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Sun and Sanity
This is the second week of protests, led by Bill McKibben, in front of the White House demanding that President Barack Obama reject a proposed 1700 mile pipeline transporting the dirtiest oil from Alberta, Canada through fragile ecologies down to the Gulf Coast refineries. One thousand people will be arrested there from all fifty states before their demonstration is over. The vast majority voted for Obama and they are plenty angry with his brittleness on environmental issues in general.
Following the large BP discharge in the Gulf of Mexico, Obama gave the OK to expand drilling over 20 million acres in the Gulf and soon probably in the Arctic Ocean. He delayed clean air rules over at EPA. Following the worsening Fukishima nuclear disaster last March in Japan, he reaffirmed his support for more taxpayer guaranteed nuclear plants in the U.S. adding his Administration’s hopes to learn from the mistakes there. 
You can see the corner Obama is in because he didn’t come out strongly for major solar, wind power, energy conservation and immediate retrofit programs in 2009. (photo: Living Off Grid)
He proposed an average fuel efficiency standard for 2005 at 62 miles per gallon, quickly conceded to industry’s objection and brought it down to 54 mpg. The industry’s trade journal Automotive News calculated the loopholes and brought it down to “real-world industry wide fleet average in the 2025 model year” of about 40 mpg. No wonder the auto companies effusively praised Obama’s give-it-up negotiator, Ron Bloom at the Treasury Department of all places.
Were Obama to look out his White House window and see the arrested and handcuffed demonstrators against this $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline, he might think: “This will upset my environmental supporters, but heck, where can they go in November 2012?”
He is right. No matter what Mr. Obama does to surrender environmental health and safety to corporatist demands, they will vote for him. They certainly won’t vote for the Republican corporate mascots. They wouldn’t vote for a Green Party candidate either. This is not only the environmentalists’ dilemma, it is the liberal/progressive/labor union dilemma as well. They have no bargaining power with Obama.
He did not propose a carbon tax when the Democrats controlled Congress in 2009-2010. Even Exxon prefers a carbon tax to the corruption-inducing complex cap and trade bill the House passed only to have the Senate sit on it. So doing nothing on climate change is soon to be followed by approval of the destructive tar sands pipeline which will add significantly to greenhouse gases.
Pipelines have been busting out recently in California, near Yellowstone and in Pennsylvania. People died and water was polluted. Pipeland standards are old, weak and hardly enforced by the tiny pipeline safety office at the Department of Transportation. Obama hasn’t been pushing for needed money and stronger standards with tougher enforcement.
Over-riding, in Obama’s mind, is being accused of blocking job formation. But had he pushed for a major public-works program in 2009, as many economists still beg him to do, he wouldn’t be in the position of being called a job-destroyer. He also is sensitive to rebuttable charges that he would be preferring future oil from unfriendly countries abroad to Canadian oil.
You can see the corner he is in because he didn’t come out strongly for major solar, wind power, energy conservation and immediate retrofit programs in 2009. Instead he swallowed the oil industry line that his proposed energy policy should be a mix of fossil fuels, nuclear power, solar and conservation in that order. No, Mr. Obama, some energy sources are too superior in too many ways to be a part of this manipulative greenwashing propaganda displayed in oil company newspaper ads.
Even nature contradicts Mr. Obama. Obama’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently gave a pass to the Indian Point Unit 2 Reactor, a menacingly-troubled reactor 30 miles north of Manhattan, after its inspectors discovered a refueling-cavity liner had been leaking for years at rates up to 10 gallons per minute. Just last week the strongest earthquake in 140 years struck the east coast. Even though the liner’s “sole safety function is the prevention of leakage after a seismic event,” according to David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the NRC did not require the plant’s owner to repair the design defect.
This is only one of many defects, inspection lapses, close calls, corrosions, and ageing problems with many U.S. nuclear plants that Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu and President Obama have not seriously addressed. This is the case even though the news from Fukishima becomes worse every week. More food is found contaminated. Radiation readings at the site reached their highest level in August. Now the Japanese government is about to declare a wide area around the nine destroyed or disabled nuclear plants uninhabitable for decades to come due to radiation.
Nearly fifty years ago, the industry regulator and vigorous promoter, the Atomic Energy Commissions estimated that a class nine nuclear meltdown in the U.S. would contaminate “an area the size of Pennsylvania.” That was before we had dozens of even larger ageing nuclear plants whose owners are brazenly pressing for license extensions beyond the normal life expectancy of many over-the-hill nuke plants. Please face up to it Mr. President.
At moments of reflection, those 1000 citizens standing tall before the White House must look up at the sun and all the forms of available renewable energy it gave this planet zillions of years ago and wonder how nuts our life-sustaining star must think Earthlings have been all these years.
67 Comments so far
Show AllMost of us are well aware of the problems Mr. Nader. What's the answer?
I think he makes his answer clear in the last paragraph.
Obama's goal to amass a billion dollar corporate funded 2012 campaign war chest is NOT the answer.
Unfortunately in the country that we inhabit this is the only answer.. The obomber has
been running for reelection since he put his nicotine stained hand on the bible.
We are living in a fascist country now and you might as well get used to it.
The only answer is a third or fourth party but the fascist know this and have made it
impossible for a third party, let alone a fourth to have a chance, the deck is stacked.
I feel the only answer is for it to get so bad that the lazy ass amerikans are forced into the streets.
The way we see it only a super hero like Mayor Bloomberg who could finance his own campaign. How ever I don't think he is that crazy.
I don't think that he's a super hero in any sense of the term.
Amen to that one!
In another common dreams blog, we see a quote from another writer claiming that everyone worships. I'm glad some of us take major exception to that arrogation of our individuality! Thanks.
Also, to Mr. Nader - NO, there are many, many who care for the living world around us who will NOT vote for Obama. We might vote for you, due to your consistent anticorporate corruption stance - as in this government structure, an efficient administrator/executive is required.
No matter how much the Democratic hierarchy believes that it has a lock on those who are educated enough, or (as I am) intimate enough with the natural landscape and oceanscape, it may already be that the vague groupings of antiwar, social justice advocates, and those environmentally aware (for their varying reasons and agendas) have already defected from overtly disingenuous political parties.
Some highly educated antiwar people I know will not vote for Obama.
I, and other environmental and social justice-oriented people (with whom I have sufficient disagreement to vote differently) will also cast our votes elsewhere.
I could have been enticed to vote for Democratic party candidates, IF Obama would have appointed Interior Sec who was not an environmental rapist and resultant ecological violence done by their decisions, IF Obama withdrew from wasteful aggressive war, and (this MOST important word, and - not or!) IF he had stood his ground for the historical social justice issues claimed by the Democrat inheritors of Roosevelt policies, instead building upon them.
I invite everyone to vote for the smaller parties most in line with their ideals, especially in local elections.
It appears that McKibben's, Hansen's, and many others' return to necessary civil disobedience may be your only option to affect larger government entities.
I do not have optimism. The Viet Nam war perception was not changed by us who saw and disagreed, but only by those who entered it as sheep, and returned to report US atrocities.
Why must the world be evilly ravaged by deceiving power-holders before sufficient numbers of minds awaken?
Read the last paragraph before misquoting it...
Yeah, LOVE that last paragraph. That is the answer and it's so obvious, huh? .
Conservation, solar, hydrogen, and re-localizing food production and consumption, in that order.
Unfortunately, none of these measures will be implemented until the inevitable, catastrophic "event" at Indian Point or another of America's antiquated nuclear power facilities occurs.
"Unfortunately, none of these measures will be implemented until the inevitable, catastrophic "event" at Indian Point or another of America's antiquated nuclear power facilities occurs."
I would add: "and the coverup exposed."
Is there no way, other than some dire disaster, that can encouraage the Democrats to choose a new candidate?
Mr. Nader, please consider running as a Democrat against President Obama next year. If nothing else, this will allow you to get more televised airtime, and have your views actually heard by a large part of the American public. I know that in the past you've run as President principally for this reason - to have the public hear alternatives to the weak, catering-to-the-right Democrat candidates. If you actually run as a Democrat, you can't be shoved to the side as an "irrelevant" third party.
The Democratic Party has refined the art of swiftly immobilizing candidates that pose a threat to the Party's corporate money magnets and Obama is the best corporate money magnet the Party has ever had.
Nader would meet the same fate that Eugene McCarthy met in 1968, Jerry brown met in 1992 and Dennis Kucinich met in 2008.
The funny thing is, even if we could give Nader a majority in the '12 presidential election, we probably couldn't, with all our pleadings and blandishments, get him to take the job. He doesn't want it and never has. He's too good at what he does...and he likes doing what he does.
I agree with you that he loves doing what he does, to help push people in the right direction. But to think he wouldn't kick-ass & take names if elected means you don't know Ralph Nader.
To think that he could do such if elected is to demonstrate a lack of knowledge of how our system works. I give you the administration of another outsider; James Earl Carter. Even though Jimmy was a democrat he was still an outsider, sandbagged by his own party in fact.
Imagine if he had been able to enact his agenda, oil imports limited to '75 levels, solar power emphasized.....
If you're implyng that we must also pay attention to congressional, local, and state elections and improve voter turnout in all those areas so that presidents just like Nader will get a lot more cooperation and not be blocked all the way, I can agree with that. Still, I have to admit that Obama showed us that a difference between Nader and him was big after Obamacare and poor handling of the BP oil mess. I don't think Nader would be all that stupid to allow Congress to pass a bill forcing us to buy from private insurance companies, nominate Elena Kagan to the bench, or cut BP any slack. I think Nader would have made a bigger difference by himself even though he would actually face obstacles. I like Jimmy Carter and Ralph Nader for being the types of guys who try even with the odds stacked against them. Obama is a different animal who preemptively makes excuses for failure and then allows it to happen.
All true Mr. Payne. My point, however, was that instead of seeking heroes to save us we should all become heroes and save ourselves.
I agree 100%. I hope he gives it one more shot. Its a great opportunity to educate the masses during the (long) campaign. This man in the White House needs to be taken to the woodshed for a good spank'n. Only Ralph Nader can do that.
Obama is going to lose anyway, why not make something productive out of it?
There's no way Nader could get traction within the D party machine. I admire Kucinich's game and his persistent speaking for humans in a corporate-run bureaucracy. But the Dems have reason to imagine that Obama could not have taken Nader on a last-minute plane trip and gotten him to vote for a corporate vampire bill disguised as a health proposal.
I wasn't in on the discussion, but it is far more likely that 0 offered to kill Kucinich as a candidate within the party rather than to put a bullet through his head. I am not attributing any particular human kindness to O in believing this; it just seems easier and more practical.
Kucinich had worked with the party previously, and so could challenge in the Democratic primary and lose. He did give the party some indication that it's rank and file were upset by party policies, but the price to do that was to have performed as a party member.
Nader has taken the stronger path, but that does not mean that we do not need people to do again what Kucinich did as well. And we certainly need the people getting arrested outside the White House and others like them and others like them who will participate in similar events. There are a lot of positions to play, in fact.
But playing one card means one cannot play certain others. We have Ralph Nader outside of the party machine that produced Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton: sing hosannahs! Were Nader to fold himself into the Dems and demonstrate that he could be taken aboard Airforce One and "reasoned with," whatever that might entail, who would manage to do what Nader has done or what he does?
Well reasoned post. But I would still like to hear why Nader chose Camejo for VP in 2004. The guy had a murky history and made a career out of being divisive. His attacks on Kucinich made it impossible for Dennis to endorse Nader. And I sure did not notice Nader disavowing Camejo's comments on Kucinich.
Posters here make too much of Kucinich's switch on health care. The most probable explanation of what happened on Air Force One is just some old fashioned horse trading.
Camejo was a strong progressive. Kucinich made health care a big issue and then gagged when it came down to it. Some posters have also raised issues on Kucinich during the 2004 and 2008 elections themselves when he threw his support to Kerry and Obama instead of Nader. Kucinich may be progressive compared to most Democrats but his choosing to work from within the party weakens his progressive credibility.
"Camejo was a strong progressive. " Surely you'e joking. Agent provocateur, spoiler maybe.
" Some posters have also raised issues on Kucinich during the 2004 and 2008 elections themselves when he threw his support to Kerry and Obama instead of Nader." How could he back a ticket when the the vp was attacking him and the top of the ticket said nothing?
I think you should research Camejo.
After Nader nominated him, I was starting to wonder about all those conspiracy theories about Nader that I've heard for 42 years.
In 2000, I quit the Democratic Party, joined the Greens, and worked hard for Nader. Never again. What's the Green Party now? The least of three evils or the second lessor of three evils? It's not worth debating.
I still don't understand what issues you're having with Camejo. Is it him or the Green Party in general? If it's the latter, I can understand and yeah, Nader and the Green Party should have stuck together but I can understand the split sort of. Let me know. Thanks.
Why you seek to smear Camejo with unnamed flaws is a question only you can answer. For those NOT you:
http://www.socialistalternative.org/news/article20.php?id=1477
This bio of Miguel "Peter" Camejo stands in direct opposition to your smear tactics.
But Ralph, this is a country whose God is the "Almighty Dollar"! Would you have all of these true believers forsake their lord? Do you really believe that these true believers would forsake a solitary red cent for cleaner air, cleaner water, uncontaminated food? If you do, have I got a bridge for you! By the way Oblahblah's got a dozen bridges, he's having them built over in China!
Mr Nader, please run as a Dem against Obummer.
Without 10,000 or 100,000, or 1,000,000 people in front of the whitless house...no one cares.
The last roaring voice of reason, as we all roll away in the handbasket to hell, will be McKibben and Nader.
Thank you for another excellent, clear piece, Ralph. I wish you were president.
Time for the Tar Sands protesters to take off the Obama buttons and throw them over the White House fence. With the State Department environmental impact statement bizarrely concluding that a pipeline down the middle of the country tapping into the biggest carbon sink on the planet will have minimal environmental impacts -- it is obvious where Obama is going. Time to up the ante and get more aggressive. No more being civilly resistant. Time for civil resistance that stops the operation of government. Energy is one of many where corporate power trumps the peoples and planets necessities. Join us on October 6 -- http://october2011.org -- create an independent movement that will challenge both parties, stop the machine and create a new world.
KZ
I'm kinda warming to the buttons. I say keep the weasel's face and name out in the open as much as possible.
"Time for civil resistance that stops the operation of government." And don't spend any more money than you have to. Starving main street commerce is also important – especially Chamber of Commerce types/members.
Nader has always been a choice- or at least 7 elections.
But has been either trashed or ignored by corporate media AND the public.
At 77 the man deserves better than what this country has done to him.
Jessia, there is no arguing about that. To me he's Mr. Nader.
Speaking of deserves better, and I agree with everything you said, we need to get more 3rd party independents on local, state, and national offices who share his ideas to run. Nader may not have won a single election but he tried to make a difference and we all need followups to Nader. On the other hand, this oily empire will have to crumble before people like him get their voices heard and the public can shut the corporate media bullying off and vote straight. The voting machines need to be unrigged too. IRV might also help.
1. As ron wyden recently stated the Obama admin personally killed wydens Infrastructure bill.
2. the Obama admin personally ordered the EPA to stop testing for radiation soon after the fuckishima disaster.
3. The Obama admin personally killed any attempt at reining in Greenhouse gases at the recent Climare Change Conference.
Etc etc etc - it's not the tea baggers forcing the oilybomber into these positions - these positions are what he wants and believes in.
If you believe in a Clean Environment then you CANNOT vote for either of the 2 main parties.
"If you believe in a Clean Environment then you CANNOT vote for either of the 2 main parties."
This is the point. Why in the world *won't* environmentalists vote for the Green Party candidate? (Or one of the other 3-10 candidates on the ballot for each office who are *not* from one of the two major parties?) If a 3rd party candidate got so much as 20% of the vote for any national office, can you *imagine* the fear it would instill in the hearts of the plutocracy and their minions in office?
“This will upset my environmental supporters, but heck, where can they go in November 2012?”
Nader seems to concede this as do so many democrats and so-called liberals and progressives. If you vote for Obama you are a bad person. If you stand by a fascist, you are a fascist. You can call yourself an environmentalist, or a feminist, or a liberal, or a progressive, but you are a fascist.
Kurt Vonnegut in Mother Night said you are who you pretend to be. Democrats and others who vote for this mass murder of Muslim children are baby killers. Democrats who vote for Obama are the enemies of all middle and low income seniors who depend on social security to survive. Democrats and others who vote for this friend of Wall Street and enemy of main street, are the enemies of my family, my friends, and myself.
The standard retort from the left is that if Obama loses "they -- Bachman, Romney, Gingrich, Huntsman, whoever" win and the world would come to an abrupt end.
Why? Because if "they" win America will become an evil country dominated by the super rich, bent on eternal war, planning to destroy social security, denying marriage rights to gays, opening the Gulf to greater oil drilling, opening Alaska to greater oil drilling, cracking down on the war on drugs and sending more minorities to prison, deporting millions more people than Bush, forcing everyone to buy "health insurance" from corporations with no price caps, etc.
Obama has done all of these things, yet democrats will vote for him. Please read just the introduction to William Blum's great book, Rogue State. Democrats are the "women who love them" in his "chain saw serial baby killers and the women who love them" metaphor of the US political system and its voters addicted to war and destruction, democrats included.
Tom- Excellent post, and call to a different direction of action. I like it, god to hear your voice here. Please keep it up.
Amen, Tom.
“This will upset my environmental supporters, but heck, where can they go in November 2012?”
Ralph is not conceding to the democrats or corporations. I can't believe you think this. Nader and others are working to find someone to challenge Obama in the primaries. He's approaching 80, has run in every election for the past, what, 30 or more years .... every time AGAINST the Democrats and corporate rule. No concessions there.
Write in Ralph Nader 2012!
Please sir, and anyone who respects the efforts Mr. Nader has made over the years: report the fake/hacked/disrespectful "Ralph Nader Page" on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ralph-Nader/42899963451
Ralph Nader is constantly maligned and sabotaged by those who benefit from the corporate design and rule and that's exactly why he should run again! They fear him. He speaks the truth, he is not after fame or fortune, he has empathy for others - exactly what the corporate scoundrels and their lackeys lack - and hate.
They hate us for our empathy and reason!
My nieces are obese. Jordan, now a teenager, was perhaps the most naturally athletic child I've ever witnessed, but the sedentary life practically forced upon has not only erased her athletic capacity, but also erased her memory of it.
Jordan to me is a metaphor for Americans, who've such a great capacity intellectually, industrially, creatively, and morally, but they've all but forgot that capacity within themselves and each other.
I haven't forgotten. I know that these generations can do as many great things, and even more, than any previous generation. They must just see themselves and their challenges in a clearer light, and someone must remind them, that democracy requires great action, dedication, and responsibility, not just form those vested with power, but from all of us.
In that clear light the only way to win a broad war against the host of issues we face as a nation, that are all rooted in the over concentration of power, is to dilute power, to force it back into many hands, and not just a few, and that is called...democracy.
We must return democracy to our nation if we want to address our issues creatively, intelligently, morally, and efficiently; and a first real step, I believe, in doing this, is to return the House of Representatives to its original function: REPRESENTING…not ruling.
http://voltairez.hubpages.com/hub/Stop-Diluting-Democracy
Ralph --
Join the party in front of the White House.
September 1
Indian Point 2 was already a focus of industry-internal studies related to plant design and implementation defects as of the mid-1980's.
Almost a quarter century later? "Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along."
The perpetrators of these plants are largely shielded from accountability for these actions by corporate structure, legal concessions to industry, and corporate and government opacity both to the public and to employees within these institutions themselves--including people in decision-responsible positions.
Altruism and humanity aside, then, there is very little motive presented to these decision-makers to shut a plant down until sometime after corporate financial loss due to potential lawsuit threatens to exceed the profits of running a power plant, and one that draws considerable government subsidy.
These have to be shut down by a combination of public protest and by individuals leaving the grid.
The system is broken. Vote for this corporate candidate or the other corporate candidate giving the illusion of choice... of democracy... where there is none.
Within the corrupt two party oligarchy which commands 65 TRILLION DOLLARS... a representative of the people will never be allowed a seat at the table. The US has become the most unequal industrialized nation in the world with the greatest disparity of income. The system is broken... time for a do-over.
Do-over!!
I agree, the system is broken and can't be fixed, but I hear no one talking about any viable alternative that doesn't use fiat currency and burn fossil fuels--other than the Green party. The Green Party candidate for Governor of California had the only real solutions to California's problems, but was totally (TOTALLY--when she was arrested for showing up at the "gubernatorial" debate, the news mentioned "a third-party candidate was led away from the event.") ignored by the media, and in spite of being the best candidate for Californians and with the best ideas, she garnered very few votes.
www.October2011.org is the answer.
It's time to Stop the Machine.
"He is right. No matter what Mr. Obama does to surrender environmental health and safety to corporatist demands, they will vote for him. They certainly won’t vote for the Republican corporate mascots. They wouldn’t vote for a Green Party candidate either. This is not only the environmentalists’ dilemma, it is the liberal/progressive/labor union dilemma as well. They have no bargaining power with Obama."
Forget Obama. If Progressives get a veto proof House and Senate, we won't need him.
Draft Ralph in '12 ...