Depressing Politics

Alberto Gonzales "testified" at the Senate today, with Senators of both parties not even bothering to imply that he is a serial liar and/or incompetent on important matters and functions of his office as Attorney General--they just said it outright. President Bush is at all time lows in national polls--25% approval in one. Yet he gave a long speech today demonizing his enemies and asserting his Iraq war policy, with administration suggesting that it could well go on to at least 2009.

Nevertheless, Gonzales is intent on remaining Attorney General of the U.S., and Bush retains all the powers of the Presidency. And there's not a damn thing anybody is doing about any of it. Though the talk about impeaching all of them--Bush, Cheney and Gonzales--is increasing, it is still just talk.

Apart from present miseries and outrages, what does this say about the future? That a virtual dictator can succeed in the U.S. Everyone but a few fringe characters are counting on Bush and Cheney being gone when their term expires, and they probably will leave. But the next time? I wouldn't count on it. Nixon pushed the powers of the executive so far and was pushed back, but not all the way. Reagan pushed them further. Bush II has pushed them beyond what anyone in previous decades would have believed possible. And so the next elected dictator has not very far to go to negate the last pretense of constitutional democracy, the elections. (As Kurt Vonnegut alluded in his famous quote, Hitler was elected, though it's not clear that Bush ever was.)

The 2008 campaign is also less than inspiring so far. Every time I start warming a little to the idea of Hillary as the Democratic candidate, she or her staff does something else that puts me off big time. Today it's the highly and transparently "political" and otherwise stupid and dishonest criticism of something Barack Obama said in the debate last night. There's no real disagreement--it's pure opportunism, and that's really depressing. Moreover, there's little hope for the future with that kind of politics.

Noah's Radio

Droughts are long, heat waves kill the most vulnerable and least visible, but of all the more obvious climate crises effects, floods affect the most people most dramatically in the shortest time, and in a defined area.

The floods that have attacked remote third world lands don't make the news, and even the ones earlier this summer in Texas passed without much notice, but perhaps two separate and quite large incidents this weekend will obtain some media focus.

In China, storms are expected to continue battering the Yangtze and Huai river valleys, where 150 people died last week because of floods. As reported by a Chinese news agency, floods have affected nearly half of China since May, with some 400 dead. Now there are the heavy storms themselves, with lightning and hail, causing landslides as well as flooding.

In England, the Guardian reports: More than 350,000 people are facing days without fresh water supplies and a clean-up operation lasting months as devastating floods this weekend left communities cut off across central and southern England. The disasters required emergency help from the RAF in "one of its largest peacetime operations", but though the response seems a lot better than the US government managed in the Katrina debacle, there's controversy about preparedness and government actions, especially as the rains--two months worth in one day--were forecast two days ahead of time. "The government defended its handling of the crisis, but the chief executive of the Environment Agency, Lady Young, said it would cost £1bn a year to prevent further flooding, and predicted worsening conditions in future due to climate change;"

Meanwhile, weather services in Denmark and Sweden issued warnings of heavy rainfall that could cause flooding.

Harry Potter in Arcata, CA? Of course--and casting spells
in the rest of the world, too.

Among the first at Northtown Books in Arcata, at the
bewitching hour in the first few minutes of Saturday.
More photos at This North Coast Place.

Harry Potter and the Global Village

It was what one participant called "a communal book experience" (in the best of the summary stories I saw, in the LA Times) and the village was global. It continues as readers dig into the latest and last of the saga, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

It was a last chance to see the midnight parties that have greeted each new volume, even if in a small way, at Northtown Books here in Arcata, CA. (The pictures above are from that event, as well as more posted at another blog, This North Coast Place. When I first arrived at 11:30 or so, the line was composed mostly of college age and older--product of the late hour, I thought, but then realized that college students have grown up on Harry Potter books. But as midnight approached, more families with children arrived, as well as more students.

Many came in costume, of course, including a cross-dressing witch (it wouldn't be Arcata otherwise.) Those in the front of the line were reading by streetlight; some were gathered around a laptop, watching a Harry Potter movie. Down towards the back of the line, two twentysomethings went into the street with long sparklers of different colors to conduct a nicely choreographed wand battle. When the bookstore door opened and they filed into its dark confines, lit only by candles, I saw that some carried portable reading lights. After their trip to the cash register, a father and several children sat in and around the few chairs by the door--the children began reading, while dad plugged in his earphones to listen to the audiobook.

I also saw the movie from the fifth book this week, which seems like it will turn out to be a very good preparation for this book. But I can say no more. Margaret and I read these books aloud to each other, a chapter each in the evenings. This time we began by listening to the author, J.K. Rowling, read the first chapter--a streaming video from midnight in London which you can access for the next two weeks at the Bloomsbury Books site. Our own reading begins Sunday.

As for the temptation to check out the ending, I confess I read enough of the early reviews to figure I'm not going to be blindsided by anything utterly devastating, and in the process I saw that the book is getting high praise almost universally--so I'm content to let it roll. It may be a book about a mythical magical world, but it is itself literary magic, and global village magic--and when you see how it all came about for this magical creature named J. K. Rowling, you get the idea that the whole thing is magic.

"The World is As Sharp As the Edge of a Knife" by
Robert Davidson.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel."

Horace Walpole

Soul and the Future

Back in the 1970s, when projecting future possibilities was both more popular and more seriously studied and debated, part of the rubric was to talk of the future in terms of "scenarios" or stories. Because the future is by definition a fiction. Until it becomes the present.

Many of our stories about the future are of new situations that take hold of us, that are hard to change once they become real. Those futures tend to be very bad ones. We have so many stories about that kind of future partly because they're more dramatic than our weakly imagined utopias, and with better special effects. But also because these stories are meant to be cautionary tales. They say this is the future we might get if we don't do what we need to do right now to prevent it.

Another standard scenario, especially from those who favor a scientific approach, is the projection of what the future might be like "if present trends continue." If present trends of climate gas emissions continue, the future--as close as 2050, or perhaps closer--could well be dire indeed. This summer's heat waves (like last summer's, and the summers before that) and the persistent drought and resulting wildfires in the US West contribute to both awareness of the Climate Crisis and the fear of it, which can paradoxically also result in all kinds of denial, including the loud and conscious, and the silent and unconscious.

These are all as much emotional as rational responses, but in this case the connection between repeated hot or unusual and violent weather and the rapid trends of climate change are most likely correct. Already the droughts in some places in the US West are of eight year duration, and some fear they will only get worse. Australia has such severe droughts that in some areas urban water is rationed year round. Droughts and desertification in Africa and Asia, the disappearance of lakes and the drying up of rivers there and in South America are not much covered on the news, but they are happening, along with the decline of glaciers and high mountain snows, and the perils of the polar bear.

A climate modeling project that got little attention early this spring put these future changes in stark terms: A new climate modeling study forecasts the complete disappearance of several existing climates in tropical highlands and regions near the poles, while large swaths of the tropics and subtropics may develop new climates unlike any seen today.

What this means for the future is great change over a relatively short time, and it has all the potential for violent change. It could mean the fall of governments and the collapse of countries; it could very well mean warfare--including nuclear warfare--over resources, perhaps oil (which has to run out sometime, and many believe it will be soon), and especially fresh water.

What kind of future do I see? Looking a century or two ahead, I see planet Earth with far fewer human beings on it than today. That change could be violent, with much destruction and suffering, or it could be gradual and painless, but I believe it is inevitable. The worst case would be a planet with only a few pockets of humans living in primitive conditions, as James Lovelock foresees. That is, the end of civilization, or at least its interuption for a very long time. If this happens, all the hard and often bloody lessons our civilization has learned will be for nothing.

What will make the difference? The fate of humanity will depend on the soul of the future. For a long while, we have been drilled to believe that the human soul is corrupt, that we are far more likely to be evil and violent, or simply greedy and selfish, than not, either because we are fallen and sinful or for some other metaphysical reason, often based on religious doctrine. Or, especially for the past two centuries, because it's our biological nature, because (in the latest formulation) it's in our selfish genes.

It isn't hard to find evidence for this view of human nature. Violence, greed of huge proportions, without any sign of conscience, are on view every day on television and in newspapers and magazines, and now, on-line. Iago no longer must utter pernicious lies to but one Othello; he can go online and blog his shameless and ego-drenched lies to thousands, even millions.

Add to that the prevailing idiocy, the complacent noise, the evidence of an insane society, that is available on virtually every channel of the TV set at any given moment of any given day. Ignorance is endemic, and encouraged by our commercial culture, as well as by rabid fundamentalist dogmas and cults.

To some this is survival of the fittest. To many, to me, it is quietly but persistently shocking and frightening. No, it's not at all difficult to see humanity as dooming itself and life as we know it on this planet, through compulsive evil, selfishness, greed and willed ignorance, or just defensive denial and perhaps equally defensive stupidity.

But that's not all there is to humanity. Scholars and researchers in various fields are finding other elements to human beings--indeed, to other animals and perhaps other forms of life--that are just as real. We don't need psychologists or biologists to know this, though perhaps we do need dramatists and poets to remind us, and we apparently require scientists to allow us to believe what we know from real life experience: the existence of compassion, empathy, altruism; the need to help, to share; the survival value of honesty, cooperation, generosity, as well as of friendship, forgiveness and love. And the survival value of intelligence and imagination.

Our particular way of expressing all these aspects of our natures is what makes us human. Sometimes we are individuals who value freedom and personal expression, fairness and truth, just as some individuals are motivated by greed and selfishness. Sometimes we feel the need to place the needs of the group before the needs of the self, and to live a conviction that empathy is natural and the skills of peace define the human enterprise, just as some groups trample on those they categorize as the Other, for their own selfish ends.

To a large extent, which aspects are ascendant in the soul of the future will determine that future. But perhaps more importantly, what we choose to value and express in the present will determine the conditions of that future. We are living in the soft times, the times of a more general prosperity, of moderate climate, of technology before the energy that drives it that we've taken from the earth has been depleted. We see amazing possibilities from science and technologies, to extend and enhance life, to end a lot of suffering, to build on the cultures and combined learning of our Earth. But this all depends on maintaining civilization in a planetary ecosystem that can sustain us, which in effect means sustaining most if not all of the life around us, as well as the conditions, the environments, that sustain that life.

That's what's at stake. That's why we must create the soul of the future in ourselves now, to motivate our actions in the present. Unless we solve the terrible problems that face us, which all seem to coalesce in the Climate Crisis, we will allow some forms of those dire futures to become real.

We have no choice but to enact hope for the future now. Those of us who will not live to see 2050 or even 2025 have our responsibilities to that future, as well as those whose present--or whose children's present-- it will someday be. We must live and act as consciously, intelligently, compassionately as we can. And in all we do, we must take seriously the soul of the future, through what we chose to emphasize, to advocate, and to nourish, while always honoring our complexity--including the parts of our natures that may have served us well in different circumstances-- and the strategies humanity has been developing since its beginning for using our natures to come closer to the potential we have envisioned and yearned for, with our minds, our hearts and our imaginations.

Last Word on Live Earth

A version of my post below on the Live Earth concerts was courageously "rescued" on Daily Kos despite not a singe comment or rec, but did get some interesting comments on the European Tribune. I notice that this climate crisis "issue" still gets fairly relentless negativism wherever and whenever anything is said about it. But one borderline commenter at ET did lead me to look at the broader coverage of Live Earth, and I admit I was surprised by how negative it was. There was a fair amount of controversy (especially in England) within the entertainment community on the events' efficacy, and certainly in the press. But most of the negativism centered on the "hypocrisy" of the "carbon footprint" of the event and the participants.

Which is how I found this article published in that radical rag, TIME magazine, with this conclusion, which I endorse and therefore quote at length:

But would the Earth have been better off if we all stayed home and did nothing, literally? "That's a fair thought," Linkin Park guitarist Brad Delson told TIME before his band's Tokyo show. "It's also a cynical one." He's right. It's time to get past the obsession over carbon footprint size and offsets, over who's an eco-hypocrite and who is truly green. We need to use energy far more wisely, both individually and internationally, but with hundreds of millions in the developing world getting richer and producing more carbon every day, the threat of climate change is far, far bigger than our personal conservation habits. It will require technological change and painful political choices such as carbon taxes, gas taxes and mandatory greenhouse gas emissions caps. That means, especially for the young, the un-rock star act of voting.
Live Earth's success will be measured not by the number of trees the initiative plants or the number of energy-efficient light-bulbs sold as a result, but by whether it motivates concertgoers to make climate-change their generation's political priority, and press their leaders to act on it.

Al Gore and company deserve credit for putting forth a 7-point pledge for concertgoers that includes a demand that countries join an international treaty mandating a 90% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. That will only happen if voters reward politicians who fight to cut carbon gas emissions, and punish those who don't. "It's not what we do today that matters," says Live Earth Tokyo's Nakajima. "It's what we all do tomorrow, and all the next days after. That's how we'll know how successful Live Earth really is."

More from Moyers

Two more points from Bill Moyers Journal on Friday (not online yet--no mention of it even at the PBS site that I can find): One concerning Congress, one the media.

Bruce Fein made the point that Congress lacks a single person with in depth knowledge and commitment regarding the Constitution, a person who understands and can argue the constitutional necessity of impeaching Bush and Cheney. This is an amazing charge. There has always been at least one, and often lots more than one, member of the House and/or Senate who was a Constitutional scholar. That all 535 aren't is bad enough. That there isn't one would be a sure sign that this particular experiment in self-government is about over.

Both Fein and John Nichols, but particularly Nichols, made the less unusual point that the media has failed abysmally not only in reporting on Iraq and so on, but in raising the relevant Constitutional issues. Why isn't somebody asking at those White House press conferences, doesn't this (name your violation here) violate the Constitution?

Impeach for the Future

This intent for this site is to focus on the future, which we dream up daily with our imaginations, our hopes, our actions and commitments. Baseball and personal observations get on here, too, but I try to limit the political commentary to subjects important to the future. So this site doesn't chronicle the hourly political events and issue debates, nor does it dwell on the outrages of the Bush administration, its lawlessness, its arrogance and its criminal conduct of the war in Iraq.

That's partly because the Bush administration has no future. But lately I've been becoming uncomfortably conscious that the damage Bushcorps has done is not going to end in January 2009, regardless of the 2008 election outcome. This country and the entire world have suffered potentially severe setbacks, making the tasks necessary to save the future, and to build the future, much more difficult.

Despite the high crimes and misdemeanors committed by Bush and Cheney, Congress has had little stomach for Impeachment, due in part to the short time left before Bush and Cheney go anyway. The political calculation for congressional Democrats has been that it's better to accentuate the positive, and spare the country another impeachment process.

On Bill Moyers Journal Friday night, Moyers discussed impeachment with conservative Republican Bruce Fein, and liberal journalist John Nichols. I met John Nichols many years ago, when he was a young reporter for the Toledo Blade. On Moyers, he presented arguments derived from his research into the Constitution and the Founders debates, for his book The Genius of Impeachment. He made a compelling case that the Constitution requires impeachment hearings in these circumstances. He made a convincing case that hearings into the impeachment of Cheney and Bush must begin in the House immediately, not in order to remove them months before the end of their term, but to defend the Constitution they are violating, for the future.

Left unchallenged, the extraordinary and unconstitutional powers they have seized for the executive branch, and specifically for the White House, will remain by default. These include international lawlessness. This is very dangerous to the future. We know what their crimes are, Nichols summarized, and if we don't impeach, it sends a new standard for what the presidency can legitimately do. It was to limit the presidency and subject it to law, to keep it from being a monarchy, that the Founders created impeachment.

Political parties, conventions, primaries--none are mentioned at all in the Constitution, Nichols said, but impeachment is, six separate times.

Both Nichols and Fein talked about impeachment hearings as an important educational opportunity, and a way to involve citizens in their government. Especially if they are televised (though in today's TV environment, who knows.) This time there will be real constitutional issues involved, concerning the conduct of the nation's business by the President and Vice President, and whether that conduct is constitutional.

It seems like the right argument to me. It's time to begin the process of impeaching Bush and Cheney.

Barry and the Level Playing Field

Barry Bonds is four homers away from the all-time career home run record. So he's an Issue again. Because he used steroids as part of a bulking up program, it is alleged, he's had an unfair advantage. His career was not played on a level playing field. To which I say: hey, Ump--are you blind?

The points that Jonathan Cohen made in the Nation last month about the SI all time team are relevant here. They add up to this: what level playing field? He points out that the SI team is largely composed of players from before 1947--that is, from when black athletes like Bonds were banned from major league baseball. Without athletes of color even permitted, and in particular so many demonstrably superior black players, what are those records really worth? Where was the level playing field then?

What constitutes a level playing field anyway--what gives this metaphor a real meaning? The U.S. population has doubled since Babe Ruth, and it's probably a third larger than since Hank Aaron. What about the number of teams? The influx of players from Japan, China and Europe, as well as the recently higher number of Latin players as contrasted with African Americans? What about the average height and weight? What about ball parks? (San Francisco's is beautiful, but one of the harder ones to hit homers in.) What sort of mountains or molehills in the playing field does any of those produce?

While steroid use is often illegal and against the rules, and also harmful, the fact is that various products containing such substances have been used in recent years by a number of players, including pitchers that Bonds faced, and hitters whose records are not currently being questioned. Where's the level playing field exactly? Maybe it is level--everybody in the game today is competing against some players who have used some banned substances to some degree, and some who haven't. And does anyone claim Barry Bonds is using such substances now?

Keith Olbermann did a piece on Bonds and the record tonight. He clearly thinks Bonds has cheated (and sorry, I don't find bigger shoe size compelling evidence), but he told the sad story of previous players who approached such a record: Roger Maris was vilified, and so in fact was Hank Aaron--where the tone was often decidedly racist. You'd have to be as blind as an umpire not to see that some of the violent emotion behind criticism of Bonds is racist.

Maybe it's because I've been watching Barry Bonds since he broke into the league with my Pittsburgh Pirates, and hit his first major league home run on my birthday. But I'm rooting for him. I'll let others measure the tilt on the playing field.

Answering the Call (of the Future)

UPDATE: I posted a version of this on a few community blogs, but the lack of response or comments made me wonder whether it was of any interest, or too late, or what, until some substantive (and flattering) comments appeared on the European Tribune version. And despite not a single comment or rec for the Daily Kos version, it made the Rescued list--thank you so much, SusanG.

The Live Earth concerts on Saturday were watched by more people--in person, online and on TV--than any previous entertainment event in history. While even as an erstwhile "rock critic" I'm no longer qualified to offer an opinion on the music (I don't know the musicians anymore--I know my era has ended when the old standbys I'd expect weren't there, unless you count portions of Pink Floyd, Madonna--who impressed the hell out of me, frankly, in terms of energy and showmanship--and the headliners, Sting and the Police--Sting and his wife Trudi Styler having worked on environmental issues particularly involving Indigenous societies in South America for more than 20 years; most of the new-to-me people sound derivative to me anyway), I am interested in the event's significance for the Climate Crisis and the future in general.

One of the more balanced evaluations I've run across is Oliver Burkeman's in the Guardian. While he begins with the criticism of the usual suspects that these events used (or more pointedly wasted) energy (disregarding as usual the real efforts that went into minimizing the impact, which were at the very least, not hypocritical) he does so with irony, and his second graph concludes: "And yet - as the shock that the planet had not been saved in a day began to fade - the scandalous possibility presented itself that Al Gore's seven-continent, 24-hour concert series had been really rather impressive, and might yet prove to have been hugely important."

He mentions the specific practical outcomes: if you tell a world audience of up to 2bn people, over and over again, that they should use energy-efficient lightbulbs, do their washing at 30 degrees, and never leave their TVs on standby, you can hardly fail to have some kind of effect. He then relates the roster of musicians (specifically at Wembly Stadium in London) to the larger significance of these events: To observe that the London line-up was deeply middle-of-the-road was to miss the point entirely. The best interpretation of Saturday's concerts was precisely that climate change moved to the middle of the road, fostering a vague but - at last - mainstream sense that "something must be done".

Middle of the road, middle class and more. It was direct in the sense that the message was unmediated by political parties or ideologues. A diary posted at Daily Kos noted that the standard environmental groups were not part of the Live Earth event, and many comments suggested why: because environmental groups have largely failed, especially to come together with a common and effective voice on the Climate Crisis and associated issues, such as deforestation, energy and ecosystem destruction.

Years ago, when I wrote my ideas about how to create an "emotional consensus" on the Climate Crisis as a moral issue, I advocated using well-known media figures from entertainment to get broad attention, which is what Live Earth did. (I also advocated using the term "Climate Crisis" instead of "climate change". ) These have successfully begun, and there's more to come. Another idea--to get recognized moral leaders, like the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandella-- behind it in a big way is probably not far off. But my #1 idea--that environmental organizations must come together to speak in One Big Voice on the issue--hasn't happened, and apparently won't, especially when there is so much contention on forest issues, and so many turf battles over specific priorities.

So while environmental organizations aren't irrelevant by any means, they have been bypassed, which may turn out to be a good thing. For Live Earth didn't just dispense advice on small changes we can make (though they do add up, and the audio inserts on CNBC and NBC with the uncredited voices of Whoopi Goldberg and William Shatner were terrific, as were at least some of the short films they and Bravo showed--though it's important to note that some of these films and even some of the inserts focused on the complexity of many large issues, such as the relationship of forests, global heating and child labor in the Amazon.) Everyone was also asked to take a 7 point pledge (see post just below) which involved larger changes and activism on political and societal levels. The day's mantra was Answer the Call.

I was pondering all of this when I came across Dan Carol's piece on the Huffington Post. The piece itself is noisy, but he makes this point: American voters would respond to Barack Obama calling for a national effort to address the Climate Crisis and related energy, economic and social problems: I don't really care what you call it. Call it Project Hope. A Green New Deal as Tom Friedman does. A green corps to rival FDR's civilian conservation corps in a new century. A new Apollo project.

This means a huge government commitment to R&D and industries for clean energy and new climate crisis-fighting technologies, with lots of participation from big and small business, and labor unions. But it also means individual people signing up for the variation on national service, or a domestic environmental peace corps. It can't ever be compulsory service, but it is an idea that could inspire millions, especially the young--and even the middle class young and retirees--who were largely the target audience for Live Earth.

In his last round of talk show appearances, Al Gore not only continued to express his reluctance to get into the presidential race--he made clear that he won't endorse any candidate until he finds one who is strong enough on the Climate Crisis issue. If Obama were to make these proposals the centerpiece of his campaign, he would very likely win Gore's endorsement and active support and participation. This could make Obama the Democratic candidate, or at the very least force Hillary Clinton to move this issue and these solutions closer to the top of her priorities (Bill Clinton is already on record saying that revitalizing the American economy with clean energy independence industries would be the issue he'd be running on.) It could make either one of them (or John Edwards, should he do this) President.

In the long run, the Climate Crisis may require nothing less. Burkeman ends his Guardian piece quoting one of Al Gore's more persistent aphorisms: "In Africa there's a proverb that says 'if you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together,'" Mr Gore said, live from Washington. "We have to go far, quickly."

Live Earth Pledge

I Pledge:

1.To demand that my country join an international treaty within the next 2 years that cuts global warming pollution by 90% in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy earth;

2.To take personal action to help solve the climate crisis by reducing my own CO2 pollution as much as I can and offsetting the rest to become "carbon neutral;"

3.To fight for a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store the CO2;

4.To work for a dramatic increase in the energy efficiency of my home, workplace, school, place of worship, and means of transportation;

5.To fight for laws and policies that expand the use of renewable energy sources and reduce dependence on oil and coal;

6.To plant new trees and to join with others in preserving and protecting forests; and,

7.To buy from businesses and support leaders who share my commitment to solving the climate crisis and building a sustainable, just, and prosperous world for the 21st century.

You can formally make the pledge here.

Happy Birthday

Mary G.

Happy Birthday

Joyce B.

President Cynic

He knows the cost (as computed from Bloomberg and AP by Think Progress): “Four thousand U.S. service members have died in U.S. President George W. Bush’s ‘war on terror’ in Iraq and Afghanistan 5 1/2 years after American forces ousted the Taliban in December 2001.” AP adds, “All told, Congress has appropriated $610 billion in war-related money since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults, roughly the same as the war in Vietnam. Iraq alone has cost $450 billion.” The wars cost approximately $12 billion a month, according to a new Congressional Research Service report.

Add to this the largely unreported (and secret) cost in money and national reputation not to mention the nation's soul of civilian contractors, many operating in combat outside any law, who now outnumber U.S. combat troops in Iraq. Leaks today indicate that the reports from the field due at the end of the week will show no progress, especially in the Iraqi government meeting benchmarks of success. All of which led the New York Times on Sunday to call for the U.S. to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq and bring the occupation to an end.

But as the Times editorial noted, and as White House statements confirmed today, President Bush and his Bushcorps has no intention of doing so, and expects to leave this horrific mess to his successor.

In fact, this is the chief Bush strategy now. With more than two-thirds of the American public against this war, and with barely a quarter of the voters giving him a positive approval rating, and with Congressional Republicans running away from him and otherwise powerless to do anything but stop the Democrats from passing any legislation, the only ally Bush has is time--the short time until his terms expires--and he is exploiting it deliberately and cynically.

He knows there is no election that can increase the number of Democrats in Congress to give them a veto-proof and filibuster-proof Senate until he is gone. He can refuse to give Congress information on everything from illegal wiretaps to improper partisan meddling in the firing and hiring of U.S. prosecutors on the flimsiest unsupported grounds, because the processes to compel Bushcorps' cooperation lead through Congress and the courts to the Supreme Court, and won't be resolved until they are long gone from office.

Above all, he can act with impunity--keeping Gonzales as Attorney General, commuting the entire jail sentence of convicted felon Scooter Libby--because until now the long and painful process of impeachment seemed not worth it, as he would face removal from office a matter of months before his term expires.

Bush and his Bushcorps are cynically using this sense of too short a time to defy the American people, to defy and defile the Constitution and international law, and above all to protect themselves. They are banking on another characteristic of short time--the short public attention span--to protect them after they leave office, when their images are no longer on TV every day.

Meanwhile, it takes only a split second to end the lives of soldiers and civilians in Iraq, or to damage their bodies and minds for perhaps a half century life span or more. In the meantime, prisoners will be tortured and suffer incarceration without charges or trial, and millions of Americans and people around the world will suffer the consequences of Bushcorps actions and failures to act. And generations yet unborn will suffer the consequences of failing to act on the Climate Crisis, for every day of climate crisis pollution at today's levels or growing adds to the accumulating effects that will inevitably be visited on the Earth's future, perhaps in a couple of generations, on top of the effects of past pollution we suffer now and for the next generation.

This is the cost of Bushcorps, and of the smiling cynicism holding this country captive.

Sting and the reunited Police headline the New York concert as
part of Live Earth's 24 hours of worldwide music on
Saturday to build awareness and support for addressing
the Climate Crisis.

"Live Earth" Tomorrow

Party against the Climate Crisis? Maybe it sounds weird, but it's caught the imagination of millions--and belies the opposers' charge (and very often, projection) that those calling for action are just sowing fear for political gain. It also brings people together to galvanize the political will to address the crisis, while enacting hope. Hope is a condition of the present, and requires action. Live Earth is a vehicle for informing people that they can change the future for the better through what they do now in their own lives.

Here's what's happening tomorrow: 24 hours of music with major artists at concerts on 7 continents. A Washington DC concert has just been added at the Museum of the American Indian. The music will be streamed live at MSN, NBC will broadcast the New York concert (with the Police reunion) along with highlights from other venues in prime-time. In addition, Bravo, CNBC and the Sundance Channel will serve up from 7 to 22 hours of the festivities. There's continuous information and action you can take here.

There are also some 7,000 house parties and other events registered in all 50 states and 129 countries. 7/7/2007 could go down as the day that Climate Crisis awareness--and commitment-- reached critical mass. It's time to save the world.

Corrupt to the Core

The New Moral Majorities

The cable noise and fulminating Rabid Right (hey Keith! you picked up my phrase!) may promote a different impression, but the overwhelming sentiment is strongly against the Bush commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence, and the lies, corruption, misuse of power, and incompetence of Bushcorps in general. The numbers at least aren't lying.

A new American Research Group poll measures response to Bush commuting the sentence of Scooter Libby, the guy the prosecutors believe knows how deeply implicated the VP and possibly the P were in outing a covert CIA agent (which G. Bush I described as the worst sort of treason), and then attempting to cover it all up. Fully 69% of voters surveyed believe it was wrong. 84% oppose a pardon.

The poll also shows that about 45% favor beginning impeachment proceedings against President Bush, with about the same percentage opposing. But a majority--54% of adults, 50% of voters--favor impeachment proceedings against VP Cheney, with 40-44% opposed.

Perhaps the most interesting numbers are those for independents. More Independents than Democrats oppose the Libby action (80% to 76%) and fully 97% of Independents oppose a Libby pardon. Figures hovering at majority (50%-51%) favor both impeachment proceedings.

Also out today is the Newsweek poll which shows that fewer Americans are satisfied with "the way things are going in the U.S." than any time this year--just 23%. Bush's approval rating has dropped to 24%, with 65% disapproving, and 9% don't know. That's less than a quarter of voters approving, and more than 2/3 disapproving. Again, Independents approve at a 20% rate, with 71% disapproving.

"Corrupt to the Core," and that's for starters... How is
Bush going to distract everyone from what's likely to
be a firestorm of investigations and crises involving the
courts and Congress for the rest of his administration?
Well, according to reporter Sy Hersh, Bushcorps is hot to attack
Iran. It's about all they have left that they can actually
do, or try to do. Already, a majority of Europeans--and of
young Americans (16-24 year olds) see the U.S. as the
#1 threat to the world.

Scooted: "Corrupt to the Core"

President Bush has commuted the prison sentence of Scooter Libby, convicted of obstruction of justice for lying to a grand jury.

In an interview on Countdown, Ambassador Joseph Wilson--husband of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame and the apparent target of the conspiracy to defame him for questioning a false basis for invading Iraq--said more than once that the Bush administration and Bush personally are "corrupt to the core."

What happens next? Americans may have suspected that Libby had lied to protect people higher up in the White House. Both VP Cheney and President Bush have been implicated in outing Plame, according to some investigating journalists. But now, by voiding the sentence in what Wilson says is a clear and understood quid pro quo for Libby's silence, most Americans are going to be confirmed in their belief that Libby lied to protect his bosses, and in doing so, obstructed justice.

Commuting this sentence is not in itself an impeachable offense. But Congressional Democrats have been wary about spending precious time investigating the many wrongs of this administration, for fear voters will turn against them, having endured the pointless harrassment of the Clinton administration. But now I suspect they are going to want to know what's really going on. We're just at the beginning of investigations that will dominate the rest of the Bush administration.

Dancer (1913) by Gino Severini

An Election Like No Other?

The 2008 US Presidential election is shaping up to be both unusual and unusually crucial--perhaps the most unusual and the most crucial ever.

On the unusual front: Senator Hillary Clinton has solidified her status as frontrunner for the Democratic nomination with preference poll leads that continue to be strong, while her performances in several debates have been generally lauded above all other participants. However, figures which will become official later today are likely to show that Barack Obama, not faring as well in the polls or in reviews of his debate performances, has raised more campaign contributions than Senator Clinton for the second straight quarter--perhaps a third more. More in fact than anyone has raised, and possibly in larger numbers of smaller donations.

There are moreover a couple of very troubling elements to the preference polls for Senator Clinton. Her "negatives" have always been unusually high with samplings of the general electorate, and now Political Wire reports there is a new Mason-Dixon survey that shows Sen. Hillary Clinton "is the only major presidential candidate -- either Democrat and Republican -- for whom a majority of likely general election voters say they would not consider voting. In addition, she's the only candidate who registers with a net-unfavorable rating."

Clinton's lead within the Democratic party for the primaries seems predicated on superior support from women, but their predominance is not reflected outside the party. Independents, for example, which now make up 30% to 40% of the electorate, according to a Washington Post poll: mirror the population in terms of age, income and education. But they are disproportionately male. A majority of independents are men, while a majority of Democrats are women and the GOP is typically divided evenly between men and women.

Several polls show that Independents are leaning Democratic this year, and this poll suggests the majority are with Democrats on health care, the Climate Crisis and domestic issues, as well as on ending the Iraq war. But Senator Clinton's negatives are high, while Senator Obama's are the lowest among presidential candidates.

The incredibly low approval rating for President Bush was exceeded in recent polls only by the historically low approval rating for Congress, where the Democrats have a slim majority. This as well as other factors (nervousness about Clinton's electability, and general dissatisfaction among Republicans for their declared candidates) fueled interest in New York Mayor Bloomberg's recent switch from a Republican registration to Independent (he'd previously switched from Democrat to Republican), especially as it positions him for a possible Independent run for the Presidency. Some suggest a Bloomberg candidacy would take more votes from the Democrat than the Republican candidate, though others believe the opposite. But the mantra of the stories about this were that Bloomberg won't run unless and until he believes he has a good chance to actually win.

But he'll have to factor this in: a CNN poll (also reported by Political Wire) suggests that voter impatience with the Democrats in Congress (especially with their "failure" to end the Iraq war) does not mean the electorate wants Republicans back in control. A majority still favors a Democratic Congress, and this suggests that voters may well support a Democrat for President even if they aren't entirely happy with the nominee.

There's a Clinton conundrum within the Democratic party as well. There was a fair amount of surprise at a poll that showed New Hampshire Democrats currently favor Senator Clinton, with Senator Obama a fairly distant second--but that if Al Gore were to run, he would beat everybody, taking nearly a third of Clinton's votes as well as votes from the other candidates. However, the aforementioned Washington Post study shows that the only name that got higher negative response from Independents than Clinton was Gore.

As for the crucial nature of this election, it is increasingly clear that continuing the Iraq war could result in political anarchy, and related Bush administration policies in the area of torture, constitutional rights and political corruption threaten the foundations of our Constitutional government. Couple that with the rapidly failing health care system, and most importantly for the future, the Climate Crisis and the need to assert leadership and take action immediately when the new President takes office--it becomes abundantly clear that this nation cannot afford the mistakes it made in 2000 and 2004. The 2008 election looks increasingly like the last best chance for the national and the human future.

Uncle Gino sings "Happy
Birthday": Gino Severini,
1950.

Happy Birthday Redux

Last year I posted a "Happy Birthday" to a number of people born on June 30, including names not generally known, but known to me from my past. I tend to remember the people I've known who were born on this date because it's the date on which I was born.

One of these people I named was Martha Pinson, who I knew in the mid-1970s in Cambridge, MA, when she worked at the Orson Welles Cinema Complex. I practically lived there at the time, and officially worked on a film festival project, as well as taking tickets once in awhile when the staff was shorthanded. A Hollywood movie was shot in Boston and Cambridge (written by two other friends of mine), and Martha got a job on the crew, doing what was called Continuity at the time (it used to be Script Girl.) Now it's called Script Supervisor, and she's been doing it for Hollywood films and TV series ever since, mostly in New York. I'd last seen her on our mutual birthday in the 1980s. But I knew that since then, she's been Script Supervisor for Martin Scorsese's films. (I saw her in the special features on The Aviator DVD.)

Anyway, while looking for something else, Martha came across the birthday greeting and by rather circuitious means, got in touch with me--that is, with Captain Future. Eventually we connected directly by email. In addition to her script supe work, she's writing and directing film. Don't Nobody Love the Game More Than Me, the short film she produced and directed, is downloadable at indiePix.net .

So, it's happy birthday time again--to Martha and Bruce, Grace Ann, Donny, etc., and...me.

A Dream Darfured

Everybody talks about the killing in Darfur but nobody does anything about it. When Joe Biden repeated the fact that people are being killed every day there at a Democratic presidential debate, his fellow candidates stood in embarrassed silence. Clearly, China bears a lot of responsibility for international sanctions not working. But Western countries don't want to send a peacekeeping force there, which some observers (including Biden) say could stop the killing virtually overnight. Instead we send them to Iraq where it contributes to more death, including more dead and maimed Americans. And even though the UN is expected to authorize a peacekeeping force, and the Bush spokespeople--including most recently, Condi Rice--talk a lot about genocide and how the world is failing Darfur, it's the U.S. and its failure to pay its UN dues that threatens the peacekeeping effort before it starts.