Hands Across the Future

This is the Obama ad that will run during the Olympics, in a major ad buy. Called "Hands," it's about Obama's plan for America's energy future, the subject of several earlier posts here. This is further evidence of the Obama campaign's committment to this initiative.

Hummers Return

They actually haven't been far away--I've seen them
fly by to another range the last few months, but they're
definitely hanging out back here now as well. There was
a recent diary at Kos filled with hummer photos, and
this is one of them. There are lots more by this photographer
at Juliesmagiclightshow.com.

President of the Future

Barack Obama's energy plan outlined below is one of the most important proposals any presidential candidate has offered in a generation. It is essentially an outline for the American future.

Look at it closely. Not only does it respond in meaningful ways to the end of the oil age heralded in part by today's high prices (which have causes other than dwindling supply, but that's a factor.) Not only does it outline realistic ways of attaining energy independence and meeting future energy needs, but does so in ways that will not add to the Climate Crisis, and will reduce the causes of that crisis for the far future, avoiding catastrophe for our descendants. It provides a blueprint for combining development and use of clean energy technologies while recognizing the immense role that ending energy waste can play, not only in the future but right now.

But the brilliance of it is that it recognizes the federal government's role in leading the necessary and sweeping changes necessary for the American economy of the future. Just as Franklin D. Roosevelt fought the Depression by investing in infrastructure--in roads, bridges, parks, public buildings, as well as planting three billion trees--that enabled economic expansion; just as Dwight Eisenhower promoted the prosperity of the 50s and 60s by building the federal highway system; just as JFK invested in the new technology of the space program that supports today's high tech industries, so too does Barack Obama propose to create the energy infrastructure for the economy of the future.

Just his proposals for updating America's system of generating and distributing electricity will create jobs in the short term and will build infrastructure to enable economic growth, while increasing energy efficiency, so we can actually do more with less fuel.

Add to that proposals for weatherization and energy conservation, that will boost private as well as public spending in the short term, with almost immediate dividends.

And that's before you even get to the proposals to jump-start whole new clean energy technology enterprises, transforming the way we power everything in our lives, including our vehicles. There are vast new businesses here, and everyone in the industrialized world knows this is where we are heading, if we want to have a healthy economic and a healthy civilization in the rest of the 21st century and beyond.

This is an American vision, for America. Because we're going to be buying these technologies in the near future. Are we going to be buying them from China, like just about everything we're buying now? Or India? Or Europe? They are all moving in this direction. America has only a short time to mobilize its vast resources to seize global leadership in the new growth industries of the future: solar power, wind power, biofuels, generations of new and progressively cleaner and more efficient cars and other transportation systems. Plus energy, conservation and anti-global heating technologies beyond our current knowledge.

Look at these proposals. You could be looking at an outline of a bright and exciting future.

Obama on America's Energy Future

Barack Obama in Lansing, Michigan, presenting
a detailed energy policy for the American future.

For the Record: Obama on Our Energy Future

Lost in all of the McSmear's campaign's slurs and the TV hot air about it--which of course is part of the intent of it--was Barack Obama's actual energy plan for a future of renewable, sustainable, clean energy independence for America, as he talked about it the other day in Lansing, Michigan.

According to Mike Allen at Politico, his proposals included:

“If I am president, I will immediately direct the full resources of the federal government and the full energy of the private sector to a single, overarching goal — in 10 years, we will eliminate the need for oil from the entire Middle East and Venezuela,” Obama said. “To do this, we will invest $150 billion over the next 10 years and leverage billions more in private capital to build a new energy economy that harnesses American energy and creates 5 million new American jobs.”

— Get 1 million 150 mile-per-gallon plug-in hybrids on U.S. roads within six years. Provide a $7,000 tax incentive to drivers of advanced tech cars, $4 billion to automakers to build hybrids, and a pledge to convert the entire White House fleet of vehicles to plug-in hybrids in the first year of the Obama administration, to set an example.

— Require that 10 percent of U.S. energy comes from renewable sources by the end of his first term – more than double the current level.

—Reduce U.S. demand for electricity 15 percent by 2020, through efficiency.
— Weatherize 1 million homes annually.
— Increase the efficiency of new buildings by 50 percent in the next decade through energy-efficient roofs and better-quality windows and ventilation systems.
— Increase the efficiency of existing buildings by 25 percent over the next decade through retrofitting that includes improved insulation and ventilation systems.

What about McCain? Obama reportedly noted that McCain said that America's energy problems are thirty years in the making. "What Senator McCain neglected to mention was that during those thirty years, he was in Washington for twenty-six of them," said the Senator. "And in all that time, he did little to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. He voted against increased fuel efficiency standards and opposed legislation that included tax credits for more efficient cars. He voted against renewable sources of energy. Against clean biofuels. Against solar power. Against wind power. Against an energy bill that -- while far from perfect -- represented the largest investment in renewable sources of energy in the history of this country. So when Senator McCain talks about the failure of politicians in Washington to do anything about our energy crisis, it's important to remember that he's been a part of that failure."

"After years of inaction," said the presumptive Democratic nominee, "and in the face of public frustration over rising gas prices, the only energy proposal [McCain's] really promoting is more offshore drilling -- a position he recently adopted that has become the centerpiece of his plan, and one that will not make a real dent in current gas prices or meet the long-term challenge of energy independence."

No wonder McCain wanted to talk about tire inflation.

Environmentalist Joseph Romm praised Obama's proposals, especially from the perspective of the Climate Crisis. Here are parts of the plan he emphasizes:

"Increase Fuel Economy Standards: Obama will increase fuel economy standards 4 percent per each year while protecting the financial future of domestic automakers....

Invest in Developing Advanced Vehicles and Put 1 Million Plugin Electric Vehicles on the Road by 2015: As a U.S. senator, Barack Obama has led efforts to jumpstart federal investment in advanced vehicles, including combined plug‐in hybrid/flexible fuel vehicles, which can get over 150 miles per gallon of gas...

Partner with Domestic Automakers: Obama will also provide $4 billion retooling tax credits and loan guarantees for domestic auto plants and parts manufacturers, so that the new fuel‐efficient cars can be built in the U.S. by American workers rather than overseas.

Mandate All New Vehicles are Flexible Fuel Vehicles

Develop the Next Generation of Sustainable Biofuels and Infrastructure

Establish a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard: ... The standard requires fuels suppliers in 2010 to begin to reduce the carbon of their fuel by 5 percent within 5 years and 10 percent within 10 years.

Deploy the Cheapest, Cleanest, Fastest Energy Source--Energy Efficiency: Barack Obama will set an aggressive energy efficiency goal--to reduce electricity demand 15 percent from DOE's projected levels by 2020. Implementing this program will save consumers a total of $130 billion, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 5 billion tons through 2030, and create jobs. A portion of this goal would be met by setting annual demand reduction targets that utilities would need to meet.

Set National Building Efficiency Goals: Obama will establish a goal of making all new buildings carbon neutral, or produce zero emissions, by 2030. He'll also establish a national goal of improving new building efficiency by 50 percent and existing building efficiency by 25 percent over the next decade to help us meet the 2030 goal.

Overhaul Federal Efficiency Standards: The current Department of Energy has missed 34 deadlines for setting updated appliance efficiency standards....

Reduce Federal Energy Consumption: ... He will make the federal government a leader in the green building market, achieving a 40 percent increase in efficiency in all new federal buildings within five years and ensuring that all new federal buildings are zero‐emissions by 2025. He will invest in cost‐effective retrofits to achieve a 25 percent increase in efficiency of existing federal buildings within 5 years.

Invest in a Smart Grid: ... Obama will pursue a major investment in our national utility grid using smart metering, distributed storage and other advanced technologies to accommodate 21st century energy requirements: greatly improved electric grid reliability and security, a tremendous increase in renewable generation and greater customer choice and energy affordability.

Build More Livable and Sustainable Communities....

Flip Incentives to Energy Utilities: An Obama administration will "flip" incentives to utility companies by: requiring states to conduct proceedings to implement incentive changes; and offering them targeted technical assistance. These measures will benefit utilities for improving energy efficiency, rather than just from supporting higher energy consumption. This "regulatory equity" starts with the decoupling of profits from increased energy usage, which will incentivize utilities to partner with consumers and the federal and state governments to reduce monthly energy bills for families and businesses. The federal government under an Obama administration will play an important and positive role in flipping the profit model for the utility sector so that shareholder profit is based on reliability and performance as opposed to total production. "

Romm's conclusion: "This is an aggressive, achievable, and most important of all, a necessary energy plan." He notes that it spells out more details implicit in the climate and energy plan Obama presented previously, as summarized by Climate Progress. Gristmill does an even more detailed analysis.

The response by people who know these issues deeply has been very positive. But shouldn't these issues be at least debated? This is the future that is at stake. And this is another reason why McShame's slurs, racist suggestiveness and attempts at distraction are so destructive. There seems to be only one serious person running for President this year. And then there's McBush.

Inflate This

McSmear and His Racist Campaign

We've seen this all before, but that doesn't mean it's okay to see it again.

McCain and his campaign know that the only chance they have to win this year is by making voters cynical about Obama, while at the same time making enough people afraid of Obama because he's black.

John McCain's campaign is racist. It's all led by the ad campaign, which McCain himself reinforces on the stump.

To begin with, you must understand that McCain and his campaign advisors don't make the ads. McCain "approves" them, and those running his campaign
decide what they want the ads to say and do. But the ads are made by advertising professionals--the same people who make, for instance, those Cialis ads. They know exactly what they're doing.

I mention those ads because there are overt messages and subconscious messages in TV ads, and the Viagra and Cialis ads for products that increase male sexual potency have identifiable images supporting their message. You don't have to register the images consciously or even notice them for them to work--or that's the theory. The point is, those images aren't there by accident. Professional admakers put them there.

Sometimes they are made more obvious for fun, but most of the time, you aren't supposed to consciously notice them. For example, that Cialis ad that begins with the couple who would rather be having sex but must deal instead with a broken kitchen faucet. But this faucet doesn't leak. It gushes water high in the air. The phallic symbolism is almost too literal, but the ad quickly moves on to other homey scenes, all of which contain prominent if more traditional phallic and sexual symbols.

The McShame "celebrity" ad shows Obama, and then fleeting images of two famous blond white women, then Obama. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert points out that the ad also contains traditional phallic imagery as well. The message, as Eugene Robinson said on Countdown Monday, is one of the oldest in American history to instill fear of a black man: the slave is going to rape the white daughter of the plantation.

It may seem far-fetched, but these are advertising professionals, they are used to using this kind of imagery, and nothing--not a single frame of such a short commercial is there by accident.

It is not the only attempt to tap into the underground current of subconscious racism--much of McCain's campaign is following that line of attack. Bob Herbert in his column titled "Running While Black" writes: "Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates."

Herbert links this ad to the others, and to McCain smears on Obama's patriotism, and the attempts to paint him as essentially too dumb (and maybe shiftless and lazy) to be President: "The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control... It’s driving the idea that Barack Obama is somehow presumptuous, too arrogant, too big for his britches — a man who obviously does not know his place."

These code words and images are a toxic tradition, and even though African Americans like Herbert are likely to be the first to identify them, they're by now so obvious that white people can recognize them. As did the centrist, sometimes-Republican, sometimes Democrat David Gergen, who said this on TV Sunday:

"There has been a very intentional effort to paint him as somebody outside the mainstream, other, 'he's not one of us,'" said Gergen, who has worked with White Houses, both Republican and Democrat, from Nixon to Clinton. "I think the McCain campaign has been scrupulous about not directly saying it, but it's the subtext of this campaign. Everybody knows that. There are certain kinds of signals. As a native of the south, I can tell you, when you see this Charlton Heston ad, 'The One,' that's code for, 'he's uppity, he ought to stay in his place.' Everybody gets that who is from a southern background. We all understand that. When McCain comes out and starts talking about affirmative action, 'I'm against quotas,' we get what that's about."

John McCain, who rose to prominence as a different kind of Republican, has sold his soul to the forces of darkness, the Lee Atwater/Karl Rove school of haters and liars. He's John McSmear now. And on the basis of his campaign, I call him a racist.

Update: Additional perspective from KNBC in Los Angeles.

Happy Birthday, Barack!

And, a little late, also to Mike.
A present to both: Washington Post poll finds
Obama leading McCain among low-wage workers--
overwhelmingly among African American and Latino
workers, but also by 10 points among white workers.
Take that, pundits! For more about what this means...

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"Those parts of our being that extend beyond the individual ego cannot survive unless they can be constantly articulated."

Lewis Hyde
The Gift

The Obama Response

Hot Air Drama

Not to interrupt campaign lying or media stupidity which is already in progress, but...

Eight square miles of ice from the Ward Hunt shelf in the Arctic has split away, the largest mass of ice to detach in three years. This shelf has been solid for at least 3,000 years. And scientists expect more, as they discern major changes, happening much faster than predicted, due of course to global heating.

Yet in Washington, the current Bushite director of the Environmental Protection Agency has been so influenced by political directives from the White House that four Democratic Senators today called for his resignation. They also sent a letter to Attorney General Mukasey asking him to investigate possible lying to their committee.

According to the Washington Post: "The senators, all members of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said Johnson -- the first career scientist to head up the agency -- had repeatedly succumbed to political pressure on decisions vital to protecting health and the environment.
The senators also allege in the letter to Mukasey that Johnson made false statements before the committee in January when he said that he alone had decided California should not regulate the gases blamed for global warming from motor vehicles. A former top EPA official told the committee this month that Johnson initially had decided to grant a partial waiver to the state but changed his mind under pressure from the White House."

Meanwhile, the state of California announces today that it is once again suing the federal government for "wantonly" ignoring its duty to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from ships, aircraft, and construction and agricultural equipment. CA previously sued, along with other states, concerning the fed's failure to regulate car and truck emissions, and ozone pollution.

If that isn't dramatic enough for you, a BBC two-part dramatic series on climate crisis politics is getting good reviews in the UK. Burn Up folds a sex and murder story into what one participant in real world climate crisis negotiations wrote is a credible representation of such discussions, and outlines a credible scenario of the world racing to avoid its own self-destruction.

Of this particular plot point, Jeremy Leggett wrote in the Guardian: Now, such warnings have entered the mainstream, for those with the eyes to see and ears to listen. Last week at a meeting in London, for example, a top German climate scientist told an audience of 150 captains of industry that climate scientists couldn't guarantee that a runaway greenhouse effect wouldn't happen, if emissions continue apace. He and the majority of his fellows now believe that we face a race to save civilisation of the kind Burn Up portrays."

I don't know if or when we're going to get a chance to see this in the U.S., but already available in paperback are Kim Stanley Robinson's climate crisis trilogy of novels: Forty Signs of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below and Sixty Days and Counting. I read them one after the other this summer, and they are excellent. The characters are fascinating in a mostly low-key way, which is what absorbed me the first time through. But reading them together, and knowing the characters already, I was most impressed by the science and politics--both the problems (which could well be in our immediate future) and the solutions.

Hint: the solutions get real traction with the election of a new President who runs on this issue.

In the meantime, this is highly recommended summer reading.

The Dreaming Up Daily Image

Crab Nebula

Some Media Step Up (with Updates)

In addition to the media reporters and outlets mentioned in the Update to the previous post (primarily MSNBC and the Washington Post), the Washington Post front page Wednesday declares: "McCain Charge Against Obama Lacks Evidence." It begins:

"For four days, Sen. John McCain and his allies have accused Sen. Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true."

"Despite serious and repeated queries about the charge over several days, McCain and his allies continued yesterday to question Obama's patriotism by focusing attention on the canceled hospital visit." the story continues. "McCain's advisers said they do not intend to back down from the charge, believing it an effective way to create a "narrative" about what they say is Obama's indifference toward the military."

The McShame campaign continues to insist that Obama cancelled the visit because media cameras weren't allowed, but when asked for the evidence, they were unable to provide any. (They cited "news reports," but the ones they offered supported their allegations, according to the Post.

A reconstruction of the circumstances surrounding Obama's decision not to visit Landstuhl, based on firsthand reporting from the trip, shows that his campaign never contemplated taking the media with him." the Post wrote, which is exactly what Andrea Mitchell and other reporters who were on the scene have reported.

Which tells us this about the McCain campaign: they are ignoring the truth, and repeating the lie. They are liars, and that's the basis of their campaign.

As to Obama's indifference to the troops, it has been well-reported that Obama visited wounded troops in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan (witnessed by two other U.S. Senators, who said so on CBS Sunday), and several times has visited wounded soldiers at Walter Reed in Washington, most recently last month (verified by media reporters, who Obama asked to remain outside.) Even in Germany, where his campaign got signals from the Pentagon that the visit might be seen as political and Obama didn't go, Obama spoke to soldiers at the hospital over the phone.

What about McCain and his indifference to the troops? McCain's voting record is poorly rated by two veterans organizations for his "support." He voted against armored tactical vehicles for troops in Iraq, against several measures to make medical care for troops easier to obtain and more affordable, and so on.

And McCain didn't visit wounded troops in Germany on his last trip to Europe, even though it was an official taxpayer-funded trip and therefore would have posed no problem, unlike Obama's, which at that point was financed by his campaign.

As for other charges in the ad: Obama didn't chair subcommittee hearings on Afghanistan because the full Foreign Relations committee held them--but McCain, the ranking Republican on that committee, didn't even attend any of them. Obama voted to fund the troops except on one procedural vote to pressure the Bushites to set a timeline for withdrawl. He has a much higher rating than McCain for supporting the troops as given by two prominent veterans organizations.

And in the McShame campaign's most blatant show of contempt for American voters, the ad utters the false charge that Obama didn't visit the troops but used the time to play basketball, with footage showing Obama playing basketball with American troops in Kuwait--footage taken by a military cameraman.

This is the worst sort of swift-boating, and it tells you something about McCain: he'll lie to win a political campaign.

Update: Responding to the Post front page story, Karen Tumulty of Time Magazine, who was also on the Obama trip to Europe, writes: This front-page account in the Washington Post is absolutely consistent with what I know, based on my reporting, about Obama's cancelled visit to Landstuhl. So how many more times are the McCain campaign and the Republicans going to repeat what is a thoroughly baseless charge?"

The PBS News Hour did a segment on it Wednesday evening, also confirming that the McCain ad is baseless. And First Read catches McCain and the Republican National Committee repeating two more lies--as refuted by factcheck.org--about Obama voting to raise taxes.

MoveOn for Obama

Media Shame (with Update)

Four years ago, our so-called news media knew
that the Swift Boat Veterans Against Kerry were
lying in their now-notorious ads, but pretended
an "objectivity" that allowed them to treat these lies as
a legitimate controversy, which not coincidentally
gave them something hot to flog and increased
their ratings. As a result of this shameful dereliction
of journalistic duty, we lost four more years, thousands of
lives and billions of dollars in Iraq. We almost lost the future.

Now the Republican candidate himself, John McCain,
has approved a TV ad with multiple lies, and with a
few exceptions (Keith and Rachel of course, but also Andrea
Mitchell and Jonathan Alter to a degree), our so-called
journalists are letting him get away with it. Along with
his other lies, mistakes and cover-ups. Another day of
shame for American journalism.

Update: The Washington Post has exposed the McCain
ad lies Tuesday, as has factcheck.org. Marc Ambinder
at the Atlantic blog sees this ad as part of a McShame
campaign trend, and quotes USA Today on an earlier
McCain ad: "Even by the elastic standards of political ads,
this is more than a stretch. It's baloney. It's also a marker
on the path toward the kind of simplistic, counterproductive
demonizing that many expect will poison the fall campaign."

McCain Can't Handle the Truth

From Dr. Katherine Scheirman, Chief of Medical Operations during Operation Iraqi Freedom, who retired from the U.S. Air Force with the rank of colonel. Most recently, she was at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, which saw the majority of those injured during the war in Iraq:

"John McCain's new ad is dishonest and shameful, and I say that as the former Chief of Medical Operations. Senators Hagel and Reed confirmed to Bob Schieffer yesterday that Senator Obama visited the Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad as a part of their CODEL, with no media present.

"In Germany, Senator Obama made the right decision to respect wounded troops, and the doctors and nurses doing crucial and time-sensitive work, by not making a visit that was characterized as a campaign event by the Pentagon. Senator Obama should be thanked for putting our military above politics. And, I would hope that John McCain would think in those same terms, the next time he is put in a similar situation."

"Senator Obama has voted for the troops when John McCain has not, most recently on the new GI Bill. I am happy that Senator Obama puts the welfare of our troops above politics."

Obama Love-In? Not So Much

Perhaps you've heard the stats that Obama gets
more media coverage than McCain. A new study
adds another stat--most of that coverage has been
negative. The Center for Media and Public Affairs
found that in the first 6 weeks of this general election
campaign, stories on Obama on the three commercial broadcast
networks--CBS, ABC and NBC were negative 72% of the
time, and positive 28%. But for McCain, they were roughly
equal: 43% positive and 57% negative.

Despite this, and the failure of all news media to jump on
McCain's false statements and gaffes the way they surely would
if it were Obama saying them, the latest Gallup tracking poll
has Obama at 49%, McCain 40%. Another new poll gives him
a 51% to 39% lead. For more politics, check American Dash.

"Obama is Speaking!"

At least he was in the playroom of this pre-schooler.

Leadership: Barack on the World Stage

From the Frank Rich column today in the NY Times:
"He [Obama] never would have been treated as a president-in-waiting by heads of state or network talking heads if all he offered were charisma, slick rhetoric and stunning visuals. What drew them instead was the raw power Mr. Obama has amassed: the power to start shaping events and the power to move markets, including TV ratings...

The growing Obama clout derives not from national polls, where his lead is modest. Nor is it a gift from the press, which still gives free passes to its old bus mate John McCain...This election remains about the present and the future, where Iraq’s $10 billion a month drain on American pocketbooks and military readiness is just one moving part in a matrix of national crises stretching from the gas pump to Pakistan. That’s the high-rolling political casino where Mr. Obama amassed the chips he cashed in last week.

"“We have one president at a time,” Mr. Obama is careful to say. True, but the sitting president, a lame duck despised by voters and shunned by his own party’s candidates, now has all the gravitas of Mr. Cellophane in “Chicago.” The opening for a successor arrived prematurely, and the vacuum had been waiting to be filled. What was most striking about the Obama speech in Berlin was not anything he said so much as the alternative reality it fostered: many American children have never before seen huge crowds turn out abroad to wave American flags instead of burn them.

Mr. McCain could also have stepped into the leadership gap left by Mr. Bush’s de facto abdication. His inability to even make a stab at doing so is troubling."

R.I.P Valjean

Valerie Jean McLenighan, a friend from college
and later years, died from lung cancer and her
ashes were buried yesterday in Chicago. Among
many reasons I have to remember her, she was the first
person to tell me about Barack Obama. This photo
is from her last trip, to Mexico this spring. She
had a wonderful and devoted circle of friends in
Chicago who took good care of her since she was
diagnosed in December. She will live in many
memories. May she rest in peace. (More at Blue Voice.)

Obama in Paris

With Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France. Obama
ends his overseas trip with meetings in London with
former Prime Minister and now Middle East envoy
Tony Blair, current PM Gordon Brown, and Conservative
leader and likely PM candidate, David Cameron.

Obama in Berlin

A President of Peace

The hot air networks will isolate soundbites and applause lines, the wire services will emphasize Obama's call for a united front against terrorism, especially in Afghanistan. But Barack Obama's speech today before a quarter of a million Europeans--some who came from Poland and the Netherlands and across Europe to Berlin to hear him--was a call for a greater unity, for a world united to foster equality, freedom and peace.

He used the Berlin airlift of 1948 as his central metaphor--the moment, so soon after the horrific bombings that turned many cities in Europe and Japan into literal holocausts--that wave upon wave of American airplanes dropped not bombs but food, to sustain the people of West Berlin.

He used the partnership of the U.S. and Germany that began after World War II and has survived for 60 years as a symbol of the partnerships that has transformed the continent which plunged the world into war twice in the 20th century into a peaceful Union, the United States of Europe that dreamers like novelist James Joyce hoped for. He used this Union as a symbol for a partnership of peoples around the world, that dreamers like H. G. Wells advocated as the only means that humankind would survive and prosper on this planet. While Obama spoke of his pride in being an American, and of America ideals as a model for the world, he did not shrink from calling himself a citizen of the world.

He spoke of our planetary crises, that bind our fates together and therefore should bring us together in peaceful resolution: nuclear weapons proliferation, and the Climate Crisis.

And from across the Atlantic, we could hear the chants in Berlin: Yes, we can.

So in testimony to this wisdom and eloquence, here are parts of Obama's speech in Berlin today that you may not see highlighted anywhere else.

"Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more - not less. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.

This is the moment when we must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. The two superpowers that faced each other across the wall of this city came too close too often to destroying all we have built and all that we love. With that wall gone, we need not stand idly by and watch the further spread of the deadly atom. It is time to secure all loose nuclear materials; to stop the spread of nuclear weapons; and to reduce the arsenals from another era. This is the moment to begin the work of seeking the peace of a world without nuclear weapons.

This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands. Let us resolve that all nations - including my own - will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation, and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere. This is the moment to give our children back their future. This is the moment to stand as one.

And this is the moment when we must give hope to those left behind in a globalized world. We must remember that the Cold War born in this city was not a battle for land or treasure. Sixty years ago, the planes that flew over Berlin did not drop bombs; instead they delivered food, and coal, and candy to grateful children. And in that show of solidarity, those pilots won more than a military victory. They won hearts and minds; love and loyalty and trust - not just from the people in this city, but from all those who heard the story of what they did here.

Now the world will watch and remember what we do here - what we do with this moment. Will we extend our hand to the people in the forgotten corners of this world who yearn for lives marked by dignity and opportunity; by security and justice? Will we lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty, shelter the refugee in Chad, and banish the scourge of AIDS in our time?

Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe? Will we give meaning to the words "never again" in Darfur?

Will we acknowledge that there is no more powerful example than the one each of our nations projects to the world? Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law? Will we welcome immigrants from different lands, and shun discrimination against those who don't look like us or worship like we do, and keep the promise of equality and opportunity for all of our people?

People of Berlin - people of the world - this is our moment. This is our time. "

Update: For further analysis of this speech and a link to video and transcript, hop over to American Dash.

Obama in Israel and Palestine

Barack Obama at the Holocaust Memorial in Israel.
Third photo is a Palestinian baker preparing a pastry to mark Obama's visit there later in the day.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

“To think at all about certain questions was an act of rebellion that sent one oscillating between the furtive and the defiant.”

H.G. Wells: "In the Days of the Comet"

Barack in Iraq

Barack Obama met with Iraqi officials (first photo) and Iraqi President Maliki (second photo) on Monday, where all agreed that the U.S. occupation should end in 2010.

America Wants Government to Act

With 85% of Americans telling pollsters the country is going the wrong way, and only 21% in a poll released yesterday pleased with the particular kind of activist government the Bushites are running, perhaps it's time to pay attention to these big numbers, instead of the Big Lie, that all Americans really want from their elected government is as little as possible.

For according to a recent Rockerfeller Foundation/ Time Magazine poll, an overwhelming majority of Americans wants government to institute new programs to send the country in a new direction, in a big way. Specifically:

84% favor higher tax incentives for alternative energy, such as wind and solar power, and mandatory limits on pollution in the atmosphere.

82% want government to increase spending on programs such as FDR-style public works to create jobs.

77% want to increase government programs to provide health care insurance to those who can't afford it.

83% favor increasing the mandatory minimum wage to keep up with increases in the cost of living.

66% favor government-funded child care for working parents.

70% say more government programs--not fewer--should help those struggling in today's economy.

17% approve of the Bushite approach to the economy.

Sounds like change we can believe in.

Hat tip to Rachel Maddow for highlighting this poll on Countdown Monday.

Leading the Way

Barack Obama meets with troops in Kuwait before
going on to Afghanistan Saturday. Also today, a
German newspaper reported Iraqi Prez Maliki
backing Obama's 16 month timeframe for U.S.
troops to withdraw from Iraq, a story mistakenly
sent to the American press by the interns currently
running the White House. British PM Gordon Brown
also reportedly backs Obama's plan. A key statement
in the Maliki report: "The Americans have found
it difficult to agree on a concrete timetable for the exit
because it seems like an admission of defeat to them.
But it isn't," Maliki told Der Spiegel...Now who was supposed
to be the foreign policy leader in this presidential race?
Monday Update: While the Bush administration issued a claim
by an Iraqi official that Maliki had been mistranslated, the New
York Times found that the translation was accurate.

The Turning

" Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.
This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative. It represents a challenge to all Americans -- in every walk of life: to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen."---Al Gore

"I've been an oil man all my life, and this is one emergency we're not going to drill our way out of."--T. Boone Pickens

Update: Al Gore made a surprise appearance Saturday

at the Netroots convention in Texas: Mr. Gore spoke for a few minutes, noting that the polar ice cap, which is about the size of the continental United States and has been there for three million years, has a 75-to-80 percent chance of completely melting in five years.

In the Wind

Gasoline prices have captured the attention of the American people, and nobody who lives in California (where we've experienced the largest fire event in state history, and it's still early in the fire season) or elsewhere in the West (persistent drought continues), the Midwest (massive flooding, storms) or the East (heat waves, tornados) can fail to be at least uneasy about what they hear global heating is doing to the planet. Even the Bush-tainted Environmental Protection Energy has just said that climate change poses substantial threats to human health in the near future.

So more people are speaking out and proposing plans that attack both problems, and more people are listening. Thursday Al Gore unveiled an ambitious plan to generate all of America's electricity with zero greenhouse gases within ten years--the length of time between JFK's goal of a man on the moon, and the realization of that goal. Senator Obama promptly endorsed Gore's proposal, and others--including well-known blogger on energy and investment banker Jerome a Paris--promptly showed how this idea can in fact be achieved. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.--my nominee for EPA or Energy secretary in the Obama administration--wrote about this last week.

Gore's proposal included new impetus for plug-in hybrids, and once again endorsed the idea of a carbon tax, which NASA climate expert Dr. James Hansen also proposed in his testimony to Congress.

Usually when gas prices go up, there is an outcry for more oil drilling in the U.S., including in offshore and wilderness areas. Sure enough, Republicans and some craven Democrats are talking that talk again--but there are signs it may not work this time. And one of the biggest indications comes from a very unlikely source.

If you didn't know who T. Boone Pickens was, if you've watched any TV recently you've seen his face by now. Pickens is a billionaire oilman and financial conniver, so ultra conservative that he bankrolled the despicable Swift Boat Veterans ads that libeled John Kerry's Vietnam War combat heroism and gave us four more disastrous years of Bush.

But now his face is on his own TV commercials, talking about the need for a new energy policy to radically cut the amount of oil America imports. But his proposal depends not on more domestic production, but on wind power for electricity (much as Gore's plan does) and natural gas for cars and other vehicles (the more controversial idea.) Pickens stands to make money on it all, which is actually a strong argument in its favor: it signals to other old capitalists that it's time to put their capital in new businesses. While Gore calls for a new Apollo program, Pickens wants private enterprise to get behind his idea, although he sees a big role for government, too: his metaphor is the federal highway program instituted by President Eisenhower in the 1950s.

His commercials have saturated TV for a few weeks now, and regardless of how good his specific proposals are, there is one moment that is as major a signal for the turning now underway towards a new renewable, sustainable clean energy future.

It's when Pickens looks into the camera and drawls, "I've been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency we're not going to drill our way out of."

And sure enough, it is Pickens' state of Texas, American symbol of the oil economy, that made dramatic news Thursday: Texas, headquarters of America's oil industry, is about to stake a fortune on wind power.
In what experts say is the biggest investment in the clean and renewable energy in U.S. history, utility officials in the Lone Star State gave preliminary approval Thursday to a $4.9 billion plan to build new transmission lines to carry wind-generated electricity from gusty West Texas to urban areas like Dallas.

Al Gore put it this way: "Yet when we look at all three of these seemingly intractable challenges at the same time, we can see the common thread running through them, deeply ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges -- the economic, environmental and national security crises.

We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change.

But if we grab hold of that common thread and pull it hard, all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will find that we're holding the answer to all of them right in our hand."

The answer my friend is at last blowing in the wind. And that's a wind of change.