Monthly Archives: November 2012

Cheap Goods. Cheap Lives

November 29, 2012

Most consumers around the globe pay little attention to what allows them to buy many goods at extraordinarily low costs. Yet if they considered that they were contributing to conditions that amounted to slave labor or indirectly contributed to tragedies like the recent garment factory fire in Bangladesh, would it really alter their buying habits?

Sorry to put a damper on your holiday buying spirit but here’s something all of us should consider when we use this time of year to spend in excess on stuff more than any other time to satisfy our consuming predispositions. A fire in a Bangladesh garment factory killed 112 human beings this last weekend who just happened to be employed there. Some unsettling facts have evolved regarding the deaths and though they may be shocking, they are nothing new to how such sweatshops operate.

Exit doors were locked from outside
Fire extinguishers didn’t work
Managers told workers to remain at their stations after the fire alarm rang.

Not exactly anyone’s ideal employer. But then again it’s not that these 112 people and the hundreds of others that escaped with their lives had their choice of where they wanted to work and develop a career. They were dirt poor people and were lucky to be part of a revenue source so they could feed and house their family. I say lucky in the sense that though they had the misfortune to be born in squalor conditions, unlike some of their neighbors they weren’t begging on the streets or living off of the charity from friends and relatives to survive.

Yet it is these very conditions that allow such sweatshops to flourish and serve as a magnet for big foreign retail giants like, Wal-Mart, Sears and Target to outsource work to make clothing articles and other goods for sale back in the U.S. and European markets, always at astounding marked up prices that create great profits for such retailers & wholesalers.

Products from Wal-mart, along with Sears, Disney Pixar and Sean Combs ENYCE label were found charred in the Tazreen Fashions Ltd. factory. Wal-Mart was quick to put out a bulletin that claims they quit doing business with Tarzeen last year when such deficiencies were discovered.

Wal-Mart said the Tazreen Fashions Ltd. factory was no longer authorized to produce merchandise for Wal-Mart but that a supplier subcontracted work to it “in direct violation of our policies.”

“Today, we have terminated the relationship with that supplier,” America’s biggest retailer said in a statement Monday. “The fact that this occurred is extremely troubling to us, and we will continue to work across the apparel industry to improve fire safety education and training in Bangladesh.” SOURCE

Perhaps this let’s them off of the hook for the time being along with Disney who also released a similar statement late Wednesday. Sears and the other Western brands however that were doing business with this factory have yet to distance themselves so they clearly need to be held accountable for their association with someone who was in clear violation of safety standards.

I suspect that we will get the usual gratuitous apologies from these large corporations and who will swear that any future contracts with foreign manufacturers will enforce the safety standards that are supposed to be a part of the foreign trade agreements like NAFTA or The South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), which Bangladesh is a partner to. The record shows however that enforcement of such standards is weak and often overlooked by businesses on both sides of the agreements.

Anything that impacts profits will always run up against barriers, even if it means human degradation and loss of life. We often put on a compassionate face here away from the dank, dark working conditions that pays on average a dollar a day for 8, 10 & 12 hour shifts in foreign sweatshops.

The burned out remains of the garment factory where 112 people were killed from fire.

But does all the blame lie with businesses who work with such people, deliberately or otherwise? Yes, these things are horrible and someone should do something about it. However, a day or two after such tragedies occur the force that keeps these facilities operating is right back it, with the memory of such horrible scenes completely erased. That force is people like you and I who flock to the malls to buy the latest fashions made by other humans under conditions that would be considered nothing less than slave labor by most Westerners.

I don’t fault the principle many companies have used to justify moving their business to the cheaper foreign labor markets. I don’t like it but businesses are after all here to make a profit in any way they can. They don’t have a heart and soul, contrary to what some Supreme Court justices here might think. It is this sole factor that distinguishes humans from entities formed to generate revenue and yet the view by many free-marketers that dispassionate corporations are people ignores what makes us truly human – and THAT only resides within people made of flesh and blood. Not stone, metal and glass.

Any consideration of the human toll by “corporate people” is often weighed in terms of how it will affect profits and the publicity that can be garnered by appearing to put people above profits. But there will always be those enterprises that work in the shadows of such noble-appearing ideals who undermine the health and safety of those who are there only to maximize margins that create golden parachutes for Executives and large dividends for investors and stock holders.

This tragedy, like others similar to it, will be marked with platitudes and affirmations, declaring that things need to and will improve. Scorn will be cast by public officials toward those who have no consideration for their fellow man and harsh sentences may be meted out to a few lower echelon managers. This will all occur however with a wink and a nod amongst those who profit from such low-cost conditions. Then in another year or two, if not sooner, a similar tragedy will occur and once again the consuming public will display outward emotions of shock and outrage.

However, as long as this occurs on foreign soil where the people are viewed inferior by Westerners, real concern will never materialize. Not the type anyway that will force needed changes or alter the buying habits of a people who just can’t seem to get enough of cheaply made goods to fulfill some inane urge to possess that which clutters their homes, only to be tossed out with little sign of wear and tear for the next latest fad or gadget.

Even though I have learned to live with less and hang on to it until it can’t be repaired any further as I have gotten older, I wish I could exclude myself totally from the practice of buying cheap goods from foreign sources. Sources that could well resemble the conditions that that garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh existed under. Maybe by publishing this to my blog I can help myself realize that caving to the consuming urges created by marketers who exploit the poor indigent populations in third world nations could conceivably contribute to the loss of life there. I can try to change my consumption impulses. I can – and should – at least try.

Not to belittle the serious nature of my topic with this humorous skit by George Carlin, but it perhaps provides the best insight on what seems to be our pathological compulsion to own “stuff”.

Posted by lbwoodgate in Business/Jobs, Global politics Tags: Bangladesh, cheap foriegn labor, compulsive consumption, consumerism, consumption of cheap stuff, Dhaka Bangladesh, garment factory tragedy, holiday buying, Sears, slave labor, South Asian Free Trade Area, sweatshops, Tazreen Fashions, unhealthy and unsafe working conditions, Wal-Mart

9 comments

What’s Behind the Pretty Face and Promises of the EnergyTomorrow Ads?

November 27, 2012

To listen to some of their ads you wouldn’t know that the promises lobbyists for oil, coal and natural gas are making about being energy independent are based on wishful thinking , deluding the American public that stalls our need to convert to clean renewable energy now.

Does this lovely lady look familiar? She should. You may have seen her warm and smiling countenance on a previous post of mine here. It is more likely however that you have seen her more recently as the face of the pro-fossil fuel website, EnergyTomorrow.org, on TV ads sponsored by their lobbyist, the American Petroleum Institute(API). These ads promote misleading information giving the public a half-baked view about the abundant energy below our surfaces to make America energy independent again. Something we haven’t been since the 1950’s

Her name is Brooke Alexander, a former soap opera star, beauty queen and a former FOX correspondent. Her new gig encourages viewers to “learn more” about how “we can secure our energy future” Supposedly we have enough untapped oil & gas resources “to power 60 million cars and heat 160 million households for 60 years” Ms Alexander assures us in her ad here.

But learning more at the EnergyTomorrow website is like getting the news from FOX. It’s all heavily slanted with circumspective data and substantial omissions. And it doesn’t hurt when a smart, pretty woman is making the pitch for the likes of Exxon-Mobil, Conoco and Chevron.

Technically Ms. Alexander’s comments are correct but here’s what’s missing in her message:

In the oil & gas industry, resource means the amount of gas or oil that remains underground, and reserve means what could be produced from the resource.

Only a portion of the resources could be recovered technically.

Only a portion of the technically recoverable resources could be produced economically.

Only a portion of the economically producible resources could be produced into supply. That is called reserve. SOURCE

Much of the oil resources in North America touted in these ads are expected to come from the tar sand pits out of Canada. The oil from these tar sands takes enormous amounts of energy to convert into liquid gas adding that much more CO2 into the atmosphere, warming the planet even further. The ads also conceal the fact that any oil or gas we bring up from below the surface is not ours entirely. All oil and gas are part of a global market. Nor will its close proximity to us, like in Canada, mean cheaper gas. The price of oil is set on world markets.

Within the United States, foreign companies are acquiring stakes in oil resources that can now be extracted with fracking, but regardless of where the oil is produced and who produces it, the price of oil is set on the global market. Such globalization means that widespread drilling and fracking for oil in the United States will do nothing for American consumers who are paying the high price of oil. SOURCE

So what “portion” of that oil and gas is actually capable of being converted into real sources of energy for consumers? Well, according to Bill Powers, author of the upcoming book, “Cold, Hungry and in the Dark: Exploding the Natural Gas Supply Myth”, there may be only 5-7 years of shale gas resources after the realities of extraction and production confront the industry.

My thesis is that the importance of shale gas has been grossly overstated; the U.S. has nowhere close to a 100-year supply. This myth has been perpetuated by self-interested industry, media and politicians. Their mantra is that exploiting shale gas resources will promote untold economic growth, new jobs and lead us toward energy independence.

In the book, I take a very hard look at the facts. And I conclude that the U.S. has between a five- to seven-year supply of shale gas, and not 100 years. That is far lower than the rosy estimates put out by the U.S. Energy Information Administration and others. In the real world, many companies are taking write-downs of their reserves. SOURCE

Powers is the editor of Powers Energy Investor and according to his website has “devoted the last 15 years to studying and analyzing various aspects of the energy sector”.

Another expert in the field is Arthur Berman. Berman is a petroleum geologist, Associate Editor of the American Association of Petroleum Geolgists Bulletin and Director of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil. He maintains the blog Petroleum Truth Report. Berman tells us that the declining rates of shale gas validates Powers’ assessment about severely limited supplies.

“I’ve looked at this”, he tells James Staffiord with OilPrice.com. “In the Eagleford shale, which is supposed to be the mother of all shale oil plays, the annual decline rate is higher than 42%”. They’re going to have to drill hundreds, almost 1000 wells in the Eagleford shale, every year, to keep production flat. Just for one play, we’re talking about $10 or $12 billion a year just to replace supply.” SOURCE

It appears then that if you take the industry’s perception of North American reserves and fill in the blanks they are leaving out with Berman and Power’s assessments, then the reality is not all that rosy about securing America’s energy future. I heard essentially the same talking points at a recent Planning and Zoning Council meeting here in Denton. Out of about 50 attendees to this meeting most were citizens and students who were there to oppose considerations by the city for drilling new wells within city limits, citing the unresolved hazards of leaks and water contamination from fracking fluids. Two young and attractive ladies however were there to state the case for the gas well drillers.

These two women gave only their names and addresses, indicating that they were nothing more than mere residents who saw positive contributions for drilling more wells. But clearly they were there to promote the industry’s talking points about “energy security and independence” and “job creation”. One read directly from written notes in a monotone voice without looking up while the other ad-libbed essentially the same comments but with little conviction about what she was saying, unlike those who gave testimonials in opposition to inner city gas well drilling.

America will never be energy independent because no matter how much we produce we will still consume more at current rates than we can produce. Friendly tar sands oil from Canada won’t change that picture either.

[There is] the distorted viewpoint that the U.S. will soon become energy independent and will no longer need to import foreign oil. The U.S. has used more oil than it produces since records were kept in 1920 but became a true net oil importing country after World War II. SOURCE

The Fossil Fuels Job Myth

The notion too that oil and gas production creates thousands of jobs is somewhat dubious. For instance, one report shows that direct hiring specifically related to oil extraction and production is a far cry from the claims of 1 million jobs being touted by the industry. The 1 million figure relies on the multiplier effect where the true figure of 36,000 oil related jobs created will be expected to impact other businesses in their community and this only occurs after about seven years according to one report.

While job estimates, using a so-called multiplier effect of spending, are common in economic impact calculations, the “direct hiring” by the oil industry is far more modest [than other industries].

The 36,000 jobs specifically created to drill for oil and natural gas, refine petroleum or coal products, or for pipeline operation or in gas stations, came in well below “direct hiring” in other industries, which don’t enjoy the same tax breaks the Obama administration has been fighting to end for Big Oil.

The construction industry is prime among them — adding 69,000 jobs in 2011.

Roll into this the fact that these jobs also will continue to contribute to air and water pollution along with increasing green house gases that threaten our ecosystem and the image of an earned income becomes diminished with increased health care costs. This information also ignores that job creation in renewable energy fields will easily supplant and even surpass job creation in the fossil fuel industry, absorbing a lot of the fossil fuel industry workers into the more green technologies.

… a 2009 report published by the University of Massachusetts found that net job creation is substantially higher with clean energy investments than fossil fuels at different educational levels. The paper determined that, when compared to fossil fuel energy, clean energy investments create 2.6 times more college degree jobs; 3.0 times more ‘some-college’ jobs; and 3.6 times more ‘high school or less’ jobs. While average wages are higher in fossil fuel, there are more types of all jobs in cleaner energy.

The Massachusetts researchers also found that a shift from fossil fuels to clean energy investments will yield a net increase in U.S. employment of 1.7 million jobs—i.e. an increase in 2.5 million jobs through clean-energy investments and a corresponding decline of about 790,000 jobs in fossil fuels. This assumes that there is available unemployed labor (there would be no change in employment if people had to be moved from one job to another). SOURCE

These are jobs that reduce potential health and safety hazards for workers and the people in the communities they are positioned near. Healthier workers and their families are more productive and able to keep more of their earned income for other things outside doctor and hospital bills, such as college tuition and retirement savings. But such positive outcomes are not something shared with you in ads aimed at continuing more of the same practices of extracting finite resources that are destined to expire in a lot less time than we are being led to believe.

Just Another Case of Corporate Profits Over Human and Social Needs

So why the apparent deception by the oil and gas industry? If the writing is on the wall as Mr. Berman, Mr. Powers and others are strongly suggesting, why not take all of the huge profits that the oil industry has seen (natural gas entrepreneurs are barely breaking even) and start making smarter, long-term choices that will not only be profitable for them but truly make us energy secure and independent? Rather than invest vast sums in an infrastructure to accommodate the limited resources of fracture-extracted carbon products, especially natural gas, why not reinvest and re-tool for the inevitable conversion from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy sources? There clearly is a future for those who become engaged at these early stages.

It appears the answer lies within the concepts of short-sightedness and simple greed. The current leadership within the oil industry is tied to the past and like anything else, real change is hard to turn towards when your bread has been so amply buttered for several decades now by bleeding every conceivable drop of carbon-based material from the earth. The record profits that the oil giants have been experiencing of late will not be apparent early on with clean, renewable energy sources as the conversion process begins to reconfigure their industry, even with the aid of government loans and start-up financing that will be at their disposal. This is a turn off for people who have become accustomed to a steady flow of great wealth.

The corporate mind is too locked-in to profits rather than making contributions to a future that essentially has them leaving their comfort zone and consists of unfamiliar risks. A global market makes for a bigger playground to continue their old practices and as along as they can still influence the governments of various nations, including our own, there’s no reason or incentive to consider human and social needs over stock holder and investor expectations.

The new entrepreneurs whose efforts will usher us into the 21st century with green, clean innovations to fuel our autos and heat our homes are in place and waiting to be unleashed. But as long as the aging fraternity of oil, gas and coal still hold most of the cards with their influence in Washington and state legislatures, progress will be sluggish and consumers will have to tolerate the consequences of this greed and short-sightedness; the biggest consequence being ever more numerous and larger natural disasters from man-made climate change.

Resources:

Shale Gas Bubble About to Burst: Art Berman, Bill Powers (DeSmogblog.com)

Why Fracking for Oil and natural Gas is a False Solution

Posted by lbwoodgate in Energy Tags: American Petroleum Institute, Berman, Brooke Alexander, Canada, clean, deceptive fossil fuel ads, EnergyTomorrow ads, ExxonMobil, fracking, fracking in Denton, limited fossil fuel reserves, Natural gas, natural gas leaks, Renewable energy, Shale gas, shaleoil

14 comments

A Life Traveled Thus Far

November 25, 2012

After my friend Jean over at her Snoring Dog blog posted an exceptional post on the subject of “older and not necessarily wiser” I felt an urge, not to disagree, but to offer another perspective that carries I think a modicum of truth for many who have been hanging around for a while, that is when they’re not actually acting out Jean’s image of some elders.

More and more everyday I seem to become aware, reluctantly, of how age is taking its natural course with my body, mentally and physically. Thought retention capabilities have diminished considerably. Points of interests or why I even walked from one location in the house to the other a lot of times have to be forced to the forefront from whatever cerebral cortex crevice they fell in to. They no longer come in measurements of milliseconds like a synaptic transmission but in more piecemeal style as if trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together.

I have at least developed some sympathy for our 15-year old Schnauzer-mix from this since he too doesn’t seem to know where he is most of the time. I’m concerned that he’s on his last leg. He is in the winter of his life while I can at least feel that I am currently lingering in late Autumn, the season of life just before even greater bodily functions take their toll on internal organs and a chassis that have sustained me for over six decades now.

My 15-year old Schnauzer mix has seen better days and perhaps is on his last leg, as we all eventually find ourselves faced with.

As I look about too I see images in nature that reflect how I feel to some degree. Like the trees that are losing their leaves, the thinness of my greying pate becomes more apparent as I comb through it each day.

The thinning branches of a my front yard Post Oak in autumn

And though standing and walking upright once I work out the kinks in my joints after rising each morning, this piece of firewood, set to be consumed in my chimenea later, reflects a posture that I can identify with. It will undergo the process I have chosen after I breathe my last – cremation.

Like the curve in this piece of firewood our bodies become susceptible to such deformities as we age.

I do enjoy the fall season and even though it has come late this year, the changing colors of the broad-leaf trees stimulate the visual senses with their transformations. The maple leaves are especially colorful and are turning a bright red, which compares to my rough, ruddy red complexion that has become more enhanced with time.

The red hues of autumn

But there still remains a part of me that is perhaps more alive now than at any other time in my near 64 years. My sense of who I am and what role I play in the big scheme of things seems more acute and there’s a wisdom that generates a fire in my soul unlike any time in my youth.

Like the flames in my chimenea there also exists a fire in my aging soul regarding life’s lessons

I worry less about the small stuff that takes up too much room in younger people’s lives, based on what gets posted on the social media they are wired to. I’m more at peace at the prospect of what will transpire for me upon death, convinced as I am now that if there is an after life, it will be nothing like the fantasies that religious fundamentalists have contrived over the ages. I’m more inclined to value Steven Covey’s view that “We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey,” though I must confess, it is the corporeal life that I am most familiar with.

If I could live it all over I would do some things different but that is only possible if we know how our lives will turn out in the first place. So why waste time wishing for the impossible. I’ve survived this long in good part from my wits and avoidances as well as luck and birthright. I’ve made some sacrifices but probably fewer of them than I have acted on self-interests. Not necessarily a bad thing but surely as a reflex rather than as an adherence to an ideological mindset.

Perhaps I have been the most fulfilled when I have come out of hard times and suffering to learn that what I thought would be my undoing only broadened my vision for my life, giving me greater control of the externals that are forced on all of us like raising kids, holding down a job you’re not especially fond of or avoiding conflicts and conforming to norms that you had no part in forming.

It all seems so topsy-turvy to me how time will diminish the physical aspects of our humanity while enhancing characteristics and giving us mental tools that would have come in handy at the beginning of life’s journey rather than at the end. So here’s hoping that it’s not all a cruel joke by the gods and that there is a continuance of our journey that transcends the limitations of this world.

Posted by lbwoodgate in seniors/aging Tags: Afterlife, age and wisdom, going beyond this life, inner strength, journey of life, learning from life's experiences, the aging process, the end of the journey, the value of aging

9 comments

Warm Wishes to You All

November 22, 2012

Spend time laughing, loving and sharing with those you find yourself surrounded with today.

And please keep in mind and support those underpaid over-worked employees at Wal-Mart who are risking their jobs by going on strike to seek better working conditions. I know the low prices and Black Friday specials at Wal-Mart are hard to resist, but remember those prices are low because of the cheap foreign labor markets they buy from as well as the un-living wages and benefits they offer their employees.

BOYCOTT WAL-MART ON BLACK FRIDAY

Posted by lbwoodgate in National Holiday Tags: Black Friday, boycott wal-mart, Employment, United Food and Commercial Workers, Wal-Mart

11 comments

Oh God! How Does an Apostate Deal With Prayer at the Family Thanksgiving Dinner?

November 19, 2012

There are those of us who no longer consider ourselves part of the religious community we were raised in but will be hosting family affairs this Thanksgiving where most attendees still, to some degree, consider themselves committed Christians. Should we concede to the expectations of our family and guests or stick to our convictions as a matter of principle and avoid the traditional prayer?

I am perhaps the only member of my family that has openly professed that the religion I’ve been exposed to all of my life no longer holds any relevance for me. Yes, I am an apostate but I have no regrets. None at least until it comes to having family over to my house for Thanksgiving. It has not been possible for me to get everyone to sit down and eat without some member of the family expecting a prayer be said before the meal is consumed.

I don’t want to be insensitive to people’s needs to fulfill certain rituals and have on past occasions put something together myself that didn’t require invoking a blessing from the God of Abraham or Jesus. I just find it more difficult each year to be part of something that now seems so artificial and cultish. So how to deal with offering up a Thanksgiving supplication this week to spiritual figures who are not real for me as I host family members who devoutly believe that “God is in control”?

I could delegate that responsibility to one of those family members who feel the need to pray. In fact, on at least two other occasions I have done that very thing, giving that honor to my older brother who late in life seems to have developed an evangelical fervor that I haven’t seen since just before being kicked out of seminary for disobedience (he was caught smoking cigarettes). But the last time he was here in 2008 he was so disappointed in the outcome of the elections that he managed to slip something of a mild curse into his prayer that was aimed at the new President-elect.

I suppose his Republican leanings along with my solid support for Obama created a rift between us and as a result we haven’t seen or heard much from him and his wife until recently, when, to my surprise and delight, he accepted the invitation I extended to him in an e-mail. This Thanksgiving dinner therefore is being seen as an attempt to mend fences, so it seems the least I can do since Obama will be in the White House for another 4 years is to allow the traditional prayer a role in our family holiday get-together.

I could once again delegate this role to my older brother and risk another swipe at the man who grates at him. Or there is always my sister-in-law whose Calvinistic upbringing remains in tact. (She once confided in me that great wealth is a blessing from God) But then I have always felt that delegating this tradition was something of a cop-out since my wife and I are after all the hosts. The curse of this holiday convention confronts me and I feel like Tevye with his hand stretched to heaven shouting out “TRADITION!” … but more as a curse than an affirmation.

Perhaps the cure for what ails me lies somewhere in my brothers words in his response to my invitation

“I was almost afraid Politics was going to set us apart this year but you know that would never fly with me. So, let’s do as the Holiday suggest and Give Thanks for all the many Blessings throughout the year and catch up on all our Family’s well being. Amen”

This isn’t a church-sanctioned holiday so I could be forgiven for giving thanks without thanking someone who remains invisible in form and circumstance. There are indeed things to be thankful for. Compared to many in this country and around the world, my worst day doesn’t compare to the victims of Hurricane Sandy or those who have had to flee their homes to avoid becoming “collateral damage” from the deadly artillery and air assaults of despots, religious fanatics and military hawks in places like Syria, Gaza, Afghanistan and Tel Aviv.

Yet somehow pointing this out in a Thanksgiving day prayer often unsettles those who don’t want to be reminded that while they enjoy a warm, comforting day with friends, family and food, there are those who will have little of this, not only now but for weeks, months and years to come. I suspect too that my conservative relatives don’t want to feel guilty because the free-market system that has served their needs adequately has not been so kind to others. But then such concerns often get easily dismissed because it is only from a lazy mentality that such people find themselves wanting. To them greed and abuse within financial institutions have had little to do with how people find themselves jobless and homeless.

I could include a sort of “fair and balanced” offering for those billionaires that have recently suffered losses in this down market. I understand that both the world’s number one and number two richest people – Mexican telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim and Microsoft owner Bill Gates, recently lost about 2% of their total net worth. Slim is worth $70.6 billion and Gates has to make due with $60.4 billion. But this of course would be pretentious of me and would only re-ignite certain animosities that I and my brother are trying to get past.

So, with all that to consider, here’s what I have come up with that I think will appease the sensibilities of each and everyone at our table this Thursday. If not, then there is the knowing that an ideal world is a fantasy and that those who think otherwise are only doomed for disappointment everywhere they look for it.

We give thanks today for the fact that we still have the means to nourish our bodies and soul, unlike millions in this country and around the world who have lost their homes, their health and their lives from economic and political crises or extreme natural disasters. Let us find solace in the knowledge that true blessings are not found through our ability to possess and consume manufactured goods but that they derive from loving, and sharing that love and our resources as best we can when the needs arise. This gift of life should be spent with family and good friends, laughing and loving, working and playing and enduring the grief and hard times that are an inexorable part of all of our lives, from the cradle to grave. Amen

That’s a gratuitous Amen, but hey! It’s my contribution to the reconciliation efforts in play here.

Is it God that allows some to be more blessed than others or is it a matter of one’s birth right and birthplace?

Posted by lbwoodgate in National Holiday Tags: apostates at Thanksgiving, family and conflicts on holidays, giving thanks, holiday prayer, Thansksgiving Day

16 comments

My Life as a Tom – a Perspective

November 18, 2012

It’s that time of year again for me to roll out my Thanksgiving humor piece. This will be the 2nd year I’ve posted this on my blog but the third year all total from the time I first posted it on the AC Content site, now known as Yahoo! Voices. That means some of you will have to indulge me one more time while others will see it for the first time. I hope the 2nd (and third) times for some of you (yes, I’m thinking of you Donna) will still enjoy it. Maybe by next year I will come up with a sequel or something altogether new. In the meantime, here’s Tom Turkey’s view of life in the too-soon-to-die lane.

Why do I start feeling uneasy when the leaves start changing colors? What is it about this time of year that creates a need for me to put my life in order? Here I am, without a care amongst my peers and being fed very nourishing meals. I do begin to worry that my thighs are becoming overly plump, however. That can’t be a good thing. And I get to lollygag around in a sheltered enclosure, somewhat crowded but appearing to thin out more and more each day. Can life get any better?

I can recall my days as a young poult. I haven’t been here that long but it was a happy time with all my kin. And yet, there’s been this dread that all was not well either. I began to see less of the older relatives and more and more new turkeys would arrive from places unknown. Poor things would look half-starved. That would change of course as they were “fattened up” so to speak by our great accommodations and generous hosts here at Turkey Trot Farms.

Rumor has it that there is a great feast that ultimately we will attend. There will be a large gathering of people who will stand over us with looks of adoration and anticipation. We will be the center of attraction and many will rejoice later that day about how satisfied they were with us. So why do I have this propensity to worry and feel an inexplicable, uncomfortable warmth about me?

I appear to have favorable views by my human providers. Each day they give me a physical work over and seem delighted that I am progressing to their great satisfaction. Just last week I received a recognition that everyone is gobbling about. It’s a nice shiny medal engraved with the salutary “Grade A” on it that my human admirers seem to take exceptional glee with. It did hurt just a bit though when they stapled it to my wing but that is perhaps necessary to prevent any theft or loss. Some of my younger cousins do appear to be grudgingly envious of it; not to mention I really don’t have a safe place I can keep it.

I feel good about my surroundings and yet there is an air of foreboding. I sense it more each day when my human caretakers visit our abode and then leave with some of my friends and relatives. Perhaps I just have an excessive sense of anxiety. Why would I feel angst at the fact that I am well tended to and well-nourished? I am relatively young and I have my whole life before me.

Oh look! There are my human friends now and it appears they are heading my way. I wonder what joy they will bring into my life today?

Have a Safe and Full-filling Thanksgiving Holiday !

Posted by lbwoodgate in National Holiday Tags: holiday, Thanksgiving humor, Tom Turkey, Turkey

7 comments

Glenn Beck to the Rescue?

November 16, 2012

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread

Some of the fanatics who were dreading the possibility of an Obama re-election have reacted in ways that resemble the image they portrayed for those on the left who, it was suggested, would become mad and begin rioting if Obama did not win. Indeed there were hundreds of Tweets, largely by blacks, that intimated a riot would ensue if Romney won. Such sentiments however have always been a part of our political environment but seldom made as public as the new social media allows today.

I can recall in 2000 that my supervisor in the new-home building industry indicated that if Al Gore wound up getting the Florida vote that “there will be blood in the streets.” My supervisor then was something of a racist based on his frequent use of the “N” word that he used when he felt sure he was amongst those who shared his prejudices. He knew damn well that I didn’t but I was an “underling” so he felt no compulsion to respect my views. The point being, there’s no reason to think his sentiments toward an Obama victory are any different from what he felt about Gore and yet I haven’t read anything in the newspaper where he has participated in any violence.

Strong feelings run deep within us all about political issues today and rage and anger is frequently expressed. Fortunately most of this has not materialized into real action though there are those who have carried their dark, bitter feelings to a final solution.

The man in Florida who killed himself after Obama was elected was convinced that the end was nigh. It was a conviction that many are overcome with when they get so steeped in extremist political ideologies where it literally suppresses all rational thought. Again, this is not a new phenomena. John Wilkes Booth is a character in history that was led by his virulent antipathy toward Unionists to kill the man he felt represented all that was evil about things he had conjured up in his small little brain.

But the influence of these hyper-angry people back then was marginalized considerably compared to today by their lack of an effective means of communication. So when the same personalities today have access to the broadcast medium in our modern age, they are bound to influence millions. Some of those millions will have mental deficiencies whose fear and hysteria can push them over the edge. Glenn Beck is one of those demagogues who can have an extreme influence on some of those with mental deficiencies.

Mr. Beck requires no introduction or background to those who have resided on this planet for at least the last ten years are so. His flights of fantasy are well-documented on videos that were produced by his former bosses at FOX. However it seems that Glenn Beck’s madness exceeded even the typical mindlessness that FOX accommodates with their slanted portrayal of social and political issues and so was summarily dismissed in April, 2011. Even the ultraconservative WorldNetDaily website posted a story on Beck’s firing entitled “TOO CRAZY FOR FOX – AND THAT’S CRAZY”

So what has Glenn Beck done that elicits his name amongst those who have reacted alarmingly to President Obama’s re-election?

On his radio show, former Fox host Glenn Beck lamented the downgrade of the country, but promised “I won’t make a deal with the devil… I will tell you last week we purchased more farmland as a family. May I recommend if you have a chance to buy farmland, you buy farmland. If you live in the east may I recommend get the hell out of the east. Find a place where you are surrounded by like-minded people and the best way to find those people is, you should probably look at the maps on how counties voted… May I highly suggest you get grandfathered in to the second amendment today. Oh and don’t forget the ammunition.” SOURCE

Now lest one might think that the self-described “rodeo clown” was advocating a pastoral return to a life where self-sufficiencies were met by the nuclear family, please read what is clearly stated by the man who is literally asking people to band together in a circle-the-wagons mentality. And though some of us may laugh at his overreaction to current conditions, it is his illogical solution in response to an Obama victory that requires our attention.

What Beck want’s his followers to alter their life’s for is a change that by itself would ruin most of those families who took his advice; far more than any perceived evil he or they may have attributed to a renewed Obama administration. By moving to those areas he implies, away from the East coast and purchase farmland, is to put these desperate people in regions that are suffering some of the worst drought conditions since the Dust Bowl days of the Great Depression era. These droughts today can be linked to that bugaboo the former FOX host was and remains in denial of – man-made climate change – where natural disasters are enhanced by increased warming attributed to accelerated levels of CO2 from fossil fuels in our atmosphere.

In the main stream media’s failure to report substantively, if at all, on the growing threat of climate changes, Jim Naureckas with the FAIR website has pointed out how bad things are as a result of global warming.

*July 2011 to June 2012 was the hottest 12-month period ever recorded for the mainland United States, the National Climatic Data Center announced in July (**CNN, 7/9/12)―which itself turned out to be the hottest month ever in the lower 48 (CNN, 8/10/12). Drought produced the largest agricultural disaster area in U.S. history (Atlantic Wire, 7/12/12), and the accompanying wildfires burned unprecedented acreage―nearly 7 million (Mother Jones, 8/21/12)―while the Arctic icecap shrank to its smallest historical coverage (BBC, 9/19/12*). SOURCE

Here’s a map of the area that Beck is suggesting his disgruntled supporters move to and purchase farms. Notice that those areas “away from the East coast” are under severe drought conditions.

These areas are also short on water resources with many lakes and reservoirs below acceptable levels. Underground aquifers are also dwindling from agricultural use as well as extraction for use on the thousands of natural gas wells sprouting up in these areas. Fracking just one natural gas well can use on average 4.5 million gallons of precious clean water that’s needed for crops to be cultivated and families to have drinking water. History has shown that individual property owners – like those who Glenn is encouraging to “buy farmland” – have less sway over the authorities that control water access.

Farmers in the Great Plains are expecting to harvest just a fraction of their corn and other crops this year as the worst drought in 50 years plagues nearly two-thirds of the nation. SOURCE

It’s not outside the realm of probability to believe that Beck’s desire for his listeners to buy farmland is perhaps an appeal to find sponsorships from the rural real estate market. You can only appeal to so many people about buying gold, the industry sponsorship that stayed with Beck even when he was dumped by Roger Ailes at FOX.

So in his hysteria, the excommunicated moron from FOX news is enticing emotionally distraught people to invest their life savings in ventures that are likely to fail for reasons that they have been poorly informed of. Poorly informed because they have listened to people like Glenn Beck far too long.

RELATED ARTICLE:

Drought stretches across America, threatens crops

Agenda 21: The Latest Slight of Hand trick by Corporate Elite

Posted by lbwoodgate in Climate Science/Global Warming, political fringe groups Tags: Al Gore, buying farmland bad idea, Climate change, climate denier Beck, droughts devastate farms, FOX, Glenn Beck, National Climatic Data Center, Obama

23 comments

Will Republicans Commit Harikiri for the 1%?

November 14, 2012

“The Republican party is going to fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires, half of whom voted Democratic and half of whom live in Hollywood?” – Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard

Is the “fiscal cliff” that everyone is raising a scream about really the doomsday issue they say it is? We’re told that unless the Executive and Legislative branches of the federal government do not work together to hammer out a sane approach to the deficit, there will be hell to pay if the Budget Control Act of 2011 is allowed to go into effect at the end of this year. There’s something to hate in this legislation for both sides.

Among the laws set to change at midnight on December 31, 2012, are the end of last year’s temporary payroll tax cuts (resulting in a 2% tax increase for workers), the end of certain tax breaks for businesses, shifts in the alternative minimum tax that would take a larger bite, the end of the tax cuts from 2001-2003, and the beginning of taxes related to President Obama’s health care law. At the same time, the spending cuts agreed upon as part of the debt ceiling deal of 2011 will begin to go into effect. According to Barron’s, over 1,000 government programs – including the defense budget and Medicare are in line for “deep, automatic cuts.” SOURCE

Depending on who you listen to however, the failure to work out a sensible approach that hurts the fewest people may or may not throw the economy back into a recession. So who are the “sides” disputing what will and won’t happen? As usual the devil’s in the details and fear-mongering abounds. When such chaos is expressed I always rely on those economists who not only favor the middle-income working families but tend to have a good track record in their estimations.

The other side is often defensive for the wealthiest amongst us; assuring us as they have for decades now that trickle down economics will be our salvation. Trickle-down is the economic brain-child of the Reagan administration; one that has failed miserably in lieu of low taxes and fewer regulations over the last 30 years. Never mind that the so-called job creators at the top of the income pyramid have shown little willingness to create jobs with their great wealth. Their incomes have sky-rocketed while production - with fewer workers – has kept pace with their increased wealth. The notion that lower taxes allows entrepreneurs and high income earners to stick it back into the economy and thus create jobs just hasn’t held up under the light of scrutiny.

One observer has astutely noted that “the rich create bubbles, not jobs.”

This graph shows the true magnitude of the failure of the “jobs creators”: bubble job formation, no growth in the labor force, and a 20.352 million gap in September 2012 between the employed and those who would work if work was available. Add in the poor quality of the jobs being created and the increased number of involuntary part-time workers, and we have fail upon fail upon fail. It is Orwellian that after a decade of trillion-dollar tax cuts and bailouts of the rich, and a steadily worsening jobs and employment picture for American workers, we are told to be kind to the rich and give them even more money because they are the “jobs creators”. With job creators like these, we are better off without them. SOURCE

These are the same people who resided in that bubble that cost them the election last week. They believe this fantasy as they did the one that said their presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, was a shoe-in and that the GOP would regain the Senate, even with the likes of rape-friendly Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana.

So based just on this limited information I’m thinking I’m going to go with those experts who seem to see things more clearly. Let’s start with a nobel laureate for Economics.

In a recent column of his, Paul Krugman reminds us that the deficit hawks “have been wrong about everything so far.”

Recent events have also demonstrated clearly what was already apparent to careful observers: the deficit-scold movement was never really about the deficit. Instead, it was about using deficit fears to shred the social safety net. And letting that happen wouldn’t just be bad policy; it would be a betrayal of the Americans who just re-elected a health-reformer president and voted in some of the most progressive senators ever. SOURCE

Last week there was this from Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The political leadership, including the Washington press corps and punditry, were already intently ignoring the economic downturn that is still wreaking havoc on the lives of tens of millions of people across the country. Now, in the wake of the destruction from Hurricane Sandy, they will intensify their efforts to ignore global warming. After all, they want the country to focus on the debt – an issue that no one other than the elites views as a problem.

The reality, of course, is straightforward. The large deficits of recent years are due to the economic downturn caused by the collapse of the housing bubble. If the economy were back near its pre-recession level of unemployment, then the deficits would be close to 1% of GDP, a level that could be sustained indefinitely.

But the deficit scare-mongers are not interested in numbers and economics; they want to gut key government programs – most importantly, social security and Medicare. That is why they are pushing the fear stories about the debt and deficit. This is the rationale for the Campaign to “Fix” the Debt, a collection of 80 CEOs ostensibly focused on getting the budget in order.

And finally there is this from Michael Hoexter, a policy analyst and marketing consultant on green issues, climate change, clean and renewable energy, and energy efficiency.

Whatever one’s personal tastes and predilections are in government programs and the role of government overall, the net effect in dollar terms of reducing the spending of government, in the context of the current Lesser Depression is to stall and eventually shrink the economy. Because of a mountain of private sector debt and overvalued assets like real estate in which people are now under water, the only source of renewed spending on goods and services, the engine of economic growth, is government spending. (emphasis mine)

The current ubiquity of austerity advocates and the accompanying rise in fashionable gold-bugism are part of a nostalgia for a past that never was, a fantasy of the solidity and fixity of monetary value. The increased attraction to the primitive idea that economic value is located in the currency itself, rather than generated and maintained by a dynamic real economy with a flexible currency managed by government, [like the U.S.], is a sign of a retreat from confidence in the private economy’s growth potential and in much-maligned government’s leadership role in managing and supporting that economy. SOURCE

What appears to be going on here is that the head-in-the-sand crowd, who refuse to recognize that their ideas are no longer the Holy Grail they’ve touted for years, are equally unable to read the writing on the wall – TAKE YOUR VOODOO ECONOMICS AND STICK IT WHERE THE SUN DON’T SHINE.

If they’re going to commit economic suicide we need to make sure they are not taking us all down with them. They may get their clutches on even greater wealth in the short run but in so doing they risk depriving the vast majority of people to live with integrity, absent the fear from basic needs, which can only create high levels of social chaos.

I think the voters made their views quite clear to both Parties. Obama was elected because he was the more sane of the two but there was no mandate here to continue business as usual promoted by both centrist neo-liberals and conservatives. The policies that saw the greatest rise in the middle-class following WWII are slowing disappearing through the diligent machination efforts of the plutocracy who have taken over our democratic institutions.

It is important that each and every one of us who said NO to people like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson, said NO to the undemocratic thrust behind Citizens United, said NO to repressive voter ID laws, said NO to dehumanizing women on abortion rights, said NO to holding the economy hostage for a few of the privileged wealthy, … that we continue to stand up for policies that recreate the level playing field that once made this nation the most powerful economic force on the planet.

The post-WWII generation were part of a middle-out economy that not only increased individual wealth but had the vision to address those problems that threatened society then, like racism and poverty. We need to muster that same will and vision to ensure that our short-sighted energy policy that relies too heavily on fossil fuels is corrected with clean, renewable energy sources to meet the demands of the 21st century … lest the industrial waste and the dirty energy that generates it chokes the life from our planet.

Just a reminder. It isn’t over with just your vote

Elites Demanding Austerity Also Ignored Housing Bubble

Corporations Calling To ‘Fix The Debt’ Want $134 Billion In Tax Breaks

The Grand Bargain is a Grand Lie

Posted by lbwoodgate in Budget Crisis Tags: Budget Control Act of 2011, fiscal cliff, fiscal cliff a ruse, gutting safety net programs, Mitt Romney, Paul Krugman, republicans and 1%, Simpson-Bowles

9 comments

“It’s The Climate Change, Stupid”

November 12, 2012

Not realizing that “It’s the Economy, Stupid” cost George H. Bush a second term as president in 1992. But even though it is staring us all right in the face, neither presidential candidate in 2012 acknowledged the greatest threat that faces us and our prodigy today. And no, it isn’t the deficit.

In the spirit of President Obama’s 2012 campaign theme of “Forward”, I challenge the President and everyone else to focus their sights on the growing threat of climate change from anthropogenic (man-made) global warming. The President said almost nothing throughout most of the election season about how global CO2 in our atmosphere had passed the tipping point, yet the threat this poses to our economic well-being (not to mention our very survival) is becoming more apparent everyday in the form of “frankenstorms” like that associated with Hurricane Sandy just two weeks ago.

It is time to look past the banal and debunked arguments of climate deniers even though they remain vociferous through the financial aid of the fossil fuel industry and their lobbyist, the American Petroleum Institute (API). The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is also guilty of being a cheerleader for Big Oil, Coal and Gas but many of their members have taken issue with the national CofC’s position, supporting instead the policies that convert dirty fossil fuel energy sources to clean renewable ones. And though the numbers may remain small of those people who go to bat for the likes of the Koch brothers, Exxon/Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson and Chevron’s CEO John Watson, they are still able to drown out the views of the public through the corporate control of print, radio and TV media sources. By virtue of their vast resources, they have the power of the megaphone if not the numbers.

Is this what Exxon-Mobil CEO Tillerson was referring to when he said “that people would be able to adapt to rising sea levels and changing climates”?

But things are changing. One of the biggest turnarounds occurred when former climate skeptic Richard Muller, who now calls himself “a converted skeptic”, published research, funded surprisingly by Charles Koch of the Koch brothers. Muller’s findings left him declaring that, “global warming is real and humans are almost entirely the cause.” I’m sure this is not the return on investment(ROI) that the Kochs were looking for.

For those who don’t know, Muller, professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley and co-founder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, was also one of the critics who supported the notion of foul play following the theft of e-mails from University of East Anglia (UEA) climate scientists, infamously referred to as “Climategate”.

“I was deeply concerned that the group [at UEA] had concealed discordant data,” Prof Muller told BBC News.

“Science is best done when the problems with the analysis are candidly shared.” SOURCE

But after setting out to discredit the climate science discussed in those e-mails, Muller instead found, using new methods and some new data, that their research did support the view that man’s activities are indeed creating a warmer climate around the globe.

One of the barriers in this contentious issue I seldom approach in order to get people to see things a bit clearer is to put the committed climate deniers and their claims up for exhibition; putting a mirror up, so to speak, with the rebuttals of their claims reflecting back on them. But who are some of the “committed climate deniers”? Let’s break them down.

The 2 per centers

Perhaps those with the most authority on this subject within the denier ranks are real climate scientist who have not been won over like Professor Muller and 98% of the other climate scientists.

Dr. Roy Spencer [and] Dr. Richard Lindzen (the subject of a fewrecent articles), [are two of a] few climate scientists who remain unconvinced that most of the recent global warming has been caused by humans.

Dr. Spencer has grown frustrated with the fact that most of his climate scientist colleagues conduct research under the premise that the recent warming is anthropogenic, and in an article on his blog, has thrown down the gauntlet:

“Show me one peer-reviewed paper that has ruled out natural, internal climate cycles as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record.” SOURCE

It is this fallacious type of challenge by the deniers that excite skeptics because it is the type of challenge that cannot provide the absolutes that deniers demand from their adversaries. Spencer knows that any scientist worth his or her salt would not pick up that gauntlet that would attempt to establish a certainty, an absolute or a truth where one doesn’t exist by scientific standards. And because they can’t, the layperson is easily convinced that anthropogenic climate change claims are false or unworthy of consideration.

What isn’t revealed here to the common layperson however is that Spencer himself cannot make equally superlative claims about his positions because true scientists know that there are few certainties, absolutes and truths in science. Even for the few that do exists like the force of gravity and the rotation of the earth around the sun, these were objected to by the powerful authority of the Church just a few short centuries ago. And even today there are still fundamentalists that ignore these absolutes when they challenge certain biblical passages, which still passes as “the inerrant word of God” to many believers. The biggest climate denier in Congress, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, uses these scriptures today to support his notion that “that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”

Well actually the Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that “as long as the earth remains there will be springtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.” My point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous. SOURCE

But this is all a philosophical issue and I’m here to discuss climate science.

What Spencer’s gauntlet ignores is that just because there is no “peer-reviewed paper that has ruled out natural, internal climate cycles” to cause the recent increased rate of warming, doesn’t mean that HIS hypothesis about what does cause climate change is valid. And if our understanding about how humans are effecting global warming was based on just one scientific study, Spencer’s contention would have significant merit. But the reality is that there are innumerable studies that exists and as the science improves with new and more accurate models and equipment, so does the legitimacy of climate science’s theory on anthropogenic warming.

The fact that there are still a few legitimate climate scientists out there holding onto to their weak and often outdated views, is a sign to just how much ideology and even financial rewards can infect their discipline. Spencer and Lindzen have been compensated for their work through their associations with the George C. Marshall Institute and the Heartland Institute, both funded by the profits from oil and gas interests and right-wing funders.

“Thousands of science skeptics”

The next group of climate deniers would be the “thousand of scientists” who are alleged to support the notions of people like Spencer and Lindzen. So-called skeptic lists have been touted for years by some of the puppets for the fossil fuel industry, all eventually proven to be shams. They are nothing more than names of scientists in fields not even related to the climate sciences, while others on the list are non-experts like weathermen and radio broadcasters. One early list was The Leipzig Declaration and at the time was “regarded in some circles as the gold standard of scientific expertise on the issue.” However, journalist David Olinger of the St. Petersburg Times, upon a thorough investigation, found the Declaration to be a whitewash by a handful of people who were on the dole with big oil giants like Exxon-Mobil.

… most of its signers have not dealt with climate issues at all and none of them is an acknowledged leading expert. Twenty-five of the signers were TV weathermen – a profession that requires no in-depth knowledge of climate research. Some did not even have a college degree, such as Dick Groeber of Dick’s Weather Service in Springfield, Ohio.

A journalist with the Danish Broadcasting Company attempted to contact the declaration’s 33 European signers and found that four of them could not be located, 12 denied ever having signed, and some had not even heard of the Leipzig Declaration. Those who did admit signing included a medical doctor, a nuclear scientist, and an expert on flying insects. SOURCE

The Mouth Pieces

The last batch of deniers are the ones that feed all of the debunked claims of climate denier scientists to the poorly informed public. They are the bloggers and broadcasters paid by the fossil fuel industry. But it is more than just the influence of a paycheck that motivates this level of denier. A lot of them have become convinced that climate change is nothing more than a liberal conspiracy between people like Al Gore and Dr. James Hansen to enrich themselves by cashing in on Cap and Trade, a marketing strategy that deals with carbon emissions trading.

Some of the more recognizable names in this area are of course Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck but these guys deals with an array of issues besides global warming concerns. Of all the climate-denying mouth pieces out there, the most notorious one, and who shares the mindset of Senator Inhofe, is Anthony Watts and his wattsupwiththat blog

Climate denier blogger Anthony Watts and his accomplice in crime Lord Monckton

Watts is another climate denier who has been compensated for his efforts by the Heartland Institute. He digs up every pseudo claim that conflicts with the climate science of today and runs it through his blog as further evidence of the contrived conspiracy to be “perpetrated on the American people”. Christopher Monckton, who prefers the title of Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, has fantastically claimed at one time or another to be “a member of the British House of Lords, a Nobel Prize winner, inventor of a cure for HIV, winner of a defamation case against George Monbiot and writer of a peer-reviewed article, is often quoted on Watts’ blog. Both Watts and Monckton are borderline sociopaths who relish the attention their actions garner. Neither is capable of promoting any peer-reviewed science.

Times is no longer on our side

So let’s be clear then what our number one concern should be. This is not to say that the deficit doesn’t have a place in our priorities. It does. I believe the writers at Think Progress have made the cogent point as our political leaders confront important issues following the election.

… the election provides President Obama with a mandate to push his vision — a balanced approach that invests in the middle class, makes smart spending cuts, and, most importantly, makes the wealthy pay their fair share. Conversely, the election was also a definitive repudiation of the GOP’s failed top-down approach. SOURCE

But economist Dean Baker draws a better distinction about what our priorities should be.

Imagine if in response to Japan attacking Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, our political leaders had debated the best way to deal with the deficits from war spending projected for 1960. This is pretty much the way in which Washington works these days.

What is perhaps most infuriating about [the deficit scare-mongers] is the claim that their efforts are somehow designed to benefit our children and grandchildren. This is bizarre for a number of reasons.

We’ll be able to tell our children and grandchildren that they don’t have to pay interest on government bonds (they also won’t be receiving interest on government bonds, but let’s not complicate matters with logic), even as they evacuate their homes ahead of flood waters.

In reality, the campaigners are spewing utter nonsense when they imply that the well-being of future generations will be in any way determined by the size of the government debt that we pass on to them. We hand down to future generations a whole society and a planet that will be damaged to varying degrees, depending on our current actions. Neglecting the steps necessary to fix the planet out of a desire to reduce the deficit is incredibly irresponsible if we care about future generations. - economist Dean Baker

Put the budget in proper perspective. We don’t need to be led down some “fiscal cliff” path to the point that totally or even partially ignores the real threat civilization is faced with. Obama needs to take all of his political capital at this early stage and be a FORCEFUL leader on climate change policy. People will follow if he can use his articulate skills along with the knowledge we now have of man-made global warming.

The billionaire ~~Koch~~ Burns Brothers

More Americans are agreeing with the preponderance of climate scientists. They no longer are buying into the fear and ignorance that claims there is a conspiracy to raise our energy prices by some “liberal” cartel. The science is there now as is the physical evidence in all the massive destruction from natural disasters that exceed anything we have witnessed in the last couple of generations.

We need to pounce and pounce hard. Not only to prevent the self-serving forces of the fossil fuel industry from regrouping and counteract what advances have been made but simply for the sake of our children and grandchildren who will pay a much heavier price for our shortsightedness on global warming than on any adverse affects from a lingering national debt.

Postscript: For those who feel strongly that man-made climate change is real but are intimidated when someone challenges you about the science, ask them first what it is that are questioning then use this handy one-liner rebuttal source to shut them down. It’s worked for me on numerous occasions.

Posted by lbwoodgate in Climate Science/Global Warming Tags: American Petroleum Institute, Anthony Watts, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature, climate deniers Koch brothers, global warming threat, intense and frequent natural disasters, Lord Monckton, professor Richard Muller, Rex Tillerson, Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer, the deficit scare-mongers, University of East Anglia

13 comments

Today is Veteran’s Day

November 11, 2012

Hug a VET

Veterans Day and a caution against the cult of the military

Posted by lbwoodgate in National Holiday Tags: culture, hug a vet, remembering vets, Veterans Day

8 comments

Monthly Archives: November 2012

Exit doors were locked from outside

Fire extinguishers didn’t work

Managers told workers to remain at their stations after the fire alarm rang.

Products from Wal-mart, along with Sears, Disney Pixar and Sean Combs ENYCE label were found charred in the Tazreen Fashions Ltd. factory. Wal-Mart was quick to put out a bulletin that claims they quit doing business with Tarzeen last year when such deficiencies were discovered.

Anything that impacts profits will always run up against barriers, even if it means human degradation and loss of life. We often put on a compassionate face here away from the dank, dark working conditions that pays on average a dollar a day for 8, 10 & 12 hour shifts in foreign sweatshops.

Not to belittle the serious nature of my topic with this humorous skit by George Carlin, but it perhaps provides the best insight on what seems to be our pathological compulsion to own “stuff”.

But learning more at the EnergyTomorrow website is like getting the news from FOX. It’s all heavily slanted with circumspective data and substantial omissions. And it doesn’t hurt when a smart, pretty woman is making the pitch for the likes of Exxon-Mobil, Conoco and Chevron.

Technically Ms. Alexander’s comments are correct but here’s what’s missing in her message:

Powers is the editor of Powers Energy Investor and according to his website has “devoted the last 15 years to studying and analyzing various aspects of the energy sector”.

America will never be energy independent because no matter how much we produce we will still consume more at current rates than we can produce. Friendly tar sands oil from Canada won’t change that picture either.

The Fossil Fuels Job Myth

Just Another Case of Corporate Profits Over Human and Social Needs

Resources:

Shale Gas Bubble About to Burst: Art Berman, Bill Powers (DeSmogblog.com)

As I look about too I see images in nature that reflect how I feel to some degree. Like the trees that are losing their leaves, the thinness of my greying pate becomes more apparent as I comb through it each day.

And though standing and walking upright once I work out the kinks in my joints after rising each morning, this piece of firewood, set to be consumed in my chimenea later, reflects a posture that I can identify with. It will undergo the process I have chosen after I breathe my last – cremation.

But there still remains a part of me that is perhaps more alive now than at any other time in my near 64 years. My sense of who I am and what role I play in the big scheme of things seems more acute and there’s a wisdom that generates a fire in my soul unlike any time in my youth.

Spend time laughing, loving and sharing with those you find yourself surrounded with today.

Perhaps the cure for what ails me lies somewhere in my brothers words in his response to my invitation

“I was almost afraid Politics was going to set us apart this year but you know that would never fly with me. So, let’s do as the Holiday suggest and Give Thanks for all the many Blessings throughout the year and catch up on all our Family’s well being. Amen”

That’s a gratuitous Amen, but hey! It’s my contribution to the reconciliation efforts in play here.

Oh look! There are my human friends now and it appears they are heading my way. I wonder what joy they will bring into my life today?

Strong feelings run deep within us all about political issues today and rage and anger is frequently expressed. Fortunately most of this has not materialized into real action though there are those who have carried their dark, bitter feelings to a final solution.

So what has Glenn Beck done that elicits his name amongst those who have reacted alarmingly to President Obama’s re-election?

In the main stream media’s failure to report substantively, if at all, on the growing threat of climate changes, Jim Naureckas with the FAIR website has pointed out how bad things are as a result of global warming.

Here’s a map of the area that Beck is suggesting his disgruntled supporters move to and purchase farms. Notice that those areas “away from the East coast” are under severe drought conditions.

Farmers in the Great Plains are expecting to harvest just a fraction of their corn and other crops this year as the worst drought in 50 years plagues nearly two-thirds of the nation. SOURCE

One observer has astutely noted that “the rich create bubbles, not jobs.”

So based just on this limited information I’m thinking I’m going to go with those experts who seem to see things more clearly. Let’s start with a nobel laureate for Economics.

In a recent column of his, Paul Krugman reminds us that the deficit hawks “have been wrong about everything so far.”

Last week there was this from Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

And finally there is this from Michael Hoexter, a policy analyst and marketing consultant on green issues, climate change, clean and renewable energy, and energy efficiency.

What appears to be going on here is that the head-in-the-sand crowd, who refuse to recognize that their ideas are no longer the Holy Grail they’ve touted for years, are equally unable to read the writing on the wall – TAKE YOUR VOODOO ECONOMICS AND STICK IT WHERE THE SUN DON’T SHINE.

Just a reminder. It isn’t over with just your vote

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