Scott Brown’s truck

The Republican Scott Brown won the Senate seat in the dark blue state of Massachusetts. For those who did not follow the election closely, one of his main talking points was he drove a truck. It seems silly, but it was highly effective. President Obama even went to Massachusetts himself and told the citizens that driving a truck was not a big deal, but it had little impact, and Obama got back into his limo and went home.

After the election of Obama, there was a lot of talk about the uncertain future of the Republican party. After a defeat like that, Democrats would have found a nice cozy rock to hide under for the next six years, but not the republicans. They are firing back in a big way, and have maintained quite a bit of control in congress despite being the minority party. Now with 41 seats in the senate, seems Democrats are scared, and are giving in to every Republican demand.

Republicans are brilliant. A year ago their party was broken. Now Fox News is pushing this tea party Astroturf movement, taping into this phony populism, common people are really upset that the richest people might have a tax increase. They are taping into the Palin approach and getting people elected with campaign ads featuring a candidates truck.

What really gets me about Senator Brown’s truck is that it is so contrived. It is Republican strategists with degrees in PR and advertising, sitting around as a think tank, and coming up with ways to get the American public to support a party that is set out to hurt the, and they come up with a truck. It is insulting that this is their conclusion, and even more insulting that it works. Democrats should be scared, if that is all it takes, it looks like republicans are coming back. The Republicans set the pace, and democrat react. Republicans hold their positions and democrats step to the right. Republicans are unilateral and the Democrats keep attempting to negotiate. Doesn't work.

Anyway, it appears that the majority party is in trouble and is being bullied by the republicans. It might not even matter too much now that corporate contributions to campaigns are protected as free speech. Justice Scalia wrote “We should celebrate rather than condemn the addition of this speech to the public debate.” However it is no longer a public debate, it is a private one. I can not afford a voice. I will just vote for the guy with the truck. I sure the American car companies will be giving millions to each candidate anyway.

Zinn

The great Howard Zinn has passed.

If you only read one book in your life time, it should be “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn, and you should read it at least twice. As a society, we have lost our historical memory, and it makes us fall for the same mistakes over and over. We rely on the powerful, the elite, the victors to supply us with our historical narrative, and without our own historical memory we are left to take their word for it. History cannot be told objectively. You can not be neutral on a moving train. When one claims to be neutral, they really are taking a stance in favor of the status quo.

I was introduced to Zinn in boring 100 level college history class. The professor assigned one chapter from “A People’s History” and a reaction paper. I was so struck by that chapter, I went on and read the book cover to cover, and did not pick up my main text again. I ended up failing that class, because I didn’t hand in any of my papers because I was too busy reading Zinn. The class did not help my GPA, but it shaped who I am.

The book changed me, and is a very important part of who I am today. Howard has his place in history, and it is history that makes us who we are today.

The War is Over

We have finally reached victory in Iraq, oil has been privatized. No longer in the hands of the Iraqis, Oil fields are now owned by the likes of Exxon-Mobile and Shell. Now we can truly state “Mission Accomplished”, and we can stop pretending that the war was for any other reason.

We go to war and use public dollars to fight for private corporate interests. We even use a private military. More than half of the people we use in our wars are not members of the US military, but work for private independent profit driven companies. Those enormous profits these companies make are built into our military budgets. It is a giant scam, and there is a a lot of money to be made.

The federal government always has enough money when tax revenue can be transformed into private profits, such as our military budget and wall street bailouts. But never enough money for the things in the public good, such as real health care reform, education, or fighting climate change. Congress just approved an additional 636 Billion for Iraq and Afghanistan, as compared to our 10 Billion we plan to put forth for climate change. I wonder what out schools would look like with an additional 600 Billion dollars. I bet we could afford to give Coca-Cola back all their scoreboards.

Copenhagen

The climate talks in Copenhagen were a complete failure. As it stands, capitalism remains fully intact as the economic system of the world. I had hope that after meaningful discussion the world would conclude that in order to save the planet our current economic system would need to be abolished. However, meaningful discussions were not on the agenda.

As the delegates from the global north exited their jets and entered their limos, they entered the conference with optimism. To their dismay, delegates from the global south, NGO’s, and the people in the streets wanted a real agreement that was in the interest of the planet and the people of the world. The North said they would not raise the temperature by more than 2 degrees. Africa said that is genocide to their continent, and the wanted no more that 1.5 degrees. The North was concerned with how that would affect their profits in March through June as compared to July through October. Then a leaked document showed we are moving towards a 3 degree increase. This greatly concerned the poorest nations, but the rich nations barely heard their cries. Many countries from the Global south walked out of the conference in protest. When one of the northern delegates was asked about the delegates from the South walking out, the response was, “Really, they did? I didn’t notice. So now who is going clean the bathrooms?”

The US said they would reduce emissions to 17% below 2005 levels. The rest of the world uses the metric system and 1990 levels, so in the terms of the rest of the world, it equals a 4% reduction. A market driven Cap and Trade system is expected to go into effect, so business can purchase a 4% credit and not reduce emissions at all. It it brilliant, there we can do absolutely nothing, but make it look like we are making great strides by playing with numbers and fudging paper work. Karl Rove could not have done it better. Basically our terms were that we would not do a damn thing.

US is giving 10 billion to fight climate change, and a promise to give 100 billion in 10 years. That is about 4% of what we spent on the Iraq war. If that figure sounds too low, you can also say it is about 17% of what the gulf war cost. The US sees this as a good deed, calling itself a donor state. We are generous, we offer to clean up a portion of the mess we made.

When it looked like talks would go nowhere, the US sent Hilary Clinton in to give an ultimatum. If the the poor countries agreed to fuck themselves, the US would give them money. If they would not fuck themselves, then they would get no money, and would then be fucked by the US.

On Friday President Obama was schedule to speak, but when he stood at the crowd and opened his mouth, only bullshit came out. Bullshit, as we know, contains methane, which is a greenhouse gas. It was reported that the temperature of the room increased by 3 degrees during his speech. I am not sure if we can ever curb emissions as long as politicians keep opening their mouths.

The blackmail and/or ultimatum worked. The terms of the global north were met. We are such free marketists that we walk in there and purchase the terms of the agreement. Copenhagen went to the highest bidder, who also happens to be the biggest polluters. Shameful.

Shame on the Bush administration for turning their back on Kyoto. Double the shame on the Obama Administration for pissing all over Copenhagen, and then using a bunch of political double speak that attempted to to paint themselves as the heroes. Heroes don’t set out to gain world domination, that is what villains do.