypocrisy here. You can also see the complete list of hypocritical Republicans on the stimulus here.)

Anti-government Republicans love big government. Yep. It's true.

I was surprised too, when I found out.

See, I had just assumed that when someone is elected to a national office to vote on national policy, they'd do it, for, you know, the good of the country. Or at the very least, the good of their district. I reckon that still holds true for most elected officials, unless you happen to be a Republican. Particularly if the policy in question is the $787 billion stimulus package. Or national health care reform.

February 2009
About a year ago, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Re-Investment Act of 2009, which was comprised of hundreds of billions of dollars in public works projects, aimed at getting people back to work in the midst of a recession. And, in doing so, bettering our infrastructure at the same time. And we all remember how Eric Cantor (R-VA) and John Boehner (R-OH) led the charge against the stimulus bill, even clapping for themselves when the vote had come through. Not one Republican voted for the stimulus. All of them who spoke on it spoke against it. They called it wasteful, pork-barrel, big government spending that wasn't going to do any good for jobs, or infrastructure, or the economy. Just more big nasty government.

Cue right-wing talk radio pundits and FOX news anchors decrying this bill as a Stalinist, Fascist, Marxist, Communist, elitist policy that hurts America and helps the terrorists. Cue the national dialogue reaching a fever pitch about how these mean nasty Democrats are shoving government down our throats and gosh gee golly willikers let's throw some tea bags to show how mad we are.

Well, that's what they said.

Here's what they actually did.

Unabashed Republican Hypocrisy
Now, when that money goes to their home districts, the story about the stimulus is a lot different. All of these Republicans voted against the stimulus after repeatedly trashing it as wasteful pork-barrel spending. These Republicans applauded themselves in the House chamber when the vote tally showed that zero Republicans voted for it. But all 23 of these Republicans loooooove them some big government spending. Keep in mind, I'm only using these as examples. There are plenty more where this came from. About 91, to be exact. One of the stimulus' biggest opponents?

That'd be Republican Governor Haley Barbour (R-MS), who had been unwilling to take $2.6B in stimulus funds for health care, education, and public works. He has an impressive resume as a chief GOP strategist.

-Barbour is one of the national GOP's big boys, and was the national RNC chairman when the Republicans took over congress for the first time ever, back in 1994.
-He was the most profitable lobbyist on K Street before running for Governor.
-He's even been found to be the engineer behind the GOP's total obstruction of anything progressive in Washington, encouraging Republicans to not unveil any policy of their own, but to instead just bash democratic policy and completely abandon bipartisanship. This is all a devious political effort to win votes in 2010, to frustrate voters with democrats being unable to get anything done, even though Republicans are doing all of the obstruction.

All of this gives the impression that if anyone is against a big spending program from big government, it'd be Governor Barbour. Well, if you click on Haley Barbour's name a few paragraphs above, you'll be taken to a NYT article on the Mississippi STEPS program, which uses stimulus funds for the private sector to hire employees. Barbour is in full support of this program, which wouldn't be possible without federal stimulus dollars.

"It’s welfare to work...The real economy that generates jobs generates private-sector jobs, from whence come taxes and quality of life for people."
Gov. Haley Barbour

Even though he goes on to bash the federal money coming to the state, Barbour grudgingly admits that Mississippi needs the help. From the article-

Now the problem facing Mississippi and other states is the calendar: The welfare money in the stimulus bill must be in the process of being spent by the end of September. Mr. Barbour said he hoped the program would be extended so more jobs could be created.

But Barbour isn't alone. There are plenty of Republicans who see the value of big government when it helps their constituents.

GOP Hypocrisy on the American Recovery and Re-Investment Act of 2009

-Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) called this "worse than wasteful" and a "boondoggle." That was before he handed out a $625,000 check to the Cedartown City Commission, made up of funds that he voted against giving out.

-Rep. John Mica (R-FL) is glad that some of the $787 billion will go to his district, to fund a beleaguered commuter rail project.

"The timing couldn't be better.
-Rep. John Mica

-Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) was mad that Gov. Tim Kaine was slow on spending stimulus finds that had been allocated to his district.

We could use that money desperately...there are a lot of things up here that money could be used for.
-Rep. Frank Wolf

-Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA) brought some stimulus funds to his cash-strapped district back home, praising the bill for giving jobs to several dozen new workers in a sewage treatment plant.

-Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and the rest of the Texas delegation pushed for $3 billion in stimulus dollars for NASA, to help retain thousands of aerospace jobs.

"...This funding will spur growth in Texas communities."
-Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison

-Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) was a big opponent of the stimulus, until money went to his state.

"[ARRA is] a great thing for this county. we're not accustomed to federal dollars of that magnitude finding its way to North Carolina."
-Sen. Richard Burr

-Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) said a lot of things about the stimulus. Like this little tidbit

"“Hold on to your wallets folks because with the passage of this trillion-dollar baby the Democrats will be poised to spend as much as $3 trillion in your tax dollars,” Bond said. “Unfortunately, this bill stimulates the debt, it stimulates the growth of government, but it doesn’t stimulate jobs,” Bond insisted.

Well, that was before Bond decided to tour his state and talk about how great all that $2B of stimulus money was for low-income housing for the elderly and impoverished. Getting federal government money is great, but only for Missouri, apparently. Bond said the stimulus would "create jobs and ultimately spur economic opportunities."

-Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) is also a big fan of big government. Now before you shout "YOU LIE!" at me, take a look at Wilson, wanting federal stimulus money for his district from the Department of Agriculture.

"We know their endeavor will provide jobs and investment in one of the poorer sections of the Congressional District," Wilson wrote to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in an August 2009 letter excerpted by the Times.

-Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) is the state's junior senator who vehemently opposed the American Recovery and Re-Investment Act.

"The only thing this bill will stimulate is the national debt."
-Sen. Bob Bennett

But he had requested $50 billion in stimulus money for his state from the EPA and the USDA before voting NO to it. Which Bob Bennett do the Utes like? The chest-beating no-to-big-government blowhard, or the senator who is looking out for his state, which is suffering from recession?

""I recognize the extensive demands being placed on these funds and, therefore, greatly appreciate any funding considerations you give to the projects of Utah...The addition of federal funds would maximize the stimulative effect on the local economy."
-Sen. Bob Bennett

-Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-OH) was a big stimulus opponent who also noted that federal stimulus dollars for broadband internet expansion would help his district's economy.

"The project could support numerous jobs in Ohio."
-Rep. Pat Tiberi

-Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) was also one of the 111 House Republicans who voted NO on the stimulus package, and then toured her district talking about how great the stimulus was after she had requested $4.2 million to fight homelessness.

"This funding will provide much-needed assistance."
-Rep. Mary Bono Mack

-Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) decried the $787 billion spending package as wasteful, but still requested $3M for harbor improvements in his district.

"Safe and navigable harbors are economic engines that drive the communities that surround them."
-Rep. Peter Hoekstra

-Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE), the former Governor of Nebraska, and Secretary of Agriculture under George W. Bush, was one of the senate's loudest critics of Obama and the stimulus package. Which Mike Johanns did Nebraskans vote for? Was it this guy-

Mr. President, I rise today to say that rarely has a crystal ball proved so regrettably accurate. Many warned, as did I, that the stimulus would amount to a mountain of wasted money. It produced record deficits and thus far, little else."

"The money would simply never reach the economy."

"It would be hard for me to imagine that we are going to be creating many jobs here."
-Sen. Mike Johanns

...Or was it this guy, who requested stimulus money for Nebraska from the USDA?

"The proposed project would create 38 new jobs and bring broadband to eight hospitals, five colleges, 16 libraries and 161 K-12 schools."
-Sen. Mike Johanns

-Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) joined in the anti-stimulus chorus in Washington, before requesting stimulus money to go back home.

"This is spending, not stimulus."
-Sen. Lamar Alexander

...Although a letter he sent to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack tells it a little differently.

"It is anticipated that the project will create over 200 jobs in the first year and at least another 40 new jobs in the following years."
-Sen. Lamar Alexander

-Rep. John Linder (R-GA) requested dirty, dirty stimulus money from that wasteful, pork-laden bill go to his district. After he voted against the bill. In early 2009, Linder, ranked by the ACU as one of the most conservative in the House, crticized the stimulus.

"(new unemployment numbers) only reinforce the fact that the $787 billion 'stimulus' signed into law eight months ago has done nothing for job growth in this country."
-Rep. John Linder

But Linder might have a bone to pick with Linder, who later said-

"The employment opportunities created by this program would be quickly utilized."
-Rep. John Linder

-Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) went around handing out fat checks in his district, which were made possible through $5.2M in federal stimulus dollars from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to fight homelessness.

"It is imperative we provide those programs serving Delaware’s most disadvantaged families and individuals with the resources necessary to house, feed, and protect those in desperate need."
-Rep. Mike Castle

-Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) once called the stimulus bill a "giant welfare package." But that didn't stop him from requesting $25M in stimulus money from the EPA for the Tar Creek cleanup in his state.

"This funding not only completes the relocation phase being conducted by the Lead Impacted Communities Relocation Assistance Trust but provides the necessary funds to clean up this area."
-Sen. James Inhofe

-Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) joins the rest of the Georgia delegation as a congressman who voted against the stimulus package saying it was "wasteful," before requesting some of that wasteful money for their own district because it creates jobs/repairs public infrastructure. Here's what he had to say about it last February.

"(The ARRA is) fundamentally flawed and doesn’t represent the change we deserve or the stimulus we need."
-Rep. Jack Kingston

But ol' Jackie boy requested money from the stimulus go to Alma and Jesup Counties, so those police departments could hire more entry-level officers to fight crime on the streets. And he has the gall to take credit for that stimulus money by not once mentioning the word "stimulus" in statements to his district. And manages to even bash the federal government after he requested federal money.

“We’ve seen from experience that local initiatives go a lot further toward solving local problems than policies set in Washington...This funding will provide tax relief by saving local tax dollars.”
-Rep. Jack Kingston

Mind-boggling as it is, Kingston's office says that he remains opposed to the stimulus package.

-Rep. John Carter (R-TX) distributed press releases talking about how bad the stimulus package was, how we should repeal it and give the money back to the taxpayers. Thing is, Carter is completely aware that the stimulus is giving money back to the taxpayers in his district. Specifically through $3B for NASA, requested by the entirety of the Texas delegation. Carter himself also requested $621 million in hospital projects in his district.

"(ARRA is) a victory for the economy in Central Texas."
-Rep. John Carter

-Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA) made no bones about his opposition to the stimulus, along with the rest of his colleagues. But that didn't stop him from recognizing that there are hurting people in his district who could use some jobs and some federal investment in local public works projects. Here's a sample from the article I linked to above, that talks about the 7,500 jobs to be created or saved in Pennsylvania's 5th district.

Congressman Glenn "GT" Thompson, R-Howard, who represents the 5th District at a national level, said he hoped the residents within the county would benefit from the plan's massive spending and tax cuts.

Like Pennsylvania's 5th district, there are places all over the United States that are benefiting from the recovery packages. And we can track all of the spending for the next year or so, courtesy of the internet. Looks like that big bad stimulus may not be so bad after all, according to these Republicans who voted against it.

Well, maybe that's just the wishy-washy, on the fence Republicans not extreme enough for the most extreme Tea Party extremists on the fringe of the far right? Let's look at some House GOP leadership!

-House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has been, without a doubt, the biggest critic in Congress on the stimulus package. He even threw the bill on the floor during a debate. Here's what he had to say about it just recently, on the anniversary of the bill's signing into law.

"The trillion-dollar stimulus was put together so quickly and so secretively that no member of Congress had a chance to read it before it passed, and it shows. Yet, as poorly conceived and badly executed as the trillion-dollar stimulus was, President Obama and Democrats in Congress still think that Washington is the answer to everything."

“When it comes to slow-moving government spending programs, it’s clear that it doesn’t create the jobs.”
-Rep. John Boehner

You tell 'em, John! That big bad federal government can't do anything right! Right?

"With Ohio’s unemployment rate the highest it’s been in 25 years, I’m pleased that federal officials stepped in to order Ohio to use all of its construction dollars for shovel-ready projects that will create much-needed jobs.”
-Rep. John Boehner

Oh. Well, nevermind. Maybe the House Minority Whip can do a better job standing up for his principles?

-Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) is the House's #2 Republican, and even organized the effort for all House Republicans to vote against the ARRA.

Well, that was until he was caught hosting a job fair where half of the employers there had been given money from the stimulus to give jobs to the unemployed. And at this same job fair where 30 organizations who directly benefited from the bill were putting his district to work, he called the stimulus an "utter failure." All of this coming from a guy who repeatedly attacks the president for not doing enough about job creation.

Closing Statement

Like it or not, these Republicans cannot deny that the American economy has been on life support, and the stimulus package is the plug that keeps it running until the economy recovers from the recession. Here are some raw facts that cannot be ignored, no matter how hard these history revisionists and hypocrites may try.

-Over 2 million jobs have been saved or created since the bill was signed into law, with only a quarter of the money spent so far.
-President Obama's claim that 3.5 million jobs will be saved or created by the end of this year is still on track.
-Even though the economy is in a tailspin, economists readily agree that without the stimulus, things would be much, much worse.

And let's remember when Ronald Reagan, savior of modern-day Republicans, faced 10.8 percent unemployment and a 35 percent approval rating because of a bad economy back in 1983. This had came a full year after he had cut taxes for the richest 1 percent, which had increased the deficit even more. Republicans had lost 28 seats in the House in the midterm elections because of voter frustration over jobs. Here are the unemployment numbers from the onset of Reagan's swearing in.

01/1981 - Unemployment rate 7.5% .... Reagan sworn in.
02/1981 - 7.4%
03/1981 - 7.4%
04/1981 - 7.2%
05/1981 - 7.5%
06/1981 - 7.5%
07/1981 - 7.2%
08/1981 - 7.4% *Reagan cuts taxes for top 1% & says unemployment will DROP to 6.9%.
09/1981 - 7.6%
10/1981 - 7.9%
11/1981 - 8.3%
12/1981 - 8.5%
01/1982 - 8.6%
02/1982 - 8.9%
03/1982 - 9.0%
04/1982 - 9.3%
05/1982 - 9.4%
06/1982 - 9.6%
07/1982 - 9.8%
08/1982 - 9.8%
09/1982 - 10.1%
10/1982 - 10.4%
11/1982 - 10.8%

President Obama, on the other hand, has seen unemployment drop from 10.2 percent to 9.7 percent at the beginning of his second year. Gross National Product has gone up 3.5 percent as of the last quarter's reports. This year, the stimulus is expected to grow the economy by anywhere from 1.4 to 4 percent. It could bring down unemployment anywhere from 0.7 percent to 1.8 percent. Obama's approval rating remains around 50 percent, whereas Reagan's had dropped to about 40 percent by that period of his administration.

The stimulus is a great idea. It's keeping this economy afloat, and even Republicans who voted against it are openly praising the good things it's doing for local economies and public works projects. Barack Obama is handling this recession to the very best of his abilities, and is doing a good job so far.

I'll bet Reagan would have been ridden out of office at this point if there was a reactionary, paranoid 24-hour national news cycle back in the eighties.