Bridging the gap

Linda Cole has been sending me meditations by the late Henri Nouwen and yesterday I blogged one of them (about seeing the other as neighbor) over on Medition Matters. I had trouble, however, deciding whether it belonged there or here on the political blog. Today's passage, I think really belongs here on Child of Illusion. It's called, "Bridging the Gap Between People".

To become neighbours is to bridge the gap between people. As long as there is distance between us and we cannot look in each other's eyes, all sorts of false ideas and images arise. We give them names, make jokes about them, cover them with our prejudices, and avoid direct contact. We think of them as enemies. We forget that they love as we love, care for their children as we care for ours, become sick and die as we do. We forget that they are our brothers and sisters and treat them as objects that can be destroyed at will.

Only when we have the courage to cross the street and look in one another's eyes can we see there that we are children of the same God and members of the same human family.

If we took this teaching on board, we would see the sacredness of all life and we would not see others as people who can be killed with impunity. I also read an article in the Independent today that is called "America's domestic policy vs America's foreign policy". It is about Bush's reference for the life that is a few cells in a petri dish and comparing that with his callousness about the casualties in Iraq and Lebanon. Here's an excerpt:

Parents dare not let their children wander the dangerous streets of Baghdad alone, but until a few days ago they could give them a treat by taking them to al-Jillawi's toyshop, the biggest and best in the city, its windows invitingly filled with Playstations, Barbie dolls and bicycles.

They go there no longer. Today the shop on 14 Ramadan Street in the once-affluent al-Mansur district is closed, with a black mourning flag draped across its front. The three sons and the teenage grandson of the owner, Mehdi al-Jillawi, were shutting down for the evening recently, bringing in bicycles and tricycles on display on the pavement in front of the shop. As they did so, two BMWs stopped close to them, and several gunmen got out armed with assault rifles. They opened fire at point-blank range, killing the young men.

Sectarian slaughter is not the only way to die in Iraq.

Yesterday US troops killed five people, including two women and a child, in the city of Baquba during a raid, claiming they had been shot at. At best it was a tragic error, at worst it spoke to the cavalier attitude of the US towards Iraqi civilian lives. Local police said that a man had fired from a rooftop at the Americans because he thought a hostile militia force was approaching.

While the eyes of the world are elsewhere, Baghdad is still dying and the daily toll is hitting record levels. While the plumes of fire and smoke over Lebanon have dominated headlines for 11 days, with Britain and the US opposing a UN call for an immediate ceasefire, another Bush-Blair foreign policy disaster is unfolding in Iraq.

Invoking the sanctity of human life, George Bush wielded the presidential veto for the first time in his presidency to halt US embryonic stem cell research in its tracks. He even paraded one-year-old Jack Jones, born from one of the frozen embryos that can now never be used for federally funded research, and talked of preventing the "taking of innocent human life". How hollow that sounds to Iraqis.

What would happen if we really worked to bridge the gap between people as Henri Nouwen says, to realize that we are all more alike than we're different, we would not be so cavalier about the violent deaths of others.

The world is waiting

This is good:

There are two great hungers in our world today, one for spiritual integrity and the other for social justice. And the connection between the two is the one the world is waiting for.

-- Jim Wallis

Friday cat blogging!

Sweet Iris

Photo by Sally Lloyd

Jon Stewart in good form

I do love the snark:

Since the bombing began, Israel has tried to make it clear Hezbollah and Syria are to blame for Lebanon's current nightmare. To that end, Israeli warplanes have dropped thousands of leaflets on Beirut over the last few days showing a caricature of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah as a cobra threatening the Lebanese capital. And really, what a great idea, because if there's anything that calms the Arab world down, it's a cartoon.

--Jon Stewart

Civil War in Iraq

I want to call your attention to an article on the CNN website called "Sen. Reid: Iraq devolves into 'civil war'". Here are a couple of excerpts:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Declaring that he believes the situation in Iraq has devolved into a civil war, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday he plans to try to bring the war back up for debate on the Senate floor.

The Nevada Democrat said he has been "somewhat gingerly approaching this.... No longer. There is a civil war going on in Iraq. In the last two months, more than 6,000 Iraqis have been killed. That's averaging more than 100 a day being killed in Iraq and we need to make sure there is a debate on this."
...
Senate Democratic leaders call Iraq the top issue on voters' minds this election year and say they want to continue talking about it in Congress, especially since the situation appears to be deteriorating.

"The American people find it hard to believe that we can continue with our daily business here ignoring the obvious, which is the daily situation is getting worse," said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin.

"It is more dangerous, we're still losing American lives and the Iraqis have not stepped up to defend their own country," the Illinois Democrat said. "That is a fact, and that will be a fact that people will remember in November."

Needless to say, the Republicans do not want to reopen the debate and are accusing the Democrats of advocating that we "cut and run". It's very wearying.

Meanwhile it seems that the populace at large realizes that civil war is a fact. A CNN Quick Vote poll asked this question:

Is the situation in Iraq a civil war?

The results were Yes - 75% and No - 25%.

Let's hear it for Leno

Bush is pathetically immature:

White House press secretary Tony Snow says that when President Bush was told he was recorded saying a four-letter word, he rolled his eyes and laughed it off, which is ironic. Bush is now reacting to himself the way everybody else does.

--Jay Leno

Biodiversity crisis

I'm sorry to keep bringing you such bad news environmentally speaking but I'm afraid that's the news we've got. Today I want to call your attention to an article in the Guardian entitled "Earth facing 'catastrophic' loss of species". Here's how it gets started:

The Earth is on the brink of "major biodiversity crisis" fuelled by the steady destruction of ecosystems, a group of the world's most distinguished scientists and policy experts warn today.

Nineteen leading specialists in the field of biodiversity, including Robert Watson, chief scientist at the World Bank, and Professor Georgina Mace, director of the Institute of Zoology, are calling for the urgent creation of a global body of scientists to offer advice and urge governments to halt what they call a potentially "catastrophic loss of species".

Destruction of natural habitats and the effects of climate change are causing species to die out at 100 to 1,000 times faster than the natural rate, leading some scientists to warn we are facing the next mass extinction.

Nearly one-quarter of the world's mammals, one-third of amphibians and more than one-tenth of bird species are threatened with extinction. Climate change alone is expected to force a further 15%- 37% of species to the brink of extinction within the next 50 years.

Writing in the journal Nature today, the experts from 13 nations urge for the new body, the international mechanism of scientific expertise on biodiversity (Imoseb), to be set up to force better biodiversity policies around the world.

"We are on the verge of a major biodiversity crisis. Virtually all aspects of diversity are in steep decline and a large number of populations and species are likely to become extinct this century. Despite this evidence, biodiversity is still consistently undervalued and given inadequate weight in both private and public decisions," the authors say.

We too are part of the ecosystem. We are seriously threatening our own ability to survive as a species.

Think about this.

Scary:

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

-- Voltaire

Economic impact of climate change

I want to call your attention to an article called "Scientists: Southeast Asia losing billions to climate change". Here's an excerpt:

Asian scientists today revealed studies which detail the region's economic losses as well as severe threats to human life and the environment due to climate change. Scientific publications authored by Dr Kansri Boonprakob (Thailand) and Dr Leoncio Amadore (Philippines) each confirm earlier predictions that developing countries in Asia, like Thailand and the Philippines, stand to suffer most from the catastrophic impacts of a warming planet unless mitigation and adaptation measures are taken with urgency.

In the new report "Crisis or Opportunity: Climate Change and Thailand", Dr Kansri said Thailand suffered more than Bt70 billion (around US$ 1.75 billion) in economic losses related to floods, storms and droughts in the period between 1989 and 2002. Majority of these losses came from the agricultural sector where crop yield losses amounted to more than Bt50 billion (around US$ 1.25 billion) during 1991 to 2000.

"Climate-related catastrophes will increase and intensify under climate change. This will cause reductions in agricultural production, and consequently retarded economic development and increasing social problems," wrote Dr Kansri, vice-chair of Working Group 1 of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Among the most serious environmental threats cited in her study is "irreversible changes among ecosystems along with the extinction of many species." Preliminary Thai studies on forest ecosystems under climate change show that about 32 national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, including the World Heritage Site of Thung Yai Naresuan, are now climate change hot spots.

In addition she warned that sea level rise "may cause the extinction of coastal species." Thailand's coasts are economically important for fisheries, commerce, recreation and tourism but further to sea-level rise, "more intense storm surges may damage commercial and recreational areas," she said in the report.

I really don't have much of a comment here except to say that it is important that we know what's happening and what is predicted to happen. We need a critical mass of people with awareness in order for there to be a demand that changes take place. Sadly, we don't seem to have that critical mass at this time --- and time is running out.

Our stupid, uncultured president

By now surely you know that a microphone picked up Bush's dinner conversation at the G8 Summit. I was truly embarrassed. And so was Cenk Uygur as he explains in an article entitled "The ugly truth: Our president is an imbecile":

The camera is focused elsewhere and it is not clear whom Bush is talking to, but possibly Chinese President Hu Jintao, a guest at the summit.

Bush: "Gotta go home. Got something to do tonight. Go to the airport, get on the airplane and go home. How about you? Where are you going? Home?"

Bush: "This is your neighborhood. It doesn't take you long to get home. How long does it take you to get home?"

Reply is inaudible.

Bush: "Eight hours? Me too. Russia's a big country and you're a big country."

At this point, the president seems to bring someone else into the conversation.

Bush: "It takes him eight hours to fly home."

He turns his attention to a server.

Bush: "No, Diet Coke, Diet Coke."

He turns back to whomever he was talking with.

Bush: "It takes him eight hours to fly home. Eight hours. Russia's big and so is China."

Russia's big and so is China??????? This guys sounds like a third grader. Do you know anyone who would have a conversation like this with their neighbor, let alone a business associate, let alone a world leader? Who's proud to know that Russia is big and so is China?

Can anyone now credibly claim that Bush is secretly working on a master plan behind the scenes and that he's just playing cowboy for the cameras? I hope the master plan doesn't involve figuring out how long it takes to get to China.

If someone is this ignorant, they're usually embarrassed and try not to talk much. But this guy is so dumb he has no idea how dumb he is. This sounds like a conversation you might have with a child, a mentally challenged child. Johnny, do you know how big Russia is? How about China?

This would all be unfortunate if George was your dentist, or worse yet, your accountant. But he is the leader of the free world. This man makes life or death decisions every day. If you say you're not scared about that, you're lying.

Would you let him do the books for your business? Would you trust your company in his hands for eight years? (No matter how Republican you are, you know you just said no to that question.) Would you trust him to be your kids' guidance counselor and take his advice seriously? If your kids were in the Army and he was their field commander, would you feel good about putting their lives in his hands?

Come on, no one is crazy enough to say yes to that. Yet, he has all of our lives in his hands. The emperor has no clothes. The emperor has no clothes. It's about time someone in the mainstream media said it.

For the life of me, I don't understand why some people think it's satisfying to have someone who's not very bright in the presidency. I want the president to be smarter than I am - to be as bright as they come. But a huge number of Americans don't seem to agree with me.

Training in nonviolence

We need training in nonviolence if we're to offer an alternative to war. Sadly, many people don't know that this exists. Try Googling "training in nonviolence" and see what you get. It's amazing the training opportunities that are out there.

This morning, I found the following (that, of course, gladdens my heart as a meditation teacher):

Gandhi talks about meditation being as important to the nonviolent soldier as drill practice is to the conventional soldier. Nonviolence doesn't just happen. You don't just suddenly walk into the middle of conflict and know what to do. I've discovered that the people who impress me with their nonviolent behavior in violent situations are inevitably people who have trained themselves and been involved in nonviolent strategies for a while. You can't do it in a weekend workshop...one must accept nonviolence as a form of fighting, and that's very hard for people to understand. However, compassion and joy can be as contagious as war fever.

-- Joan Baez

I'd like to recommend the article entitled Practicing Nonviolence by Joanne Sheehan as a beginning overview of what nonviolence training is all about.

WWIII

I want to call your attention to an article entitled "Let's face it, it's WWIII, Gingrich says". I'm really horrified by that language. Take a look:

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich says America is in World War III and President Bush should say so.

Gingrich said in an interview Saturday that Bush should call a joint session of Congress the first week of September and talk about global military conflicts in much starker terms than have been heard from the president.

"We need to have the militancy that says 'We're not going to lose a city, " Gingrich said.

Gingrich said in the coming days he plans to speak out publicly and to the administration from his seat on the Defense Policy Board about the need to recognize that America is in World War III.

He lists wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, last week's bomb attacks in India, North Korean nuclear threats, terrorist arrests and investigations in Florida, Canada and Britain, and violence in Israel and Lebanon as evidence of World War III.

Now here's the real reason he's urging this language:

There is a political element to his talk of World War III. Gingrich said that public opinion can change "the minute you use the language" of World War III. The message then, he said, is, "OK, if we're in the third world war, which side do you think should win?"

That is simply beyond irresponsible. And talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once you start naming it as WWIII, you make it so. And it's a way of manipulating public opinion - making the public support hostilities they actually have grave doubts about.

The Middle East

There's a story published today on Smirking Chimp entitled "Bill Kristol is a Maniac". The whole article is worth reading but here's the quote I want you to see:

Right now, we should be spending all of our time and energy trying to figure out a way to avoid a broader Middle Eastern War, a war that could suck us into World War III. We have 130,000 troops waiting in Iraq like sitting ducks. What happens when Israel and Iran start exchanging bombs? It's obvious -- we get sucked into fighting Iran ... and the Iraqi Shiites, and the Iraqi Sunnis, and the Syrians, and the Lebanese and ...

That's a world of pain. If you thought the Iraq War has gone poorly, wait till you get a load of the broader Middle East War -- where everyone in the region is against us.

How haughty and arrogant could we be? What are we going to do, bomb, fight and occupy the whole Middle East? We couldn't even handle Iraq. How in the world are we going to handle Iran, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon at the same time? We are asking for a terrible war we can't possibly win.

And Bill Kristol is egging the administration on.

Sent to me by Frank Ford.

Israel and Iran

I want to bring you an excerpt from a Toronto Star editorial entitled "Wildly Disproportionate Attack on Lebanon Seems Like Pretext to Confront Iran" that refutes the idea that Israel's hostilities right now are defensive:

But the U.S. and Israel don't want to look like aggressors. They insist their intentions are purely defensive. Recall that Washington also claimed its invasion of Iraq was purely defensive — to protect itself from Iraq's arsenal of deadly weapons, which, it turned out, didn't exist.

So when Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon seized two Israeli soldiers last week, a perfect opportunity arose. Since Hezbollah has links to Iran, presto, here was a prima facie case that Iran was gunning for confrontation...

Certainly the Palestinians have endless grievances against Israel. In addition to four decades of Israeli military occupation of their land, Israel has attempted to destroy the Hamas government, which was democratically elected by Palestinians last January.

Hezbollah's seizure of the two Israeli soldiers was probably an act of support for the Palestinians in Gaza, who have been under Israeli military siege since the capture of the first soldier.

Hezbollah also said it seized the soldiers because it wanted to trade them for Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails. A similar Israeli-Hezbollah prisoner exchange took place in 2004.

Abandoning Canada's traditional role as an honest broker in the Middle East, Prime Minister Stephen Harper unabashedly supported Israel last week, calling its devastating attacks on Gaza and Lebanon "measured."

If Israel is simply trying to "defend" itself, its actions are wildly disproportionate.

On the other hand, if Israel and the U.S. are looking for an excuse to attack Iran, the capture of the Israeli soldiers is as good as any.

And, of course, the U.S. has joined the hostilities by giving jet fuel to Israel. What other help is in the offing? This situation is only going to escalate.

Assumptions

Larry Hicks sent me an article entitled "Ugly Americans in Iraq" that I want to share with you here. It's the mostly email history of a U.S. soldier, who served in Iraq during 2003 and 2004, as told to journalist Nir Rosen. The soldier wishes to remain anonymous. Here's an exerpt:

All the way up to my third deployment I was an avid reader of a lot of foolish writing on the war,” he said. “I believed in the mission because I had to—after all, what soldier wants to die for an unworthy cause? I wanted to believe in the propaganda and I willfully avoided things that harshly rubbed against my hope that we were sacrificing for a good cause. When you put your life on the line every night, you don’t have the luxury to be skeptical or even critical. In certain ways, I feel embarrassed about my belief that this was once a noble mission, but I have the honesty to admit that I was wrong. I deployed to this war with many great assumptions about our national leadership: I assumed that the WMD intelligence case wasn’t a cherry-picked house of cards, I assumed we had a plan for the aftermath of the invasion, I assumed our leaders had a greater understanding of the character of Iraq outside the mouths of Ahmed Chalabi and Kana Makiya. I assumed, I assumed, I assumed.

I wonder how many Americans could say that? "We assumed, we assumed, we assumed". The manipulation of public opinion by the administration has been truly evil.

Israeli protester

Here's something I found on Democracy Now:

In Tel Aviv, dozens of Israelis gathered to protest the strikes on Lebanon.

Unidentified protester: "I am here to protest against what my government is doing, this is absolutely a shame to do that. Its clear to me that there is no military solution and this is why I am here."

Sad that it's only dozens but at least those few are speaking out.

Military standards

The article I'm linking you to here is called Voice of the White House and it's written anonymously by someone who is supposedly a White House staffer. Whether he or she is inside the White House or that is just a literary device for writing opinion pieces, the following observation is true enough:

And the U.S. military is in a sorry mess now. They have lost at least ten thousand dead and over twenty five thousand seriously enough wounded to preclude further participation in the anti-guerrilla campaign. They lust for a draft but that is not to be because the announcement of a general draft before the mid-term elections would be political suicide for the Republicans.

Instead of a draft, the Bush people have now so lowered the entrance standards for the military that a huge influx of juvenile delinquents, rabid racists, gang members, social misfits of every kind are swelling the ranks and we see the results in the sharp escalation of drug use, sexual violence, disobedience to authority and a serious morale problem with the relatively “normal” troops.

This is very worrying. I think it would be much better to have a draft than for standards to be lowered like this. We're supposed to have the best trained military in the world. That won't be true for long if we admit seriously disordered people to the ranks.

Middle East horror

What's happening right now is bad, bad, bad. I want to recommend an article today called, "Mutually Assured Destruction in the Middle East" by Chris Hedges. Here are a couple of passages:

The escalating repression by Israel, like the escalating repression by the American occupiers in Iraq, has become the most potent recruiting tool for Islamic extremists. It has rendered each side deaf and dumb. As those under the boot of Israel or America lose all hope for justice, as they give up on peaceful recourses to ameliorate their plight, as they fall into despair, it throws them, by default, into the hands of extremists. And as the extremists grow and their attacks became more deadly, it likewise helps silence those in Israel and the United States who call for compassion, restraint and understanding.
...
We cannot ascribe equal amounts of moral blame to all sides. Israel is the oppressor in Gaza, the West Bank and now Lebanon. America is the oppressor in Iraq. And there can be no hope for a peaceful resolution to these conflicts until Iraqis are freed from American occupation and Palestinians are allowed to build a viable state. It is the distorting and dehumanizing effects of occupation that made possible the proliferation of extremist groups that, albeit on a smaller scale, simply hand back to the occupier some of their own medicine. The numbers, after all, make clear that most of the victims are Palestinian, Iraqi and now Lebanese civilians, although the numbers game can also obscure the fact that the murder of any innocent by any group is indefensible.

This is the world of the apocalypse. It is the world where those on either extreme become indistinguishable. And if we do not find a new way to speak, and soon, there will be untold suffering—not only for many innocents in the Middle East but eventually innocents at home. It was the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon that spawned and empowered Hezbollah. It was the decades-long occupation and humiliation of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank by Israel that spawned and empowered Hamas, and it is the brutal American occupation that has bred the legions of extremists in Iraq. And when Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah promises “open war” against Israel, as he did in an address shortly after his Beirut offices were bombed, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he won’t cease his attack until Israel is secure, it is time to run for cover, especially when George W. Bush is our best hope for peace.

If George Bush is our best hope for peace then we are hopeless indeed, I'm afraid. The way to peace is through justice and justice is simply not a value that Bush holds.

Friday cat blogging!

Sweet Iris

Photo by Sally Lloyd

What sort of person is Bush?

I teach my meditation students an exercise called "the reflection process" in which one drops a question into one's consciousness (as if dropping a pebble into a pool of water) and then writes down whatever bubbles up. The first question we work with is this: "What sort of person am I?" I wonder what would bubble up for George Bush were he to engage this question. Of course, it's unlikely that our very shallow president would be introspective enough to consider it - or, at any rate, to engage it truthfully. But someone has done it for him. Ed Hamilton has written an article called, "What kind of man is George Bush, and what is he up to?" Here is part of what it says:

Gone are the days when we could wonder, half facetiously, if President Bush was as stupid as he seemed, or if he just thought the rest of us were stupid. Over the years a clearer, more nuanced picture of the man has emerged. Albeit deeply ignorant and intolerant, Bush is nevertheless clever in his own way, and able to use his charisma to his own advantage.

He's in some sense a puppet, in thrall to the forceful, intelligent men, such as Cheney and Rumsfeld, who surround him, but in another sense he is indeed his own man. This comes out best in his fanatical loyalty to his class, the super rich, even where this might be to his personal political disadvantage, and even to the disadvantage of his party, as is the case in cutting taxes on the wealthy and running up the deficit in time of war. So certain is Bush of the moral rectitude of such measures, that he is able to project this assurance in his speech and mannerisms, and--though I for one still find it hard to believe--he seems to have been able to bamboozle a large percentage of the populace.
...
George Bush learned anti-communism from an early age, and saw how advantageous it was to his family and his class. In addition to being the party of the rich, the Republican party is the party of fear; but since the end of the cold war, the fear of gays and women and minorities has proved a poor substitute for the fear of communism. That's why Bush and the Republicans needed Iraq, and it's significant that they had begun talk of this war even before 9-11 (which of course had nothing to do with Iraq). And it's also why they need to complicate the situation by going after other countries. Most likely it's long been their intension to start a war on terrorism -- a scary-sounding, alien ideology, much like communism in that respect -- or better yet a war on Islam, which is really the subtext here. Was it the ignorant side of Bush that spoke of a crusade, or were his words a bit more calculating?
...
There's something in the original dichotomy after all: is Bush stupid or does he think we're stupid? His policies concerning torture and illegal renditions--all but unimaginable in a civilized nation--are perhaps also not quite the work of ignorance. These policies seem in effect deliberately crafted to frighten and provoke our Islamic neighbors. And Bush escapes blame by playing dumb.

I thought I'd also copy for you here a comment to this article on the Smirking Chimp site:

I recently spoke with a technology executive who voted for Bush in both elections. Bush's policies of spying on citizens and detainee torture turned him against the administration. The exec. told me that his boss met one-on-one with Bush a few years ago and that Bush wasn't the dumbass he plays on TV, but informed knowledgeable and engaged.

Lowering expectations: the lifetime Bush M.O. Then whenever he does anything not completely stupid, people think he's smart. It's bait-and-switch, sleight of hand deception. Whenever I hear him talk, it's hard to believe he's not an idiot. It's quite an act he's playing if he's not as dumb as he seems.

Stupid - maybe not. Shallow - definitely. Dangerous - most definitely.

I don't know. I think he's pretty stupid. But he does, indeed, have a certain low cunning. And I agree with the writer above; he's definitely very dangerous.

I recommend that you click through and read not only the article but the comments that follow. It's a short article. And the comments - some of which contain some interesting speculation about Bush's brain health - are thought provoking.

Simple and true

Climate apocalypse or a sustainable future:

We, and the world, must pick a scenario.

--Floyd J. McKay

Immigration irony

Take a look at these passages from an article entitled, "Bush, Bronson worried about unpicked oranges":

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Gov. Jeb Bush and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson agreed Monday that it's ironic millions of Florida oranges could waste away due to a shortage of fruitpickers during a national debate over the county's immigration laws.

Orange production in the state could become the lowest since 1992 if the worst projections come true. That year, growers harvested 139.8 million boxes.

"It's interesting that we have this flurry of activity regarding illegal immigrants and all the problems yet we have shortages in critical areas of our state given the growth of our economy," Bush said. "You know obviously we don't want to have fresh oranges that can't be processed during harvesting time."

The citrus season usually ends in late June, but will extend to at least late July this year with juice processors hoping to get as many oranges as possible off trees.
...
Growers have reported difficulty finding enough workers. Industry officials say labor supply was tight from the beginning of the season in October, but grew worse by the middle of May when a large segment of the Hispanic labor force seemed to leave the state.

Right. And our solution is to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. (Sigh.)

Our younger citizens

This is troubling:

Public schools have pretty much stopped teaching government, civics and American history. ... I truly don't know how long we can survive as a strong nation if our younger citizens don't understand the nature of our government. ... That is something you have to learn. It just isn't handed down in the genetic pool.

-- Sandra Day O'Connor

The "defense of marriage" issue

Today I happened to find a Boston Globe article by Peter Gomes who is an American Baptist minister and professor of theology at Harvard University. It explores the history of marriage in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as well as the appropriateness of the courts deciding that the rights of civil marriage should be extended to gays and lesbians. The article is entitled, "For Massachusetts, a chance and a choice" and I want to bring you these excerpts:

No clergy of any denomination are required to wed anyone of whose union they do not approve: There is no civil right to be married in church or with its blessing. The civil law is just that, and the distinction between it and ecclesiastical law is as important as the necessary distinction between church and state. Surely, after two years of protracted debate between church law and civil law in the child-abuse scandals we should appreciate the necessity of these distinctions.
...
"Judicial tyranny" is a phrase usually heard from those whose prejudices have not been sustained by a court's decision. Happily, the fundamental rights of citizens in this Commonwealth and republic are in the long run defended against another form of tyranny even more dangerous, the tyranny of the majority.

Legislatures more often than not are subject to the prevailing passions of any majority that can muster sufficient votes; rarely are legislatures in the first instance instruments of social change. It was, after all, legislators who, reflecting the views of those who elected them, kept in place every oppressive law on the books until challenged by aggrieved citizens who sought relief in the courts.
...
The defense of marriage demands much more than legislative manipulation enshrining the status quo. The defenders of traditional marriage argue that marriage has been a heterosexual affair since "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve," and at the same time they argue that this exclusively heterosexual institution is in serious trouble.

Logic would suggest that such troubles as marriage experiences cannot be laid at the door of those who have been, at least until Goodridge [the court decision that allowed gay marriage in Massachusetts], rigorously excluded from it.

To extend the civil right of marriage to homosexuals will neither solve nor complicate the problems already inherent in marriage, but what it will do is permit a whole class of persons, our fellow citizens under the law heretofore irrationally deprived of a civil right, both to benefit from and participate in a valuable yet vulnerable institution which in our changing society needs all the help it can get.

If you are married, let me ask you two questions:

1. How can the ability of two gay people to get married hurt your marriage?
2. If your marriage is in trouble, how will a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage help improve your marriage?

50 Questions

Wow. Do I have an article for you. It's called, "50 easy questions to ask any Republican" by Robert J. Elisberg. Here are a few of my favorite questions from the list:

1. What are the Top Seven best things that the Bush Administration has done?

2. Is the Iraq War is going well?

3. After three years thus far, when do you think Iraq might be able to "stand up" so that America can "stand down"?
...
6. When Dick Cheney and the oil company and energy executives met in private to plan America's energy policy, how much of their goal was to benefit consumers?

7. Do you believe in the President's call for an Era of Personal Responsibility?

8. Since Republicans control the White House, Senate and House of Representatives, how personally responsible are they for conditions in America today?
...
11. Are you aware that no government in the history of civilization, other than the Bush Administration, has lowered taxes during a war?
...
31. Are you glad liberals passed such programs as Social Security, Medicare, the Civil Rights Act, women's suffrage, federal deposit insurance, unemployment compensation, rural electrification, child labor laws, minimum wages and the 40-hour work week?

32. What are the Top Ten best things that conservatives have given to America?
...
43. Since George Bush campaigned for President strongly against nation building, in what ways are our actions in Iraq not nation building?

I really do recommend that you click through and read the rest of them. They won't take long. And they clarify the mind wonderfully.

Note: There is one question that supposes incorrect science in that it associates the depletion of the ozone layer with carbon dioxide emissions. Ozone depletion is actually due to chlorofluorocarbon and bromofluorocarbon emissions.

Something good about Wal-Mart

This morning, one of my clients told me that Al Gore was working with Wal-Mart to encourage environmentally responsible practices. She mentioned that he was trying to get them to use recycled paper. Just think of the trees that would be saved if every Wal-Mart across the globe switched to recycled paper! Well, I found a brief article about it on the CNN website. It's called "Gore takes green talk to Wal-Mart". Here's part of what it says:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Wal-Mart Stores hosted former Vice President Al Gore at a conference Wednesday evening that the company said is the next step in its efforts to improve the environment.

The company said the conference at its Bentonville, Ark., headquarters, dubbed the quarterly sustainability network meeting, included Gore's presentation on the dangers of global warming, as well as one from officials of the Rocky Mountain Institute and the Evangelical Environmental Network.
...
"We are all passionate about making real progress regarding the environment," said a statement from Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott. "By working together, we can help each other save money, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pass the savings on to our customers. Sustainability is good for the environment, and it's also good for business."
...
Earlier this year Wal-Mart announced that it would seek to eliminate 30 percent of the energy used by stores, with the corporate goal of eventually being fueled 100 percent by renewable energy .The retailer also plans to eliminate 25 percent of the solid waste from U.S. stores in the next three years, with the corporate goal of producing zero waste.

Wal-Mart also is targeting increased efficiency of its truck fleet by 25 percent over the next three years, with efficiency doubled within 10 years except in the North, where Wal-Mart utilizes white reflective roof membranes, resulting in a 10 percent lower cooling load.

Of course, as the article pointed out, there are people who are skeptical of Wal-Mart's intentions - as am I. But whatever their motives, if they really implement these plans it will make a huge impact.

Human rights

Something to think about:

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.

-- Jimmy Carter

We need to heed this:

We are the watchers. We are the witnesses. We see what has gone before. We see what happens now, at this dangerous moment in human history. We see what's going to happen, what will surely happen unless we come together---we , the Peoples of all Nations---to restore peace, harmony and balance to the Earth, our Mother.

--Chief Arvol Looking Horse, from White Buffalo Teachings

Imagine

Photo by Bill Miller

This week I talked about visualization in my ongoing meditation classes and I quoted Einstein who said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." And so I was dismayed when I read a commentary in Grist magazine about a group of gifted elementary students who imagine a very bleak future indeed. Here's what the author, Karen Hurley, says about them:

In their envisioned future, they imagined a community with only indoor parks. Beyond these parks, there would be no trees, no plants, no birds, and no animals. Freshwater would be gone, because lakes and streams would either be dried up or too polluted to support life; drinking water would have to be created from desalinization plants on the coast. In the future these children predicted, universities and colleges would be closed because everyone would learn -- alone -- through their personal computers.

As the children spoke, I sat with tears rolling down my cheeks. Had I really just heard what they'd said? Had the appreciative and encouraging municipal council heard the same thing? Why would children who lived in an idyllic natural environment -- surrounded by trees, a rich diversity of plants and lush gardens, abundant wildlife including deer and cougars, large forested parks, and fish-bearing streams -- imagine a future that was ecologically dead?

The answer may be because this is the future collectively envisioned by most everyone, including scientists, technology pundits, fiction and documentary filmmakers, writers, advertisers, video-game producers, and those of us whose careers are devoted to trying to protect the planet. Perhaps these children envisioned a future in which their community was dead because that's the future they're taught is inevitable.

I realized in reading this article that my vision of the future is like that too. But take a look at what Hurley says next:

I fully understand this despair. I hit a wall of it straight-on during my tenure as an environmental planner. In fact, I remember saying things like, "Yes, we will hit total ecological collapse, but our job is to ensure that as many species as possible live beyond it." Now I see how harmful such words are.

Somehow, we need to begin to envision ecologically sound and socially just futures that reflect the great diversity of all beings, including humans. We must insist on having a say in what our futures look like. We do not have to accept the singular vision being created by those in power.

She concludes this way:

As peace activist Elise Boulding puts it, "The sheer difficulty of imagining a future sustainability different from the present is one of our greatest problems as a society." Let's create, in the space that Grist provides, a dialogue about our worries and our hopes. Let's share stories about what is important for us to put in place for the future, and what's happening in our communities now that provides hopeful ways forward. It will be hard work to imagine sustainable and just futures, but it is time to begin.

Yes, it is important to sound the alarm. But it is also important to believe that taking action is actually worth it. This is why I periodically post suggestions for taking action. One simple action I want to remind you about is replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact florescent bulbs*. If you just change one or two, you're making a difference. Let's all start to visualize manageable changes. See yourself planting a tree, for example. Then do it. See yourself combining errands and thus making fewer trips in the car. Then do it. And let us not lose heart. Let us, rather, see the change we want to be and then be the change we want to see.

* Please see my posting on Earth Day right here.

Religion and public life

This is a helpful understanding:

King did it best: Bible in one hand, Constitution in the other. He never said, “I’m religious, so I get to win.” He didn’t said, “God spoke to me, and I have the fix for Social Security.” He said, “I’m motivated by my faith, but I’ve got to persuade the public on the basis not of religion but of the common good.”

-- Jim Wallis

Another consequence of global warming

It just doesn't let up. The news about the consequences, I mean. It seems that every day I read something about still another consequence of global warming that I didn't know about before. Here's an excerpt from an AOL News article entitled, "Climate Change Could Decimate Wine Industry":

WASHINGTON (July 11) - Climate warming could spell disaster for much of the multibillion-dollar U.S. wine industry.

Areas suitable for growing premium wine grapes could be reduced by 50 percent - and possibly as much as 81 percent - by the end of this century, according to a study Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The paper indicates increasing weather problems for grapes in such areas as California's Napa and Sonoma valleys.

The main problem: An increase in the frequency of extremely hot days, according to Noah Diffenbaugh of the department of earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue University.

Grapes used in premium wines need a consistent climate. When temperatures top about 95 degrees they have problems maintaining photosynthesis and the sugars in the grapes can break down, Diffenbaugh said in a telephone interview.

You would think that businesses facing the decimation of their operations would be screaming about this. I guess the really big businesses who put short term profits ahead of long term stewardship are screaming louder to this administration. The oil business trumps all the others, doesn't it?

Freedom of the press

Sad but true:

Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.

-- A.J. Liebling

Muzzling the press

Okay, people. This is important. I want you to see some passages from an article called, "The Need to Know: No Questions, No Dissent in Our Endless War". Here they are:

When they write the history of how America became a nation permanently at war and permanently willing to invoke the cause of war in defense of a vast trove of state secrets -- when every last corner of your life becomes the business of this newly permanent climate of war -- I hope they remember how our Republican Congress voted on the Friday before Independence Day to intimidate the press for letting us know what was happening.

For those who have not been paying attention, please put down your iPods and read the following: Reps. John Kline, Gil Gutknecht, Colin Peterson, Mark Kennedy and Jim Ramstad all voted to declare that Congress "expects the cooperation of all news media organizations. ... "

Chances are tomorrow's historians will remember House Resolution 895, but they will not be able to criticize it. Chances are that when the policies set in motion under the deplorable presidency of George W. Bush have reached their fruition, the state-approved history of our time will have omitted the steady erosion of dissent first initiated on Fox News and ultimately embraced by the U.S. House of Representatives.
...
And maybe it is this wartime mentality that is the real enemy. "The war on terrorism" is no war; it is a policy objective, a publicity campaign for a state-sponsored police action.
...
As such, changes in law that take place during a war without end, as was the decision to monitor banking records, are not simply "war plans" whose disclosure makes one into a traitor. They are permanent changes in the laws of the land. We need to know about permanent changes in the laws of our land if we are to live in a free and open society.

The outrage currently directed at the Times should be directed at Bush and the congressional Republicans who are now preparing the American psyche for the raiding of newspaper offices by federal marshals. They used to intimidate the president's opponents with spin, but that stopped working, so now they need to raise the fear of jail and death. Just as they always do in failing governments intolerant of criticism and contemptuous of the press.

We are not at war. We are, rather, occupying another nation and that's different. But the intimidated press won't report it that way. And soon, the press won't be allowed to report what's happening at all.

What an embarrassment

Our utterly inarticulate president said this on June 14, 2006:

I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?

-- George W. Bush

We are so selfish.

Look at this:

Americans do not realize that the wealth we have gained since the middle of the twentieth century has slowly made us into a very selfish people. We know that after World War II we helped rebuild Europe under the Marshall Plan, and we still think that the same kind of generosity marks our present-day foreign policy. That is not the case. Of the twenty-two industrial nations of the world, the United States is dead last on per-capita giving to the poor peoples of the world. By way of comparison, let me point out that on a per-capita-basis, for every dollar that America gives to the world, the people of Norway give seventy.

-- Tony Campolo

Badge of honor

God, I miss The West Wing:

Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things – every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, ‘Liberal,’ as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won’t work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.

-- Matt Santos, The West Wing

Shameful

I couldn't agree more:

The war in Iraq is shameful. Whether you're pro or con Bush, you've got to admit it: The guy lied. And he continues to do so. I can't understand why he's just not run out on a rail. To send somebody's kids off and have them killed for no good reason — he's going to have his day in hell for that. I wouldn't want that karma. When you kill somebody's little sister with a missile, he's going to hate you forever. And the next generation will hate you even more.

-- Tom Petty

Presidential secrecy

Well, well, well. Looks like even the Republicans (some of them, at least) are getting upset about Bush's attachment to secrecy. Look at this excerpt from a CNN article entitled "Hoekstra: Major program kept from Congress":

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee accused the Bush administration Sunday of failing to inform Congress of "significant activity" in ongoing secret intelligence programs.

"There are lots of programs going on in the intelligence community. We can't be briefed on every little thing," Chairman Peter Hoekstra said on "Fox News Sunday."

"But in this case there was at least one major -- what I consider significant -- activity that we had not been briefed on," the Michigan Republican said without specifying what that activity was.

"It is not optional for this president or any president or people in the executive community not to keep the intelligence committees fully informed of what they are doing."

Hoekstra said "people within the intelligence community" informed him about programs his committee had not been told about -- a tip Hoekstra said he discovered was true only after making inquiries.
...
Under the law, the executive branch must inform the legislative branch of what it is doing, Hoekstra said.

There he goes again - breaking the law. Oh but don't forget, this president is above the law. (Sickening.)

Pure snark

Why we are abdicating our freedom

From The True Believer:

People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief of the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility.

~Eric Hoffer

It breaks my heart.

Frank Ford sent this cartoon.

So now we're like the Communists.

Can you believe that the right wingers are now complaining that flying the flag at half-mast to honor the war dead is a protest against the war? Read this excerpt from an article entitled, "Flying Flag at Half-Staff Undermines War on Terror?":

At the same time as Congress was distressed over the occasional burning, the right wing was concerned over how the flag was being flown. In some states governors have begun flying the flag at half-staff to honor their sons and daughters who have died in the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld war.

According to a story in the Wall Street Journal by Jeffrey Zaslow, 16 states have begun this practice. Some people see honoring the dead as a disguised attempt to criticize the war. Bruce Butgereit is one of those. He is the national patriotic instructor of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. He objects to the Michigan governor’s call to lower the flag saying it violates the Flag Code that was adopted in 1942. Not without compassion, he acknowledges that the governor “feels some sense of loss” when one of Michigan’s own dies, but having unique insights into her motives adds that “her motivation to order the flag lowered was purely political.”

Republican County Executive Brooks Patterson in suburban Detroit at first refused to follow the governor’s order that the flag be lowered. His spokesman said Mr. Patterson believed lowering the flag “would be a constant reminder of the high cost of war, and would undermine the war on terror.” According to the report in the Journal, “he didn’t want the governor using this as a political thing, holding a tearjerker news conference every time a soldier was killed.”

Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable.

And now take a look at an excerpt from the same article about flag desecration:

Two hundred eighty six members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 67 U.S. senators would have loudly applauded the decision by the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeals.

In 1999 Ng Kung-Siu and Lee King-Yung, regular protestors at pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, were convicted of flag desecration. Their offense consisted of marching in demonstrations bearing torn Chinese flags on which were inscribed the words “shame." When Hong Kong was a democracy (like the United States was before George Bush became president), it had no law against flag desecration because its former rulers did not think that important. When Hong Kong became part of China, however, it became subject to the laws of China and flag desecration was considered a crime.

Well, well, well. Look who we're emulating. If we criminalize flag burning we'll just have one more thing in common with China. Why not? They practically own us financially anyway.

Virulent nationalism

I agree:

And nationalism is given a special virulence when it is said to be blessed by Providence. Today we have a president, invading two countries in four years, who announced on the campaign trail last year that God speaks through him.

We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history.

We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.

-- Howard Zinn

Germany prepares for Bush

A wild boar? And these security costs are simply obscene:

Officials in the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania are feverishly preparing for a visit by US President George Bush next week. A local hunter is trying to shoot the perfect wild boar for the event and 12,000 police and a jet full of Secret Service agents have descended on the area. Most residents, however, are worried about the €12-million security costs.

The above is from an article entitled, "A Wild Boar for the President".

Cheney and dictatorship

Andrew Greeley

I want to call your attention to an article entitled, "Cheney Really Wants US Dictator" by Andrew Greeley. Fr. Greeley is someone I really respect. He's not a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist by any means. So when he says Cheney wants a dictatorship, I take him seriously. Here's part of what the article says:

The United States is caught up in a new campaign for a military dictatorship -- rule by a military chief with absolute power. The White House, inspired by Vice President Dick Cheney, has argued that in time of great danger, the president has unlimited powers as commander in chief. If he cites "national security" he can do whatever he wants -- ignore Congress, disobey laws, disregard the courts, override the Constitution's Bill of Rights -- without being subject to any review. Separation of powers no longer exists. The president need not consult Congress or the courts. Moreover the rights of the commander in chief to act as a military dictator lasts as long as the national emergency persists, indefinitely that is and permanently.

Many, perhaps most Americans, don't mind. The president is "tough on terrorists" and that's all that matters. What is the Bill of Rights anyway? George W. Bush, his supporters will argue, is a good man, even a godly man. He won't misuse the powers, even if the power he claims is no less than Don Hugo Chavez exercises in Venezuela
...
Richard Cheney is a vile, indeed evil, influence in American political life. He is a very dangerous person who would if he could destroy American freedom about which he and his mentor prate hypocritically. His long years in Washington have caused him to lose faith in the legislative and judicial processes of the government. The country, he believes, requires a much stronger executive. Such concentrated power would have been necessary even if the World Trade Center attack had not occurred. He uses the fear of terrorists as a pretext to advance his agenda of an all powerful president, a military dictator. So long, of course, as he is a Republican.

What saddens me is this sentence: "Many, perhaps most Americans, don't mind." Most American know so little history that they have no idea what a treasure our Constitution actually is and so they are willing to let it be shredded right in front of their eyes. It's tragic.

Amphibians threatened by global warming

Every day it seems I read some news about global warming that tells of another horrible consequence of which I wasn't previously aware. Now it's about how amphibians all over the globe are threatened. Read these excerpts from an article entitled, "EXTINCTION CRISIS FOR AMPHIBIANS":

A strange new fungus disease that kills frogs and toads and every other species of amphibian is spreading around the globe and -- combined with pollution and overdevelopment -- is driving more and more of the creatures to extinction, a coalition of the world's top biologists warns.

At least one-third of the world's known amphibians are threatened by the combination of attacks, and up to 122 species have become extinct within the past 25 years, the international team of specialists is reporting in today's edition of the journal Science.

"Amphibian declines and extinctions are global and rapid," 50 of the world's leading specialists on water-dwelling animals declared in a joint report. At least 427 species are "critically endangered," they said.
...
But the fungus, a unique species called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, could start taking on a larger role in the increasing extinction because of global warming, which scientists suspect is lowering amphibians' resistance to the disease.
...
The team of experts focusing more broadly on amphibian extinction estimates that nearly one-third of all 5,743 known amphibian species in the world are now threatened; more than 40 percent of all the species have suffered significant
population declines, and within the past 25 years alone, 122 species have become extinct.

"It's shocking and dismaying," said Wake. "This incredibly rapid increase in the extinction of amphibians around the world is unprecedented in my lifetime."

The class called amphibians includes not only frogs and toads, but also salamanders, newts and the little-known group of legless, worm-like creatures called caecilians. They are extremely ecologically useful because as predators they consume harmful insects by the millions; in the laboratory they are widely used for basic scientific research; their bodies can be harvested for medicines as well as food; and many instances of mass mortality have warned -- like canaries in a coal mine -- of environmental problems in the offing.

Why are we not paying attention to the canaries in the coal mine? The consequences of these extinctions are very dire.

Friday cat blogging!

Frank Ford sent me this picture of his cat, Petey.

Tutu on gays and lesbians

I just came across this today:

We reject [gays and lesbians], treat them as pariahs, and push them outside our church communities, and thereby we negate the consequences of their baptism and ours. We make them doubt that they are the children of God, and this must be nearly the ultimate blasphemy... Are we ready to offer the blessing, God's blessing? You know, I don't marry a man and a woman. In the church's understanding they marry themselves. They are the ministers, and all we do is to seek to communicate God's blessing on that union. And I would, myself, say 'Why not?' I mean, I've met very many people who are gay, and they are incredible people -- gifted, some of the most gentle, most compassionate, and we treat them like dirt. I, for myself, would say 'If that is how God wants us to treat them, then, thank you, that God I don't want.' I will not worship that God! The God that I want is one that says 'You are beautiful, and I have made you as you are, and I want you to develop to the fullest possible extent, all that you are, become all that you have it in you to become.'

-- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

If God wants us to treat them like dirt, then fine, that God I don't want. I love Desmond Tutu's courage and directness in making such a point. And I want to concede the fundamentalists' accusation that we worship different Gods. I don't worship or even believe in a God who hates and condemns.

"We have work to do."

Not long ago the Presiding Bishop Elect of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, was interviewed on the Diane Rehme show. Here's a statement she made that's worthy of attention. It's a reminder that the fundamentalists do not offer the only Christian voice in our country today.

Katharine Jefferts Schori: I've made major statements about the Federal Budget the last time around, and on immigration issues. The church has a voice to contribute to the conversation, and I think it's essential that we do so. Obviously, if we're a nonprofit organization, we can't promote one particular candidate or one particular political initiative. But we have a responsibility as Christians to express our moral understanding of the implications of actions of Congress, and our government, and I think we need to do more of that work probably than less....I think the work around Millennium Development Goals has been a politically motivated initiative in the large sense of what that word "politics" means. I understand it as the art of living together in community. We are called to transform the world around us as Christians, into something that looks more like the reign of God. And the last time I checked, I don't think the hungry are all being fed, I don't think the ill people are all being provided with healthcare. We have work to do.

I love her definition of politics: "the art of living together in community." If we all thought of politics that way - instead of as a war - this would be a far, far better world.

Planet in crisis

"If there were no life on Earth, it would be a giant arid desert, just like Mars and Venus" -- James Lovelock

The BBC has published a brief essay by environmental scientist James Lovelock entitled, "The illness in Planet Earth." Lovelock is the one who developed the Gaia hypothesis - the hypothesis that the earth itself is a living organism. He also recently wrote a book called The Revenge of Gaia in which he outlines a very horrifying prospect of what is going to happen to the earth. Here's part of what the article says:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, published in 2001, is one of the scariest documents you will ever read. It talks about changes to the Earth by the end of this century, which will be as great or greater than occurred between the end of the last Ice Age and the time when humans started changing the atmosphere; it is huge. It alarms me, and it should alarm anyone… as the world gets very hot, it will not be able to produce anything like as much food as it does now; so quite literally, billions of us are going to be faced with starvation… we cannot just go taking [life on Earth] for our convenience, cutting down forests, turning the productive oceans into the marine equivalent of deserts, and expect Gaia not to take revenge. In 100 years' time, I would expect life to be very grim… I hope that as climate change worsens that same sense of purpose, [as England found in WW II] that almost tribal pulling together, will work again, to find such solutions as are still available in Gaia's damaged state.

Lovelock says that the earth could well end up a desert like Mars or Venus with no life on it at all.

About easy answers

I wish the Republicans would ponder this one:

Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers.

-- H.L. Mencken

What a Democrat needs to say

I want to call your attention to an article called, "Democrats, Here is Your Platform: 'It's Time for a Change!'" It basically states what the Democrat running for president in 2008 needs to say to the American people. Here's an important question to consider:

Who gave the Republicans the morality issue? Is it moral to attack a country for deceitful reasons and then proceed to massacre 50,000 innocent civilian Muslim men, women and children? Leaving Iraq now will help build a bridge between the Christian and Muslim people who all believe in the same God who handed the 10 commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai 3,200 years ago, including “Don’t Murder!” Who gave the Republicans the American flag? The Democratic candidate needs to wrap himself up in the Star Spangled Banner, so tarnished across the globe by the Republican Party. The Republicans claim to be Pro Life. Aren’t innocent Iraqi Muslim children lives?

And here's part of what the Democratic stump speech needs to say:

And finally let me say this. Stephen Hawking, the greatest scientist alive, recently warned that global warming due to the burning of fossil fuels and now the thawing of the permafrost threatens the existence of life on earth forever. The only people who disagree are the White House and Congress Exxon Executives. Big oil finances their campaigns and they have sold you and your children out. The US spews 25% of the world’s pollution into the air. The Republicans have taken control of the networks, the newspapers, and are now poised to censor the internet, so that only their filthy lies and propaganda will hit your ears. When global warming melts the polar Ice Caps in the near future, and it is well underway, every coastal city on earth will be submerged under 50 feet of water as the melting Ice turns into water and raises the level of the earth’s one ocean by 50 feet. The earth only has 40 years of oil left anyway. I will ban SUV’s like your President drives, and only allow American car manufacturers to produce tiny fuel efficient hybrid cars. This should save General Motors and Ford from being wiped out by the foreign competition. I will invest heavily in solar energy, and wind energy and bicycles.

These are serious times. Every nuclear scientist on earth knows that Nuclear World War 3 our present heading and its aftermath nuclear winter then ultraviolet summer will have zero survivors. World Peace is our only chance to survive. The question is not did we evolve, but will we evolve into a peaceful species in order to survive. By definition if 200 ambassadors at the United Nations raise their hands for world peace, we can have world peace overnight. I personally will spend a great deal of my time at the United Nations educating the ambassadors to this fact, and I will make the Prince of Peace proud, or die trying. The Time has come for a Change! We must save ourselves!

Of course, these things will never be said. I've expressed before on this blog that I think humanity has a corporate death wish. I still think so. I think, as a species, we are bound and determined to do ourselves in. What I don't understand is why.

Oceanic time bomb

We are destroying the oceans. Please give your attention to an article in the Washington Post entitled, "Growing Acidity of Oceans May Kill Corals". Here's part of what it says:

The escalating level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is making the world's oceans more acidic, government and independent scientists say. They warn that, by the end of the century, the trend could decimate coral reefs and creatures that underpin the sea's food web.

Although scientists and some politicians have just begun to focus on the question of ocean acidification, they describe it as one of the most pressing environmental threats facing Earth.

"It's just been an absolute time bomb that's gone off both in the scientific community and, ultimately, in our public policymaking," said Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), who received a two-hour briefing on the subject in May with five other House members. "It's another example of when you put gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, you have these results none of us would have predicted."

Thomas E. Lovejoy, president of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, has just rewritten the paperback edition of "Climate Change and Biodiversity," his latest book, to highlight the threat of ocean acidification. "It's the single most profound environmental change I've learned about in my entire career," he said last week.

A coalition of federal and university scientists is to issue a report today describing how carbon dioxide emissions are, in the words of a press release from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "dramatically altering ocean chemistry and threatening corals and other marine organisms that secrete skeletal structures."

If we destroy what's at the bottom of the food chain we are also destroying what's at the top. Can you imagine dead oceans? The very thought is horrifying. When will humanity wake up?

Words of Thomas Jefferson

Now which of the following applies to our current president?

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents... There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendency.

-- Thomas Jefferson

George W. Bush would never be president were it not for the artificial aristocracy of privilege to which he was born.

Independence is my happiness

May we all be inspired by this affirmation on this Independence Day:

Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

-- Thomas Paine

Two ideas of freedom

George Lakoff has written an article published in the Boston Globe called "Understanding the meaning of freedom" in which he contrasts what freedom means to progressives and conservatives.

Here's a list:

Progressives: There should be a freedom to marry. The government should not be able to decide who can marry whom.

Conservatives: "Freely elected" government officials should determine who can marry whom. That's what a "free country" means.

Progressives: Social security, the minimum wage, universal healthcare, college for all are ways to guarantee freedom from want.

Conservatives: Giving people things they haven't earned creates dependency and robs people of their freedom.

Progressives: The 45 million working people who can't afford healthcare cannot all pull themselves up by their bootstraps. An economy that drives down wages to increase investor profits creates a cheap labor trap. The trap works against freedom from want.

Conservatives: Economic liberty comes through the free market; government gets in the way. Government works against economic liberty in four ways: regulation, workers' rights, taxes, and class-action lawsuits.

Progressives: Freedom of religion includes freedom from having a religion imposed on you.

Conservatives: Freedom to practice religion for fundamentalist evangelicals means spreading the good news of the truth of the gospel, which implies school prayer, "under God" in the Pledge, the Ten Commandments in courthouses, and the teaching of intelligent design.

Progressives: The president's spying on citizens without a warrant is a violation of freedom.

Conservatives: The president is just doing his duty to preserve our freedom.

What is scary is how consistent the differences are, how closely they stick to the progressive-conservative differences in moral worldview. The differences in the meaning of freedom reflect the major political differences of our time.

For conservatives it seems that freedom means freedom to exploit others. Freedom to be utterly selfish. Freedom to destroy the earth. Somehow, I don't think that's what the Founding Fathers had in mind.

Now this is a good idea.

Don't you think?

We should make Congress work for minimum wage.

- Zing!

What the Brits think of us

You know, this is really painful to realize - just how much we are scorned and despised around the world. Please check out a dismaying article called, "Britons tire of cruel, vulgar US: poll". Here's part of what it says:

LONDON (AFP) - People in Britain view the United States as a vulgar, crime-ridden society obsessed with money and led by an incompetent president whose Iraq policy is failing, according to a newspaper poll.

The United States is no longer a symbol of hope to Britain and the British no longer have confidence in their transatlantic cousins to lead global affairs, according to the poll published in The Daily Telegraph.

The YouGov poll found that 77 percent of respondents disagreed with the statement that the US is "a beacon of hope for the world".

As Americans prepared to celebrate the 230th anniversary of their independence on Tuesday, the poll found that only 12 percent of Britons trust them to act wisely on the global stage. This is half the number who had faith in the Vietnam-scarred White House of 1975.
...
More than two-thirds who offered an opinion said America is essentially an imperial power seeking world domination. And 81 per cent of those who took a view said President George W Bush hypocritically championed democracy as a cover for the pursuit of American self-interests.
...
In answer to other questions, a majority of the Britons questions described Americans as uncaring, divided by class, awash in violent crime, vulgar, preoccupied with money, ignorant of the outside world, racially divided, uncultured and in the most overwhelming result (90 percent of respondents) dominated by big business.

What can I say? We deserve every bit of this contempt.

Thought for the day

This is certainly well expressed:

He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.

-- Harold Wilson

My goodness, this is horrible.

Have you heard of the "We the People Act"? It's an effort to keep the Supreme Court from ruling on the constitutionality of state laws. Take a look:

In the wake of the Senate's failure to approve a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, conservatives are now coalescing around what amounts to their runner-up option. Various conservative and evangelical Christian organizations are now championing the "We the People Act." The act would prohibit the Supreme Court and all other federal courts from ruling on the constitutionality of state laws, especially those concerning sexual orientation. If passed by Congress, this act would severely limit some of the most basic legal principles of the Constitution.

The act was introduced in the House of Representatives in November of last year. But it remained dormant while conservatives waited to see how the amendment banning gay marriage played out. With its rejection last month, the act's principal sponsor in the House, Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, has now resurrected House bill 4379, known as the We the People Act. According to Representative Paul, the act is needed because, "The only way to resolve
controversial social issues like abortion and school prayer is to restore respect for state and local governments to adopt policies that reflect the beliefs of the citizens of those jurisdictions."

Do you realize what this would mean?

While evangelicals view this as an answer to their prayers (literally), the act would end all constitutional oversight by the federal judiciary. But many of the significant legal achievements since the 1950s, especially regarding civil rights, have been the result of federal courts overturning discriminatory rulings by state courts. The Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 catapulted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks to national prominence, but it didn't end segregation on the city's buses. It was the Supreme Court, which ruled that the city's municipal bus system was unconstitutional, that did so. This act seeks to prevent similar actions, under the guise of morality.

Congressman Paul has indicated that he intends for Congress to vote on the act by the end of summer. Given the upcoming election, it's likely that conservative Republicans will use this to rally their base. The GOP seems all too willing lately to trample the constitution as a get-out-the-vote maneuver. Perhaps the name of bill should be changed to the "We the (Evangelical) People Act."

You know, these people have taken an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. I don't understand so-called Christians having so little a sense of honor that they would be willing to break their word like that.

Those signing statements

I want to call your attention to an article published by Common Dreams entitled, "Signing Away the Constitution?" that reports on an insidious practice of President Bush. Here's part of what it says:

NEW YORK - Last March, the U.S. Congress passed legislation requiring Justice Department officials to give them reports by certain dates on how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is using the USA Patriot Act to search homes and secretly seize papers.

But when President George W. Bush signed the measure into law, he added a "signing statement". The statement said the president can order Justice Department officials to withhold any information from Congress if he decides it could impair national security or executive branch operations.

Late last year, Congress approved legislation declaring that U.S. interrogators cannot torture prisoners or otherwise subject them to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

But President Bush's signing statement said the president, as commander in chief, can waive the torture ban if he decides that harsh interrogation techniques will assist in preventing terrorist attacks.

These are but two examples of more than 100 signing statements containing over 500 constitutional challenges President Bush has added to new laws passed by the Congress -- many times more than any of his predecessors.

While he has never vetoed a law, many constitutional scholars say the president is, in effect, exercising a "line item veto" by giving himself authority to waive parts of laws he doesn't like.

The practice has infuriated members of Congress in both parties because it threatens to diminish their power. They consider it an assault on the notion that the constitution establishes the United States' three branches of government -- legislative, judicial, and executive -- as co-equal.
...
A member of Bush's own party, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, opened hearings on the subject this week. He said, "The real issue here is whether the president can cherry-pick what he likes."

And the senior Democrat on the committee, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, said, "The president hasn't vetoed any bills, but basically he has done a personal veto. He has said which laws he will not follow and... put himself above the law, even the same law he has signed."
...
Another opposition view came from Prof. Edward Herman of the University of Pennsylvania, who told IPS, "The brazenness of Bush's use of this practice is remarkable. But even more remarkable is the fact that this de facto further nullification of congressional authority fails to elicit sustained criticism and outrage. It is part of a step-by-step abrogation of constitutional government, and it is swallowed by the flag-wavers and normalised."

"We are in deep trouble," he added.

We are in deep trouble, indeed. Can you say dictatorship? I knew you could. Yup, that's where we're headed unless a stop is put to this.