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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
CONTACT: Friends of the Earth Nick Berning, 202-222-0748, nberning@foe.org; Kelly Trout, 202-222-0722, ktrout@foe.org |
Obama Doubles Down on Dirty Energy, Continues to Call Nukes ‘Clean,’ Ignores Clean Air Act
WASHINGTON - March 30 - In response to President Obama’s speech today on the subject of energy security, as well as supporting documentation released by the White House, Friends of the Earth Climate and Energy Director Damon Moglen had the following statement:
“This speech was more about polluting the future than winning it. President Obama today doubled down on his support for dirty energy sources including the nuclear, corn ethanol, oil, natural gas, and coal industries, while going AWOL on a crucial fight over the Clean Air Act.
“Given the escalating radiation disaster in Japan, it’s dumbfounding that President Obama believes it’s justifiable to call nuclear energy ‘clean.’ After such misguided nuclear boosterism, in addition to the multibillion dollar bailout guarantees for the nuclear industry that the President supports, it’s easy to see why Duke Energy was willing to offer the President’s party a $10 million line of credit for the 2012 Democratic convention.
“Moreover, it is unacceptable that in a speech billed as being about ‘energy security,’ the President failed to recommit his administration to defending the Clean Air Act against rollbacks. The Clean Air Act is the most potent tool against climate change that Congress has created, and climate change is the biggest energy-related threat to our security. If the President is truly serious about energy security, he must be much more vocal in his support of this crucial law.”
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36 Comments so far
Show AllIt's the Peabody candidate.
I guess if he wants to win next election, he'd better take the 10 million line of credit, or:
Support S 752 The Fair Elections Act
"If the President is truly serious about energy security, he must be much more vocal in his support of this crucial law.”
Seriously, does anyone still wonder where this guy stands on energy? Is the question still about how serious he is? I haven't heard of one fine that BP paid for the devastation in the Gulf. Instead, one of their subsidiaries was awarded the first deep water drilling permit since the Deep Horizon disaster.
Clean Air Act? Who needs it when you're trying to raise money to get reelected, and if we fall for his huckster sales pitch once again, then we have no one but ourselves to blame.
Think I heard this on Rachel Maddow's show: the blowout preventers on these oil wells don't work even if they are functioning according to design. They need to be redesigned. It follows that drilling permits should not be issued until this is cleared up.
Sigh...
The man is high on intelligence, but low on vision and courage. Not what was needed at this juncture.
Of course, he knows what happened to Jimmy Carter, what with the American electorate the way it is.
Sigh...
Of course Jimmy Carter was challenged by Ted Kennedy in the primary, and Ted was not a good loser - he gave Jimmy Carter quite the cold shoulder in front of millions of viewers. Carter also had the OPEC crisis and the hostage crisis. History often isn't fair.
True, there were other factors in Carter's loss, but the OPEC crisis was right on top.
Carter's response (which made eminent sense) was to speak plainly and honestly to the American people and say that we all needed to cut back (thermostats down, drive slower, etc.). That, IMO, was his death sentence. You don't ask Americans to cut down on anything, other than trees.
You think it's lack of "low on vision and courage".
I guess I'm older than you. I call what it corruption.
Obama may be corrupt (and he's alone in this regard?), but he would be able to hold it in check if he had a solid center. He doesn't.
In 1942, FDR told the auotmakers that they would have to re-tool quickly in order to start building tanks and planes for the war. Ford pushed back and said that they would have a hard time doing that while building cars. FDR's response, given the gravity of the times: "You don't understand, you're not going to build cars." And they didn't.
Given the gravity of the present time, that's the kind of vision and courage that Obama needs to display. But he doesn't have a center. Alas.
Nuclear has got to be a non-starter. Taxpayer guarantees for nuclear profiteers is too-big-to-fail on steroids!
What ever happened to the biggest untapped alternative energy source: energy conservation? It's not only the biggest, it has the added appeal of putting the most people to work (residential and commercial building retrofitting, insulation, windows, etc.) and thereby stimulating our stagnant economy the most.
Cancel their public insurance and loan guarantees on the basis of fraud and negligence.
and...
PRIVATIZE nuclear power. Or SHUT IT DOWN!
How about just SHUT IT DOWN.
They both amount to the same thing.
True. No investor would put their money into such white elephants as nuke plants. Very poor ROI.
This is absolutely CLASSIC capitalism, an example of how it is destroying the world right in front of our faces. We know what the right thing to do is, we know where the harm is coming from---and the people who are causing it and profiting privately from so much damage simply buy a political prostitute to say the big words and do their wholesale evil on the many. I was appalled every day of the week by Cheney's ways on energy but this puts Obama below the lowest of the low. I do not know what to say except To Hell With Him! Because he has already said it 50 ways to me and to us. (And I voted for Nader.)
He is doing excellent work. He is making sure his 'owners' get good value.
He did mention that Chu actually earned HIS Nobel prize...
(This was the first Obomber speech I've ever watched.)
You find "it’s dumbfounding that President Obama believes it’s justifiable to call nuclear energy ‘clean.’ "?
I guess that you really don't get it do you? Obama and his parents worked for the CIA. He is CORPORATE in BLACK FACE. He is dutifully representing his masters' interests. Only those in willful denial cannot see this at this point.
Except for pointing out that the concept that being "black" no longer puts one on the side of freedom and justice, I agree with you.
Equality and integration is demonstrated quite nicely in Obama. He's (half) "black", yet he is wholly integrated into the Corporatist-Imperialist milieu.
They ain't racists, folks, but they're still evil.
Think this was MLK's dream?
It may well have been Malcolm X's nightmare...
-matti.
Listen all the way through in honor of MLK on his assassination day, April 4:
Liberating Dr. King: The L's Coming mixtape by DJ Sese on SoundCloud
soundcloud.com
Did we really expect anything different? It's easily time to recognize what Ocorpa is doing for real. He ain't what we paid for? He's a cheat, thief, liar, and murderer. If his name is on the ballot, I will know for absolutely positive (as if I don't already) that the whole damn mess is a scam...the biggest phishing scam ever. And that sucks.
The true cost of all this? When we are in the middle of a flood, in a heat wave, or looking at so many creatures disappear. We don't know how much time is left.
Read the '29th Day'. He speaks to the exponential rate of growth and destroying the environment. We don't know what we have done, but we will soon.
At the point we begin to see change may be too late.
Just astounding. We are witnessing this horrific nuclear catastrophe unfold in Japan and we are still going full steam ahead for nuclear power in this country. Fukushima is the teachable moment that the US is totally blind to. Germany took a different lesson from the Fukushima disaster and has recommitted to its plan to wean itself off of nuclear power (and fossil fuels). The Germans have greedy capitalists, they have a strong nuclear lobby and yet they have decided to take the more sensible path. They also have a very strong green movement and green party and they were a lot closer to the Chernobyl disaster.
The GOP is ten times more pro nuclear and pro fossil fuels than Obama. So choose between a barracuda or a Nile crocodile. The right wing media is of course rabidly pro fossil fuels and pro nukes, the main stream corporate media also enables nuke power and fossil fuels. The human race is turning planet earth into one large toxic waste dump, the voices of reason and sanity are barely audible.
-
I do not think the US is blind to this teachable moment. Our "fearless leaders" ARE. Our Lemming-in-Chief is leading us all over the cliff of state, into the soup of slow apocalypse. There is a sort of uncanny karma about all this: plutocrats leading us into a plutonium rich future, which will doubtless be both short, and miserable.
CD is a progressive site. Yet, there does not seem to be much love for SnObama. We are his base and we have been paying attention. Who is going to canvas and fund raise for this shill? He cannot win unless all his base shows at the poles. "We the People" cannot win when all candidates represent the same monied interests and not our own.
SnObama needs a challenger from the left. If I were a billionaire, I would challenge him myself! 'The Donald' is not going to be president but, he will be heard and able to target candidates with opposing views.
Fact: 1,000,000 people can raise $1,000,000,000 in 1,000 days by chipping in a dollar a day.
Or they can do it in 100 days by chipping in TEN dollars a day.
Or they can do it between, say, June 1st, 2011, and October 28th 2012 (last day of campaign ads) by contributing $1.94 a day.
Fact2: 1,000,000 people is the approximate number of Green and Nader voters in 2008.
In other words, if the approximate number of Green and Nader voters from 2008 could be organized by June 1st of this year to contribute slightly less than $2.00 a day -or $60 a month- to a "Nader/Green compromise party and candidate" over the course of the ensuing 17 months till the end of legal ad spending in campaign 2012, that party and candidate would HAVE your $1,000,000,000 at their disposal. An amount equaling almost what the Blue and Red Parties spent on the Prez election in 2008 combined!!
The power is in WE the PEOPLE.
Our problem is merely one of organization.
Why waste the time on filtering monies to billionaire through the exploitational system them begging them for it, when -for less than a latte a day- we could generate it from the people themselves, sans exploitation?
-matti.
Fact 3: In the US we have the best government money can buy.
So, the only way the people can regain the power of the vote is to BUY an election and change the electoral laws. The math is this post is quite correct. Another example: if everyone who wanted universal health care (the majority of voters) had given just one dollar to Dennis Kucinich's Presidential campaign in 2008 we could have overwhelmed the billionaire money.
Do you remember when Obama's chief of staff blamed the progressives for the problems of the Democratic Party? The "evil" progressives were described as people who want Dennis Kucinich to be President. Can you think of a more meaningful endorsement of Kucinich?
Given the choice between an ultra right wing conservative and a center right Obama, I will go to the polls and vote for Obama--it might make a slight bit of difference, but what kind of Democracy is that? Why can't my position be represented electorally and why are Washington politics so out of whack with poll numbers?
I ask rhetorically because I think I know a part of the answer which is not discussed enough. Besides the corruption of money there is the failure of two party politics. We badly need a parliamentary system and multi-party politics. We need instant runoff or proportional representation. We already see how ineffective our system is at building consensus, acting according to the will of the public. When the government shuts down and a crisis ensues it will be demonstrated once again how pathetic our system of governance is. We will long for a system like Canada's where there is an orderly transition to a new consensus when the parliament dissolves and re-forms while government services continue.
It is a charade to think dems/repubs are opponents, they are slick partners, exchanging status with each election..
..it works like clockwork
....I sabotage your political agenda until I get elected, and then you may sabotage my political agenda until you get elected....and so on.....
that's the game ...
sheer insanity, you know....
of course this is really just the agenda of the corporations, who are calling all the shots...........
This is about as rich as it gets:
" Japan is to decommission four stricken reactors at the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, the operator says"
Ha,ha,ha! Decommission! That smouldering pile of blown concrete and Chernobyl on steroids radioactive meltdown catastrophe irradiating the world will no longer be generating electricity? Really? Are you sure?
is he a coward? yes...he needs drones to protect him.. is he bought-and paid-for? yes. is he a liar? yes. is he a war criminal? yes. then oourprez is a cowardly, lying, bought-and-paid-for war criminal....--that's what he had to turn himself into (except for the coward part--but what happened to mlk?) to become oourprez...
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The fact that Obama has continued to tout "safe" nukes and "clean" coal as alternative energy is disgusting, but not surprising. The people who were so anxious to support him and get him into the White House should've known that he'd be screwing them as much as McCain/Palin would've all along. There's too much denial and willful ignorance out there. Leave it to the Democrats to self-destruct every. single. time. I'm glad I left that sinking ship and enrolled in the Independent Party.
Do you suppose his family has been threatened? I keep trying to figure out how he could do this and still pretend to be "for the people." He's got to crack sometime, but it's hard to figure out what else it would take.
Speaking of crack, he used crack as a youth in Chicago. This is not why he is such a lying piece of crap, it is because he went to law school at Harvard.
I didn't vote for him.
BTW, two states, California and Washington have found radioactive iodine in milk.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/03/31/radiation.us/index.html?hpt=T2
About your link....
A lot of it was "no harm done" "very safe milk" etc.
Let's clarify. When you have an x-ray you are placed between a film plate collector and a radiation source. The radiation is contained in a box with a shutter. When the shutter is opened electrons from the radioactive source go through you and register on the film plate. What parts of your body will not allow the x-rays to pass through bounce off and go into a different direction. They do not end up on the film. A doctor can then see those parts of you that did not pass through the rays. They appear white or blank while the rest of the film is black from what did pass through.
This is the same as radiation you get when flying. It mostly goes right through you. This all is external radiation. It is not a radioactive particle its self. Like iodine 131 or caesium 137.
Iodine in milk is a source of radiation and when drunk will most likely be sent by yourself to your thyroid were it stays and emits radiation until it is spent. Anything that it radiates can and does effect the surrounding cells. It can kill them, mutate them or worst damage or change the cells DNA.
CNN says that it has a short half life. 30 days. Iodine 131 in milk on the table will radiate ionizing (damaging to cells) radiation. That radiation will probably go right through you. That's external. When you drink the milk and the iodine becomes internal it is sending radiation out of you unless it hits and lodges someplace and we are pretty dense.
In 30 days it will be radiating only half what it did when first created in a nuclear reaction. 60 days one quarter left to radiate. 90 days one eighth. 120 days one sixteenth. When you divide things by half it will mathematically never get to zero. So in a third of a year it is still radiating one sixteenth of the ionizing radiation that you know can and does create cancer. Odds are if you have drunk the milk it will effect you in the first 30 days. Odds go down as time goes by.
So as CNN says it is 5000 times less than the external radiation you are exposed to every day or on a flight or with x-ray machine. That is as stated external NOT internal.
What do you think of people that would tell you that this milk is safe to give to your child to drink?
Obama is doing the job he was hired to do: be the executive salesman for Korporate Amerika. Unless the Repubicons can pull their Hitleresque figure out of the hat for the 2012 coup, going forward, all the US will have are just executive salesmen for the corporate overlords. However, it really would make things easier if the future candidates would wear overalls - like the ones worn by the NASCAR drivers - with the logos of their corporate masters on them. That way, it would make it easier for us dead peasants to know which corporation to vote for. In case it makes a difference or matters whether it's Wal Mart or EXXON.