Why I Ride

I am reposting this now because I am running for office, State Assembly District 10 to represent Marin and much of Sonoma. My understanding of the forces that are driving our Climate Crisis and are perpetuating war are now more clear. I have since learned the term neoliberal, to describe global financial power that is dominating democracy worldwide.  

My bicycle journey in 2015 coincided with the seventieth year after the end of WWII, and ended just before Pope Francis too arrived in Washington DC to preach Peace and Environmental Justice to our Congress.

On my pilgrimage to learn from and about Americans I posted daily to let folks back home know that  I, a 67 year old man and recently reacquainted to a bicycle, was still alive and to talk about what came to mind during my hours of peddling.  

Dan, 1-26-2018

I’m Bicycling for Peace and Environmental Justice.

I will be leaving Marin CA for Washington DC on Memorial Day. I view this as a necessary pilgrimage for me. I want to raise awareness that climate change, which threatens our civilization, is only intensified by war, and that there is no solution to climate change that does not include peace.

“Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.”

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Fifth Assessment Report 2013

This is the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a demarcation notifying us that industrial warfare can end civilization. Clearly we the people of this earth are at a critical juncture, whether to work in peaceful cooperation to solve the consequences of climate change or whether out of fear we wreak havoc through war. Polls show we have collectively lost trust that our good intentions are the leading motives of our leaders’ actions. My hope lies in the faith that we can change this and that in other countries there are people such as us.

But we are accustomed to viewing issues as independent of each other. War and the environment as not connected. And yet our Department of Defense has been telling us for many years now that climate change is a serious national security threat. Indeed it is a global security threat that is destabilizing our world. We must understand that military force forgoes the international cooperation needed for solving our climate problem. War reverses all of our progress on improving environmental standards. It is extremely carbon intensive. Our task is to stand firm against the evangelists of war and to reject their fear mongering. The rejection of militarism is necessary - it is the only course towards climate solutions.

The effects of climate change are not limited to melting Arctic ice sheets.

Climate change drought is causing civil strife and provoking war. A multi-year drought in Syria caused the migration of the rural population into the cities and threatened the stability of their imperfect government that has turned into ‘a major civil war with international involvement.’ Scientific studies report that in Sub-Saharan Africa there is a 30-year correlation of climate changes ‘with an increase in the likelihood of civil war.’ Additionally food shortages caused by climate change have been found to be a contributing factor in the Arab Spring uprisings. Scientific American, March 2, 2015

The world population is on course to increase 30% in the next few decades. Many countries are now incapable of producing enough food for their current population. Overdrawn aquifers and drought have depleted once abundant land. Additionally sea level rise will diminish many productive river deltas from food production.

Americans have a special role to play in world affairs.

The US accounts for nearly half of all military spending worldwide. Our leaders are correct in telling us that we are the strongest military power on earth. What they leave out is that this great force is limited to destruction and chaos as evidenced by its recent use in conflicts from Afghanistan to Iraq from Libya to Syria. We have given the whole of the 20th century to perpetual war. How much time can we give to peaceful solutions, to negotiated solutions?

It takes significant fear-mongering to turn people towards war. The images of the World Trade Towers falling and the beheadings of innocents are such propaganda. These are real events, horrifying, and they terrorize us. What we fail to see is that our interventionist policies and militaristic actions are part of the cause and are not the solution. It is our responsibility, if we are serious about reversing climate change, that we face our fears and question closely what alternatives there are for this violence. 

What outcomes are forgone by following the path of war? 

What are possible unintended consequences? 

What can be gained by peaceful initiatives? 

International cooperation, the hallmark of peace, is necessarily part of the solution. We cannot wage war or threaten to do so and at the same time expect to receive the assistance we need to reverse the level of atmospheric greenhouse gases.

We can chose leaders that have a track record for constructive action.

We have to demand of our leaders that they abandon acting like 19th-century imperialists, militarily dominating others for their resources. It doesn’t add to our security and in fact it puts us in greater jeopardy. And it is completely unnecessary in a global economy. We need to end war as it is the antithesis of the peaceful cooperation we need. Climate change is the real threat to our security. Environmentalists need to assert that there exists no military path to climate security.

Peace,

Dan Monte

I have a campaign website, DanMonteForAssembly2018.org.

Does It Make A Difference Who Did the Hacking

1-2-2017

Does It Make A Difference Who Did the Hacking

A friend asked an inspirational question on a Fb thread regarding Putin and Russian hacking, ‘does it matter who did the hacking of the website and emails’.  I am pretty sure that national powers as well as the USA do hack into foreign web systems. As do non-state groups and individuals. I also know that the US and other governments try to influence the outcomes of elections in foreign countries. At what point do these activities become hostile to the democratic process and do they ever rise to the level of acts of aggression comparable to acts of war?

As readers of Bicycling for Peace and Environmental Justice know, it is my opinion that recent US interference in foreign affairs have been disastrous to attempts to stem the tide of global warming. Our Climate Crisis cannot be solved at the same time as war is being waged. One effort requires cooperation while the other terrorizes and destroys the peace required for that cooperation. 2016 marked the third year in a row for the hottest year on record. Arctic Winter temperatures 50°F above normal replenished very little new ice.

Our policy seems to be that governments weakened by circumstances are fair game for US interference when we want some strategic advantage they are not providing us. Instead of offering assistance to bolster their ability to serve their populations we further their destabilization or just outright militarily attack them to achieve our ends. Syria, Libya, and Ukraine are all examples where supportive cooperation would have produced better outcomes than the aggression we pursued.

Weak countries are weak because there is a lack of consensus amongst their populations. They are difficult to manage because their diverse populations want different ends. Why the idiots at our Departments of State and War or Spycraft think they can do a better job from Washington than the local people is astonishing. As sea levels rise, and our ability to obtain fresh water and grow food, and as species we rely on diminish, our inattention to civilization’s major threat is unforgivable. 

American itself is a very divided country. Whoever won the election would have been despised by two thirds of our population. We are now a weakened democracy and yet as Americans we have a special responsibility to the rest of the world. Because of our sense of insecurity we have allowed our leaders to amass the most dangerous military on earth. We have a form of government that places in the hands of one individual the power to decide just how that power is used. And we have created a system where that individual is isolated from the majority and is daily indoctrinated by the full-time masters of deception listed above. Our is not a parliamentary democracy our president is isolated even from other elected representatives in Congress. 

Many factors influenced our recent election, none were more influential than the two candidates themselves. The Weak Democratic Party and the Radical Republican Party, and the machinations of what was once our free and independent press. Did the speculation of what Putin’s Russia did have an influence or WikiLeaks? I think they had some effect. Did our FBI Director influence the election? I think he did? But were these hacks of our election and did they rise to the level of acts of war? If they were then our current administration has acted rather sheepishly. I for one am not ready for a new Cold War and further McCarthyism like suppression of our freedoms. I do believe however, that if the American people do not organize to take back our democratic processes it will not matter what we want.

Anti-Trump Protesters, What Difference Does It Make Now?

1-1-2017

Anti-Trump Protesters, What Difference Does It Make Now?

Holding counter inauguration events whether on January 15 or on January 20 does not have to be about Trump. It can be about what we hold dear and how will we survive in this coming period. Two thirds of the people didn’t like Trump before the election and the same number and feelings were extended towards Clinton. So there will be a lot of negativity and anger expressed at such events. But lots more folks now know that neither establishments of the 

Republican Party nor the Democratic Party give any priority to our needs and wishes. Their priorities are their power and glory. 

After a decade of Democratic Party activism I left the Party in August when the Party showed that it had no control over its candidate when she appointed Ken - KXL, fracking, monsanto, TPP, antic-single payer, booster of all of these- Salazar to lead her transition team. Until we get rank choice voting or proportional representation and other electoral reforms we are effectively stuck with a two party system. The TEA Party pushed the republicans into a Radical Republican Party with the help of lots of bucks from the likes of the Koch brothers. We will have to do the same to the Democratic Party but with massive inputs of people power. And that requires fighting for stuff not just against what we don’t like. It also requires making accommodations to include folks that we don’t normally engage with. It is not enough to advocate for equality for everyone it requires building structures that include everyone. 

Use the inauguration to build a movement, both inside the electoral system and outside as a mass movement. 

Why the Democrats Need to Rebuild The Party from the Ground Up

12-28-2016

Why the Democrats Need to Rebuild The Party from the Ground Up

I had been a progressive democratic activist inside the Party for the last decade. I fled in disgust after Clinton chose Ken Salazar to to run her transition team. If the Party is to rebuild it will have to do it without my efforts at this time. It will need to demonstrate that those we put in power ten years ago can be defeated so that new leadership emerges.

When Howard Dean became the leader of the Democratic Party he was progressive as evidenced by his 50 state strategy that lead to stunning victories in 2006 & 2008. The party rejected him after a few years along with his effort to organize strong local party structures. This election cycle the party was lead by generals (the DNC) that did not realize that there was no one in the brigades. Keith Ellison has connections to the Party’s base, has had for years and he fully embraces a 50 state strategy. Also, folks are independently organizing themselves outside of the Party, mostly for defensive positions against the onslaught that the Radical Republican Party is about to unleash, but also to win future elections. Marrying these two forces will return our democracy to the People.

The Democratic Party lost and the Radical Republicans won because the Democratic Party was too weak to block the shenanigans used to limit the votes of their base. Cross Check disallowed registered voters from voting. ID laws prevented others from even registering. Republicans eliminated opportunities to vote by reducing times and polling places.  And then faulty election practices kept the vote from being accurately counted. These suppression tactics worked because the Democratic Party was not strong enough to resist.

The Democratic Party lost and the Radical Republicans won because the Democratic Party was unable to counter unpredictable events. James Comey’s letters had a measurable effect on undecided voters the last week of the election. During the convention the DNC fired its leader and much of its top staff, because they cheated and got caught and that weakened an already weak party. The Party lost because the candidate’s campaign made strategic errors that the local parties were not strong enough to correct. 

I wanted the Democratic Party candidate to win this election because of the horrible things that the Radical Republican Party is about to do. I believed Sanders was a stronger candidate as evidenced by most polls. Ours is a two party system for winning elections. Third parties have a positive role to play even though they are in search of the same voters. For example the Libertarians and the TEA Parties revitalized the Republican Party, turning it into the successful if radical party it is today. 

The left is not responsible for 2016  election defeat. The left put the Democratic Party in position to be able to run a close election through our efforts in 2006, 2008, and 2012. And if the Democratic Party elites had enacted the Employee Free Choice Act and Single Payer Healthcare  in 2009 then the Radical Republican Party would not have had electoral victories  in 2010. Ronald Reagan and Bush Senior put a thousand bankers and politicians in jail after the Savings and Loan debacle. If the Obama administration had put bankers in jail, and had protected the 7 million families that lost their homes the 2010 election would have been different. 

This election was about Clinton only because 2/3 of the electorate did not like her. But that did not distinguish her from Trump who had worse ratings. This election was about the failures of the Democratic Party and its failure to standup for democracy. 

Russia Did A Lot of Hacking - But Not of the Election

12-22-2016

Russia Did A Lot of Hacking - But Not of the Election 

An exhaustive and believable account of how hackers, all evidence pointing to Russian sponsored hackers, broke into and stole information from various locations and how they were found out. I do not possess the capacity to understand this article. Reading this is very much like reading an advanced scientific paper, its all written in English but I lack the knowledge foundation to interpret the complexity of the issue. 

"How Russia Pulled Off the Biggest Election Hack In US History"

[http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a49791/russian-dnc-emails-hacked/]

I do believe that Russia had lots of motivation to be involved, but I held that opinion long before any news of this hacking scandal came to light. It is interesting to me that Philip Breedlove was also hacked. He was the high military commander of NATO forces during the run up to the Ukrainian coup and was publicly working to harm the EU’s efforts to find a compromise solution. NATO-EU expansion into Eastern Europe including Ukraine was a Clinton policy also promoted by her appointee Victoria Nuland.

You don’t have to be a computer scientist to know that WikiLeaks wanted to harm Clinton’s campaign. Julian Assange publicly said so numerous times. Their publications were an information campaign designed to harm Clinton’s chances to win the election. It was not necessarily designed to harm the Democratic Party as a whole. Many in the American left believe that Assange, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning ought to be feted as heroes, myself included. There are others criminalized by the Espionage Act that have also been unfairly victimized by our government.

Fb reminded me yesterday (12-21) that I have long known that he DNC was just an arm of the the Clinton clique. The only folks who were in the dark about that were the Clinton army foot soldiers. Many still non-believers. No need for a long expose about hacking to know that. Additionally, the general import of the content of Clinton’s presentations to Wall Street bankers was easily surmised, again by anyone except those in the Clinton army.

At the time that Obama asked Clinton to be his Secretary of State I thought it a stroke of genius to unite the Party to support his program against Republican opposition. (Not yet known as the Radical Republican Party) Now in hind sight I think that might have been a mistake to promote such a powerful clique inside the Party, a clique that brought us President Trump and Radical Republican Party control of all branches of the Federal Government and of most of the state governments. I don’t expect any statements of contrition from the Clinton Clique ever.

All Those Claiming It’s Tweedledum and Tweedledee Time Again

12-17-2016

All Those Claiming It’s Tweedledum and Tweedledee Time Again

So now my Fb page is filled with pleads to protest and sign petitions about the fact that the Republicans control all branches of the Federal Government. Folks even think that having the Electoral College not vote for Trump will some how keep him from the Presidency. As if the House will not elect him, or someone possibly much worse. 

Yes I am totally distraught that the military-billionaire cabinet and the huckster President will destroy much of the social, environmental, racial, voting rights, and on and on rules that bring a modicum of equality to our society. A good friend now in her 60’s was told 50 years ago by her middle school teacher that the Social Security System would not be around long enough for her and her classmates to enjoy its benefits. Well the American people just elected the government that will make that prediction come true. 

Grow up. There are no good cabinet appointments coming. There will be no good laws or rules coming out of Wa DC. Now we can sit on our thumbs or twinkle our keyboards but until we overthrow the Democratic Party establishment and elect progressive-hell raising delegates we will not have change. Until we are in the streets demanding that our local and state governments defend our social, environmental, racial, voting rights we will not have any. I have no special love for the Democratic Party, I left it after Clinton, in her dream of a landslide, told us all to F-Off and appointed Ken Salazar to lead her transition team. But the dynamics of our electoral system really only allow for two parties. 

This Libertarian inspired Dickensian nightmare we are entering does not have enough Scrooges that will find redemption and come and save all of us Bob Cratchits. The fact of the matter is that we absolutely cannot pull this off without every person that voted for both Clinton and Trump, a third party candidate, and those that did not come out to vote at all. Our voting system is hacked by those who have written rules that inhibit people from voting, and by us who vote for candidates that are beholden to moneyed interests. 

Rise up the Sans-Culottes break out the guillotines.  

Putin’s Tit for Reagan’s Tat-Our New Cold War

12-13-2016

Putin’s Tit for Reagan’s Tat-Our New Cold War

I read recently in a blog/article, that the Cold War was not really a competition between equals. The Soviet Union, Russia, had lost 20 million people, had much of its country occupied, and its industrial base destroyed, while we in the USA were able to build up our industrial capabilities during the Second World War. The real threat of the Soviet Union was its nuclear capabilities. Our presidents from Kennedy through Bill Clinton tried to diminish this mutual threat to civilization through treaties that reduced the number of these weapons. 

The Soviet nuclear capability was the basis for the Cold War. It put an imperfect check on Western imperialism, an unhealthy competition that is gone since their collapse in the 80’s. We are now in a New Cold War, though those living in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and much of Africa might not think it so chilly. 

The collapse of the Soviet Union was hastened by its by competition with Western Imperialism, or in the claim of the Republican Party the person of Ronald Reagan. Some have lauded that interference in Soviet Affairs. 

The real source of their demise was their inefficient economic system, centralized control, that was hindered by their international adventurism. Our new global economy mimics, with its concentration of power into a few hands and its inability to meet the needs of the many, the failings of the old Soviet Union. And the consequent wars of domination, required to maintain this new global economy, also mirrors the Soviet’s international gambits.  

Now we have tit for tat, Putin dethroning the Clintons, the Field Marshals of the Wall Street Commanders in Chief. Norman Solomon ponders a new McCarthyism in this article. Combined with our corporate run media - a propaganda machine whose true function was exposed this passed election from the primaries through the general, we are in for a rough ride unless we organize and make common ground with unlikely allies.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/foreign-policy/309249-mccarthys-ghost-smiles-as-dems-point-the-finger-at-russia#.WEi4Q_2C5g0.facebook

Thinking of the future of the Democratic Party

12-4-2016

When I think of the future of the Democratic Party I see only two possible outcomes.  It dies a horrible and final death or from its dead body comes the basis of a New Democratic Party. Both the Republican Party, the dominate party in American politics now -thanks to Obama’s 8 years in office- on local, state, and national levels, and the Democratic Party are tools of our governing elites. In FDR’s terms the Economic Royalists (ER). The ER, the financial, media, and industrial elites bet on being able to defeat Donald Trump once they had built him into the Republican candidate. The ER and their media chose to be all in for Clinton from the early days of 2015. She was the most qualified presidential candidate in the last seven decades and had demonstrated her commitment to act in in their interests. 

They bet wrong. It wasn’t all the fault of the Clinton folk that she lost to Trump however. The Obama administration’s hostility to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, in David Axelrod’s term of derision the Professional Progressives, was much to blame. Ronald Reagan and George H W Bush put thousands of bankers and some politicians in jail for the Savings and Loan melt down. But Obama and Attorney General Holder could not find even one to scapegoat, to hold responsible for the laying waste of the Great American Middle Class. Obama and establishment Democrats for 8 years pushed aside progressive policies that would have benefited the millions badly hurt by the fraud and deception of the financial elites. The 1%, the rebranded Economic Royalists, were not held accountable but were rewarded for their contrivances of greed.

Many people are in morning, visioning a greater diminishing of our democracy, of more destabilization of international relationships in general, and fear a greater loss of peace and environmental sustainability in particular. Trump will delegate most of his responsibilities to others. His ignorance of particulars will be masked by this delegation of responsibility. But to those he is delegating, they are bent on a faster paced change from a government supported  by a middle class to a government run by a coterie of oligarchs lead by the captains of finance. We will now be vassals to very same forces that plunged the world into an unprecedented depression and tumult.

I believe that Madelene Albright advised President Bill Clinton, there is no point of having a strong military if you won’t use it. Hillary Clinton accepted that advice and donned the garb of Attila the Hun evidenced by her support of the devastation wracked across the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe in support of the ER. It is still unclear what the Trump Administration’s foreign policy initiatives will be. Democrats are more reluctant towards militarism, environmental destruction, and the unraveling of the social safety net and might have been a check on another Clinton presidency. 

But the Republicans are now completely unrestrained. Might the Republicans overreach, move too quickly, and cause the backlash that allows a New Democratic Party to rise up from the corpse of Clinton’s Party? Is that now pathetically Human Civilization’s only hope for survival? Will Our Revolution come as Sanders optimistically proclaims?

12-17-2015 To Karmen Concannon, Publisher Sentinel-Tribune

Today I read how the Sentinel-Tribune fired the Editor under pressure from the gun lobby. Below is a link to that article and to the editorial that did not get published.

Please write to Karmen and tell her to protect the freedoms of our country.

kconcannon@sentinel-tribune.com

Publisher Sentinel-Tribune

Karmen Concannon,

The name of your institution implies that you stand as a guardian of the rights and freedoms put forth in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Yours is the only private concern named specifically in the Bill of Rights because of its centrality to a free people. If you bow to threats of the gun lobby you are giving away not just your freedom but that of this country.

I am fortunate to live in a fairly liberal place, Marin County California. This Sunday when I and 200 to 300 others marched with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense In America, we were graced with a retreat of the mornings heavy rains. Other marches around the country were met with gun-rights intimidators, mostly heavily armed men, countering mostly women and children. 

This summer I rode my bicycle across our country and through your state. I know there are many differences between California and Ohio. I know there is much courage, a history of pride, especially in the civil war era, battles fought on your soil, that Ohioans are much proud. Now is one of those times in history, as a free people, in a free country, that will remain so only if good people and our institutions show courage and mimic the actions of our ancestors.

In light of recent attacks in this country by those that think guns are for fighting social issues, e.g. the Charleston and Colorado Springs shootings, most of the participants in these marches commemorating the 3rd year anniversary of Newtown, showed great courage. There are real threats implied by these armed thugs.

In this county, where freedom is cherished more than in any other, where ‘Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness’ were to prevail, we are now living  in fear. More fearfully than citizens in any other prosperous country. Truly these rights enshrined in our Declaration of Independence have been stolen by the rich and powerful institutions who are now profiting (who sell more guns and ammunition after each mass shooting) off the fear they are sowing. 

They are blocking common sense gun ownership rules and stealing our freedom. They are stealing our freedom, our civil liberties enshrined in our Bill of Rights. Their intimidating presence at demonstrations, healthcare facilities and houses of worship is proof that their intentions are not for promoting liberty but are for limiting the freedoms of normal civil life.

They are stealing our freedom by intimidating those who were chosen to protect our First Amendment rights. They are directly stealing our freedom of the press, as evidenced by the censorship of this editorial of conscious. The thugs will win if our press does not stand up. It is written.

Dan Monte

PLEASE COPY AND PASTE THESE LINKS INOT YOUR BROWSER 

"Editor Is Fired, but Not Silenced, Over the NRA”

http://www.creators.com/liberal/connie-schultz/editor-is-fired-but-not-silenced-over-the-nra.html

The unpublished editorial by Jan Larson McLaughlin

https://www.toledoblade.com/attachment/2015/12/16/LarsonMcLaughlinEditorial-pdf.pdf

12-15-2015 The People of the World United Cannot Be Defeated

The People of the World United Cannot Be Defeated

In 1945 the United Nations was formed after 30 years of war and reparations and more war. Now seventy years later that organization has come together to save civilization from the economic development that occurred in the aftermath of that peace. Our climate change crisis is not over by any measure but now all that is left for a true fix is for a democratic movement to arise on a global scale and force the governments to respond to the realities they admitted to last week. 

The message of Paris is that tens of thousands of people from all over the globe came together and defied the terrorists, defied the state of emergency, and demanded action. We are the first species to face extinction and have the capability to consciously alter that course. This agreement is as important if not more so than the one signed by 51 countries seven decades ago. We have over 190 countries but more important we have the people of those countries united against the institutions of power that have to this point refused to change. 

12-14-2015 We are all Parisians now.

We are all Parisians now. The world has come together, both in the face of institutionally based opposition and threats of terrorism. Our nations have struck an accord to address our Climate Crisis. Scientists are wringing their hands that there are no enforceable mandates to lower our carbon consumption. 

There resides the space left for us, democracy, to push for 2°C or 1.5°C, for “Bike To The Future”, for “Soil Not Oil”, for “Leave It In The Ground.” And yes for "Peace and Environmental Justice." Democracy, that same force that pushed our national leaders to an acknowledgement of responsibility and requirement for action, is not written into the accord but it is in the streets of Paris. 

Neither two degrees centigrade nor 1.5°C are sustainable. Right now we are at 1°C and we are in the midst of the 6th extinction, a massive global die off of species. Our glaciers are melting and the world populations are on the move because their homelands are uninhabitable. So in my view the value of Paris is that nations recognize that there are limits, responsibilities and requirements for action. 

11-17-2015; ISIS Part Two.a

11-17-2015;  ISIS Part Two.a

Near the end of June, while riding my bicycle for Peace and Environmental Justice across the United States, a six to ten hours a day endeavor, I wrote a piece entitled “What About ISIS, Dan?” In it I tried to separate the two identities of the organization, one a proto-state and the other a loosely organized criminal terror network.  Two manifestations require two solutions. I label the terrorist facet criminal because it will take policing and justice tools to  stop it. Bombing Syria will not end the criminal actions no more than the bombing and invading Afghanistan and Iraq ended al Qaeda. In fact invading those countries increased al Qaeda’s number and forcefulness.

The only means of ending the state facet of ISIS goes something like Senator and Presidential candidate Sanders suggest, engaging the neighboring Sunni countries. Clearly ISIS is getting help from some of the neighboring states and thanks to WikiLeaks in 2010 we know that Saudi Arabia, Qatra, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates are the culprits funding ISIS operations. But ending the development of new Sunni state might not be a possibility nor even a desired outcome. 

The need for a new Sunni state in the Middle East is a real possibility. At one time early after we invaded Iraq it was thought that it needed to be split into three autonomous regions, Kurdish, Shia, and Sunni. Considering that the Gulf Alliance, really a Sunni Alliance, has a willingness to fund such a state and that the Shia of Iraq have no intention of really including the Sunni in a government, maybe the three state idea needs to be revived. 

For ISIS to maintain its 20,000 soldier army, and that is a very low estimate some have their strength anywhere from 40 to 100 thousand, they would need an annual budget of close to $5 Billion. 

From 2006, “The United States must focus now, not on preserving or forging a unified Iraq, but on avoiding a spreading and increasingly dangerous and deadly civil war. It must accept the reality of Iraq's breakup and work with Iraq's Shiites, Kurds, and Sunni Arabs to strengthen the already semi-independent regions. If they are properly constituted, these regions can provide security, though not all will be democratic.” From a review of Peter Galbraith, The End Of Iraq, 2006. (https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/1935/the-end-of-iraq)

And again in 2015 on the disintegration of the Iraqi army when attacked in Mosul, Galbraith writes, “In fact, the problems of the Iraqi Army reflect the problems of Iraq where Shiites and Sunnis don’t agree on what it means to be Iraqi and where the Kurds unanimously don’t want to be Iraqi at all. The deficiencies of the army cannot be corrected because they reflect the realities of the society.” Daily Beast, March 2015, 

(http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/04/can-we-just-give-up-on-the-iraqi-army.html).

But Iran, Turkey and what is left of Iraq and Syria will resist this alternative, while the Gulf Alliance states might well want it to break up the Sunni Crescent. Turkey will oppose it in that it will create a Kurdish state and engender independence aspirations in her own territory. This is the area where our ‘diplomatic mission’ needs to place its energy. 

11-16-2015; ISIS Part Two

11-16-2015;  ISIS Part Two

Near the end of June, while riding my bicycle for Peace and Environmental Justice across the United States, a six to ten hours a day endeavor, I wrote a piece entitled “What About ISIS, Dan?” In it I tried to separate the two identities of the organization, one a proto-state and the other a loosely organized criminal terror network.  Two manifestations require two solutions. I label the terrorist facet criminal because it will take policing and justice tools to  stop it. Bombing Syria will not end the criminal actions no more than the bombing and invading Afghanistan and Iraq ended al Qaeda. In fact invading those countries increased al Qaeda’s number and forcefulness.

Today I read an article written the Saturday morning of the Democratic Presidential Debate, as the news of the Paris attacks were still being updated. “There Is Only One Way to Defeat ISIS,” by Charles Pierce of Esquire. With a flourish Pierce laid out the only means of ending the state facet of ISIS and what is at stake for what we call civilized society. But ending the state of ISIS might not be a possibility. 

It costs the US taxpayers a million dollars per soldier to wage a war and occupation. If ISIS with stealing its weapons from the Iraqi army and its food from the people it controls can do the job for one quarter the cost, at 20,000 soldiers -a low estimate- then it would need a $5 Billion dollar annual budget. And ISIS controls thousands of miles of Iraq and Syria, 20,000 is a very low estimate for soldiers that at times has been reported to be closer to 40,000 and even 100,000. 

Clearly ISIS is getting help from some of the neighboring states. And Pierce fills in that part of the puzzle with information gathered by WikiLeaks in 2010. Saudi Arabia, Qatra, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates are the culprits. My objection to Pierce’s writing is that it does not consider the possibility that there is a real need for a new Sunni state in the Middle East. At one time early after we invaded Iraq  it was thought that it needed to be split into three autonomous regions, Kurdish, Shia, and Sunni. Considering that the Gulf Alliance, really a Sunni Alliance, has a willingness to fund such a state and the Shia of Iraq have no intention of really including the Sunni in a government maybe that idea needs to be revived. 

11-14-2015: Is This The Last Tango for Neocons?

Is This The Last Tango for Neocons?

When in college my concerns were focused on the Viet Nam war and the Civil Rights movement. Earth Day was not yet invented. There was the draft and Black America was burning over the assignation of MLK. I reach back in my memory to the feelings of alienation from the society my parents’ generation had created. They were born just before the first great world war and survived the global flu pandemic, the great depression, and the second world war. They helped create the New Deal. They believed in good government. Over the following thirty years they slowly became Nixon-Reagan Democrats. But not before giving us easy access to inexpensive college. 

I am not much different now than I was then, an outsider looking in. I choose a private school because of its promise of a traditional liberal arts education. My college debt stayed with me for ten years. Manageable, it was not a inhibitive sum. I find it interesting that a few presidential candidates have talked about paying off their student debt as preparation of their campaign. 

The debt students are now taking on is a substantial drag on our economy. Ellen Brown of the Public Banking Institute has been suggesting for years now that the Federal Reserve provide a stimulus to our economy by purchasing all student debt. A social equity quantitative easing for the rest of us, not just the big banks. The $1.2 Trillion would be less than what was used to recapitalize the financial sector since 2008. This money would mostly go directly into Main Street’s economy. The Fed’s QE1 through QE3 have exacerbated inequality while providing only a modest stimulus effect. 

I don’t regret my riotous youth, except for not being able to counteract the Nixon-Reagan backlash. Today students are facing years of indentured servitude to a system that is dynamically pursuing the destruction of civilization through the destruction of the climate. Our parents were able to reject the social movements of the Baby Boomers. They were part of an ever increasingly economically inclusive society. They had their experience of successful governmental programs.  

I hope that Baby Boomers, unlike our parents before us, will embrace these new youthful movements at next years’ polls. The Student Debt, Black Lives Matter, Immigrant Rights, and environmental and anti-war movements are coalescing in an economy that is becoming more exclusive. The ‘masters of the universe’ will again try to divide our generations as they did 40 years ago. But Baby Boomers, who accepted a doubling of the payroll tax for most of our working lives to support our parents retirement, would be wise find common cause with today’s youth. 

I Listened to last night’s ‘First in the South Democratic Forum’

I am all in for Sanders 2016, just so you know.

Sanders and his racial record, and can he relate to Black America. Can he update his personal reference in addition to something that happen in the 60’s? Everyone learns Martin Luther King’s name in school now but he died nearly 50 years ago and most people do not know what he stood for except very generally for racial equality. Try naming the march, March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom.

On ISIS, and asking Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern Suni States to participate. The Suni Gulf Coalition is doing terrible things in Yemen, and there is evidence that factions inside these countries are funding ISIS.  Emphasize  defensive international anti-terror coalitions more and speak to the need of identifying possible threats long before they occur. If you want the US to stop being the policeman of the world then it needs to stop acting only in response to the crime scene like cops do. 

On jobs and foreign investment talk about the positive effects to local small businesses of these policies and not just of workers’ benefits.

Sustainable economy means lots of work for local building contractors.

Sustainable economy could mean lots of work for new homegrown technology.

Living wage can be and will be a boost for the local main street businesses, as everyone participates everyone benefits.

Medicare for everyone means a boost for the local main street businesses, as everyone participates everyone benefits from a healthy workforce.

Same for free college as a highly educated work force is a benefit to all businesses, including employees with great new ideas for small businesses.

On guns, do not talk about mental health and gun control in the same breath. I find it extremely offensive. Speak of people with criminal records of violence, domestic abuse as alternatives. A demonstrated knowledge of how to safely own, store, and use gun pre condition, yes.

When asked about the mass movement needed you referenced the Howard Dean’s 50 State Strategy. It organized multiple large turnout election cycles that had great victories in 2006 and 2008. That can be done again to save the planet and our democracies. And emphasis that you would want to keep it engaged to win more victories in following years and on down stream elections. I love the idea of children being registered to vote at birth, with a18 year delay, for federal elections. You can add benefits for states that demonstrate full participation in their local elections too.

PS:The DNC, Democratic National Committee, should lead the challenge of the Kentucky governor race. The anomalies are too great and the implications for the 2016 election are dire. If this result is allowed to stand then there most definitely will not be a fair election next year. Low turnout was a contributing factor but turnout was 8 percentage points higher than in the election four years ago. 

November 6: Apocalypse Now, A Baby Boomer’s View Of Climate In-Action

What’s at stake in Yglesias’ article on the failures of the Democratic Party is that the world’s leading economy and dominant military power will not be addressing our most serious predicament, the global climate crisis, for many years to come. 

Matthew Yglesias (in his VOX article “Democrats are in Denial. Their party is actually in deep trouble.” 10-19-2015) suggests that the Democratic Party is taking up more left leaning positions recently, positions to help those of us struggling to survive in this very unequal economy. The implication is that this is coming at a time when these positions, with no hope of implementation, will further isolate the Democrats from power.

The destruction of labor unions and the degradation of our educational systems has lead to the rise in popularity of conservative causes. (VOX, “America may be in a reinforcing feedback loop of growing inequality and Republican rule”, Lee Drutman, November 4, 2015). 

Howard Dean suggested on MSNBC last night (11-5) that the reason the Democrats have done so poorly lately is that the party had turned into a re-elect the President committee. He was bemoaning the Party’s abandonment of the 50 state strategy he implemented when leading the DNC that resulted in the victories of 2006 and 2008. The 50 State Strategy was an attempt to create a party organized mass movement. 

I believe that the problem resides in the fact that Democrats, who engage in strong debates over principles and issues, abandon their principles when there is a chance of implementing them and consequently attack politicians who will fight for those principles. I am discouraged by the Party’s organized duplicity. It is not hard for me to hold my beliefs in what science is trying to tell us, that civilization is at risk of disappearing under the weight of our own doings. The news presents daily the disintegrating conditions of our climate crisis.

It takes a lot of people to create this extraordinary culture that we benefit from, our modern global culture. Our civilization’s advances in education, medicine, communication, energy production, transportation and much more are at risk by the economic dynamics that created them. We are dependent on the stable climate of the last 10 millennium. Our ability to both feed ourselves and have the leisure to create this culture is what is a stake. 

Bernie Sanders is correct that we need a political revolution, a mass movement, to take our democracy back from the ‘millionaire and billionaire class’ that controls both parties, our democracy, at the highest levels. Mass movements can support electoral parties and parties can support mass movements. There is a lot of overlap. But they are not the same type of institutions. They have different goals. Parties are about gaining state power and governing and movements are about influencing that governance. Mass movements plead, demand, and at best force governments to address their concerns. Howard Dean’s mass movement, his 50 State Strategy, was compromised because it facilitated the very people that wanted to destroy it.

“Liberals accustomed to chuckling over the ideological rigor of the House GOP caucus won't want to hear this, but one of the foundations of the GOP's broad national success is a reasonable degree of ideological flexibility.” [Yglesias sic] This is a polite way of saying that the Republican Party was forced to embrace and rode the TEA Party’s far right agenda to their electoral success. 

The Democratic Party by contrast is doing everything in its power to suppress its stated, and left leaning agenda, that has broad mass appeal. The importance of this is that in so doing the Democratic leadership is preventing the implementation of policies needed to address the global climate crisis, policies that of necessity embrace and promote peace, environmental sustainability, and economic equality. 

October 22 The Pinnacle Of Power For The New Right

It amazes me that the same how to manuals I was reading in 2006 on how to get more progressives into the local Democratic leadership were used in 2008 to organize the TEA Party. Along with the aid of the billionaire class these impassioned citizens have gone so much farther than my leftie activist cohorts. Much of that has to do with need of the right to take support anywhere they can get it, and with the Dem’s capitulating to the agenda of corporations. 

We came close to a watershed moment back in 2006 and 2008 when the Democratic Party took back Congress and the White House only to turn its back on the impassioned folks that put them in power. As the tides turn, and wealth becomes even more intensified that intensity of purpose might again in the future put the Democrats back in power. But now the Republicans are struggling with their own creation. It seems to me that their disarray is to the advantage of the handful of the monied class that can, for the time being, install any representative government that they so wish. 

This juncture in history marks when either crony capitalism ends or civilization does. Our climate crisis will not endure much more denial.

October 17 At the Bioneers Conference 2015

Keep your head in the soil, but not like the ostrich. 

Ouch! I asked a question at a workshop this afternoon and got slapped down as if I were an apologist for industrial farming. Ouch again. Maybe I just asked the wrong person in the wrong setting. But give me a break. Farming for carbon sequestration is a new concept in agriculture and it needs a quick development. Increasing soil carbon concentration 2% will pull enough enough carbon from the atmosphere to reduce the PPM to the magic sustainable number 350. For its promoters to suggest that industrial agriculture will not need to go through a massive restructuring in order to prevent starvation is just ridiculous. 

Somehow local promoters of farming with the objective of sequestering carbon in the soil as a primary goal seem to believe that only a tiny percentage of our food comes from modern corporate farming. If they had only stayed in their chairs until the next workshop, ‘Curbing Corporate Power to Develop a Just Food System’, convened they could have been disabused of such nonsense.  This second presentation provided information that 50% of grocery retail sales is controlled by 4 corporations. That over 11 million workers are involved in providing our food. The presenter from the National Family Farms Cooperatives talked about how corporate America controls agriculture from the production, selection, and distribution of seeds. NFFC also suggested that the storage of grain seed, an essential part of the banking of community wealth in agriculture areas, that the ownership of grain elevators is also being concentrated in the hands of a few of these giant corporations. 

Because of the aging of American farmers over half of agricultural land will be sold in the coming decade. Anyone who has read my screeds about food production on this blog will see that in my view this is a major issue that needs to be addressed with an openness to the realities of our system and with an urgency that will allow our system time to develop so that we don’t all starve from the changes necessary. We must sequester carbon through our agriculture process and feed the people.

October 16 There's New Vigor In The Name Socialism

Many people are starting to talk about Socialism. It was not that long ago that John Nichols wrote a book entitled ‘The “S” Word’, indicating that the word could not even be said aloud. It’s a great and easy read by the way, a historical look at American socialists governing in the twentieth century. But today in the grand tradition of the American left folks are slicing and dicing Bernie Sanders’ self-identification as a Democratic Socialist to either include or exclude him from the family of socialistic movements. And the American right is trying to taint him with a cold war era hue of something foreign, reflecting the days before the fall of the Soviet Union. 

But the course of events in modern America are removing the traitorous stigma from socialism. Now the enemy of the American people are international corporate institutions that are pillaging our communities and our environment. The too big to fail banks and global conglomerates that are out sourcing jobs are making us all internationalist. The father of the modern Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh,  and his current apostle in chief Donald Trump, can suggest that socialism is somehow against the American way, but Americans are not buying that anymore. As John Nichols wrote socialists have a great American history of very good governance. Check out his book from a socialistic public library.