We Won!

I remember when Harold, the school's maintenance man, came into the dining room as we kids were eating breakfast, and announced to my father: "We won!" The president re-elected was Truman, and the year was 1948.

Money didn't play such an outsized role in 1948 as it did in 2012, but the most important thing: "money," as the song goes, "doesn't buy you love." That was proven pretty decisively in 2012; money didn't buy love for Romney.

Tuesday night I stayed up until NBC declared Obama's victory--I didn't hear about Karl Rove's objections until the next afternoon. Obama really did win and it wasn't as close as Truman over Dewey.

Obama didn't campaign against a "do-nothing" Congress, but he could have; perhaps he should have. Considering Republican obstruction in Congress, it's extraordinary that Obama won on his accomplishments and his character--despite my evangelical friend's deeply held belief that Barack is the Antichrist.

What justifies Obama the Antichrist label? Maybe that he won? Or maybe that he's black, but doesn't act like a 'Yassuh, no Suh' N….., but as a powerful, articulate, well-educated man, who happens to be black.

Some now say Obama is a brilliant politician; I agree. But Obama's win, and that of the Democratic candidates who won a majority of Senate seats, despite the $100's of millions deployed against them, won because, in a democracy, numbers of voters ultimately prevail against raw cash. And Americans, like any people not cowed by authoritarianism, reacted to attempts to suppress them with impressive, stoic determination to push back and prevail. They may have voted in greater numbers than in the previous election when Republicans didn't so actively try to suppress the vote.

That's the strongest message and mandate in this election. Issues like global warming, collective bargaining rights and even inequality were often ignored by both sides--a defeat for democracy--but such a surge of money into the campaign (the money raised by billionaires and spent by "super-pacs"), encouraged Republicans to be more open and more aggressive about their extremist policies.

That was a good thing, because of the reaction: Americans reacted to the concerted effort to buy their votes through indirection, and they didn't like it. They turned out in droves in response to the attempts at voter suppression, and apparently ignored, or discounted, the negative ads flying nationwide. They may also have voted more decisively for Obama because of his real action in the face of Hurricane Sandy.

The day after the election, we still had a slowly diminishing empire, an artificially created "fiscal cliff," and need for a real stimulus to bolster jobs growth. And we still had Republican control of the House. But, for the moment, we've dodged the ultimate takeover of the selfish class, our equivalent of Roman Senators in the Fifth Century.

That's something to be thankful for.

Climate Change, Politics and Money

Our political campaigns debate regulation, austerity and stimulus. The multi-millionaires and billionaires funding super-pacs to elect Republicans and Romney abhor taxes and regulations, whether it's building codes, global warming gas emissions or casinos.

Why, they could be on their way to earning trillions if it weren't for "job-killing regulations" and taxes! The Kochs, fossil fuel producers, have been cited over and over for emissions pollution, have paid large fines (small compared to their incomes), and legal fees that probably dwarf the fines: their pac funding dwarfs both. A Texas billionaire is a builder of shoddy developments; he's been sued repeatedly for using inferior materials, and not surprisingly, he's for "tort reform" that would cap jury awards for damages. So, he, the Kochs, and many others donate millions to Romney or GOP-supportive superpacs.

Why do they do this? Simple, in each case, they "donate" to get what they want through Congress and the President--the Congress and President they are buying. And while the money advanced is almost small change to the super-rich, it floods the election process.

What does this have to do with global warming? Warming increased last year faster than expected (3.5% over 2010), and the world is on track to warm 3.5 degrees Celsius; Earth will be a much warmer place than it has ever been since humans evolved. Earth was as warm eons ago, but it's not clear that people can survive it without major disruption and mass die-offs. The reason the earth is warming so rapidly, according to Climate Action Tracker(CAT), is because no nation has even met its (inadequate) targets for cutting emissions, and even if they did, none would be enough to slow global warming. The US's inability to adopt carbon emission reduction programs like cap and trade is symptomatic: Brazil's and Mexico's gestures, according to CAT, are ineffectual or worse. But the world as a whole is even more so: nations appear unable--or unwilling, like the US--to meet their climate change pledges.

The reason for the puny response is political. There is no lack of technology to battle climate change. But private interests are donating funds to prevent its use, and persuade others it's unnecessary. The Kochs, for example, have a stake in preventing programs to ameliorate climate change. Citizens United has opened the financial floodgates, rendering billionaires even more effective at blocking positive action.

The flood from the super-rich parallels the near monopoly of wealth and power of Rome's Senators in the fifth century. Then, everyone else was driven into serfdom; now its wage slavery and debt--if you're lucky enough to get a job--but now the world's people will be corralled into an overheated ditch.

Maybe the billionaires think they can create their own climate-controlled havens to survive?

The Scream, Icon for Our Era

Edvard Munch's The Scream, or the last privately owned version of it, sold for $119,922, 500.00 yesterday, or just a hair under $120 million, at Sotheby's auction. It is the most expensive painting ever, since the previous priciest, a Picasso, Nude Green Leaves and Bust, sold for "only" $106.5 million in 2010. As someone commented, several of the world's billionaires (there are now 1,226 of them) must have been competing for the canvas. The buyer, so far, remains anonymous.

The Scream is iconic and it is also emblematic of the era. While the US economy grew at an anemic rate, while unemployment is still above 8% (8.1 in April, 2012), the money paid for Munch's canvas beats the world record.

The fastest growing crop of billionaires come from the fast-growing economies of the BRIC countries, not surprisingly, but the US still leads with the most (425) and both China's and Russia's shares slipped from over 100 last year to 95 and 96 respectively, this year, due to the world's slowing economy. The world's richest man, by about a 9 billion dollar margin, is Carlos Slim from Mexico.

So, there are 1226 billionaires in the world, but most people in the world's richest nation, the US, are economically insecure and getting poorer, while Europe is sliding back into recession and has reached depression levels of unemployment in Greece, Spain and Ireland.

The price for The Scream is therefore symbolic of the huge inequalities growing in the world economy, not just the US's. Some people can spend that kind of money on a piece of painted canvas, while the majority of humanity is struggling. I could think of a lot of other uses for $120 million (like jobs for 2400 people), but the painting in question is also emblematic of what's wrong with this picture.

The Scream is disturbing; it doesn't impart good feeling, at all. It may have its own kind of beauty, in its evocation of anguish, but it ain't warm and fuzzy. I don't think I'd want to display it on my living room wall, nor even in an office dedicated to psychological counseling. Its seller, Petter Olson, a Norwegian businessman, said of it:

"For me, (it) shows the horrifying moment when man realizes his impact on nature, and the irreversible changes that he has initiated, making the planet increasingly uninhabitable."

Certainly, the colors of the painting evoke both the anxiety of the figure, and the irreversible damage we are causing to the planet, but it is the power of the figure itself that expresses what humans are beginning to realize: the horrible future that seems to await us.

It's likely the 1200+ billionaires believe they will escape the worst of these changes, but then the Fifth Century Roman Senatorial class assumed that Rome would be eternal, and their exalted place in it would always be secure: obviously, they were wrong.

Foreign $s Promote Global Warming in US

Now, it's official: European corporations, including BP, are contributing funds to US Senate campaigns--for climate change deniers and candidates who vow to block the cap and trade bill. Total contributions: $240,000, more than Koch Industries pursuing the same agenda. So, BP, for example, having polluted our Gulf of Mexico and killed workers in a refinery fire, now wants to buy politicians--so they can do more of the same, with no government interference.

European corporations are meddling in US politics. That they can, has been made possible by the Supreme Court's decision opening the way for corporate money in campaigns, despite Justice Alito shaking his head when Obama asserted that it would: Obama stated that the Citizens United decision opened election campaigns to foreign funds. Clearly, it has.

The list of corporations revealed by Climate Action Network Europe (CANE), are: BP, Arcelor-Mittal (steel), Solvay (chemicals), LaFarge (cement), GDF-Suez (energy), BASF (chemicals), Bayer (pharmaceuticals) and EON (energy). They are concerned about pollution controls: all are large-scale polluters. Europe has been in the forefront combating climate change, and these corporations have been forced to comply with EC regulations to reduce emissions.

Their thinking: if they can help elect climate change deniers and anti-climate change legislators in the US, then the US will do nothing about climate change, and they can argue that Europe shouldn't handicap itself with "burdensome" and "anti-business" regulations, either.

The same process is going on in California, which has an initiative on its ballot to nullify Schwarzenegger's widely acclaimed climate law. Money pours in from everywhere to nullify the law, but from energy companies especially.

It's fascinating to identify the allies of the Tea Party's American "patriots."

It's also fascinating to see that, so far, participants like stridently "patriotic" Fox News, have made no issue of foreign participation in our elections. In fact, it has been widely reported, but not fully substantiated, that many of the millions spent by the Chamber of Commerce and various other Tea Party groups like Rove's American Crossroads, come from foreign corporations.

It can be argued that this is only fair, since the US, and American corporations have spent money in foreign election campaigns for decades. But it is against US election laws, and it should be an issue in this campaign. Do Americans really want foreign corporations to help decide who governs us, and what policies we pursue?

Further, the funding revealed by CANE is "climate sabotage:" it is aimed at stopping any action to combat, or ameliorate climate change. And it is motivated by one thing only: corporate profits.

America is beginning to look, not so much like a declining empire as a Third World country, where all the (foreign and domestic) corporate heavies make the rules and select the players, for their own global profits.

Gulf of Mexico: Only Oil Wells!

Gee, why don't we just write off the Gulf of Mexico as anything but an oil production site? Why stop drilling?

We've already committed ecocide there. Dead zones all over the place as oil and gas escape at huge volumes from BP's blowout. They'll continue to spread and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight. Even if the first relief well succeeds in tapping into the blown-out well, there is still the possibility that BP won't be able to plug it, and we won't even know if that's a success until August--if more hurricanes don't disrupt the process until after the hurricane season (June-November).

So, we should simply write off the whole non-oil Gulf Coast economy. Just open the whole Gulf to extensive oil drilling, and who cares if there are more blow outs? America needs the oil. Isn't that what Republicans, tea-partiers and others are saying? We can't have a moratorium! Oil drillers' jobs will be lost.

Since we've already screwed the Gulf, we might as well just continue doing it. Shrimpers, et al, aren't going to recover for years, so expand the oil patch and hire them as oil drillers.

We should not, under any circumstances, sanction those poor oil companies: they have so much on their plates, and if we look cross-eyed at them, why they might go and despoil the Nigerian delta, instead.

Oh. They already have.

Well, all the more reason why all oil-drilling regulations and limitations should be removed. We're competing with Nigeria, but we want the oil in our backyard. Who cares if a little bit is spilled?

Is anyone calculating the effects of the trillions of cubic feet of methane being released by the blowout? Will it accelerate global warming? But then there is no such thing. One of my favorite right-wing bloggers warns that the criminal conspirators who control the world--including Obama's White House, of course--have decided that they haven't been able to sell global warming, so they'll try to persuade everyone that the real danger is Global Cooling!

Now, if it's global cooling, then the oil spew disaster is no disaster, at all: it helps solve the problem. It releases huge quantities of methane into the atmosphere, thereby helping to hold in the precious heat this planet is in danger of losing. And polluting industries, cars, etc. all help stave off the imminent ice age.

Now that we've solved that problem, let's move on to the financial system: obviously, there should be no regulation of those poor banks. Who knows how much profits Goldman would lose!

Right-wingers unite! You have nothing to lose but your tenuous grip on reality! Somalia is our new model: no government at all.

Arizona, Global Warming and 2 Billion Headed North

What does immigration have to do with US foreign policy?

Why do illegal immigrants have a moral right to work in this country?

The Arizona law is outrageous, but not entirely so. Its justification is ineffective enforcement of immigration laws by the Feds, which in turn is due to the insupportable nature of the laws themselves.

Immigration, especially of the illegal variety, is caused by US imperial policies. With NAFTA, CAFTA and "anti-Communist," "anti-terrorist" or drug war policies, the US is massively involved in destroying jobs in other countries.

When the US insists that large US agribusiness can export subsidized corn to Mexico, for example, it causes massive displacement of campesinos from their farms. This displacement was intended to create cheap labor for the maquiladoras near the border, but not enough jobs were created. The excess jobless have nowhere to go but to el Norte.

When the US helped local elites stave off or drive out democratic governments in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and most recently, Honduras, something very similar occurred: the repressed and displaced have nowhere to go but el Norte.

When the US wages wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Yemen, it creates huge disruption--and large numbers of refugees. The only reason we don't see more of them is distance.

When the US and other "advanced" nations do too little and too late to address climate change, disproportionately caused by us, but disproportionally affecting less developed nations, we will see even more massive dislocation of populations. If the monsoon rains fail because of climate change (there is good reason to expect this will happen) then large parts of South Asia, Southeast Asia, south China and Africa will be unable to support their huge populations.

Where will these "climate refugees" go? Two billion people or more could be headed north, to Europe, Canada, Russia and the US. And the reason would be the failure of the above "developed" nations to come up with a climate change treaty that would alleviate or reverse climate change: climate change they largely caused with two centuries of industrial development!

If climate change was largely caused by us (and Europe), and if its worst effects are felt in places like India and Bolivia, doesn't that make us morally responsible?

This is why the poor, developing nations demand "reparations:" to alleviate the effects of runaway climate change, and to respond to it, despite their own poverty--exacerbated by developed nation policies (led by the US and its corporate elites).

We should stop fooling ourselves: our imperial meddling creates illegal immigration. Two billion more could surge north, because of our inability to deal adequately with climate change. It would be like the Age of Migrations, which brought down the Roman Empire.

The corporations, which profit so handsomely from our imperial policies, should be taxed to fund developing nations' reparations.

Retrospective: Earth Day 2010

It's so beautiful out! But, Spring is a month early.

There was a radio show detailing some of the alternatives scientists have begun to discuss because no political solutions appear possible. The alternatives: bio-engineering to "cool" the earth, to counteract dangerous climate change.

There was some hope, when Obama was elected, that he would reverse US opposition to action to slow climate change. After all, the US was global polluter par none until last year (when China surpassed us). Also, the case that global warming is happening and that humans are largely causing it keeps on getting stronger, despite DC's "snowmageddon."

Further, that we are getting nearer and nearer to major climate tipping points. We may already have surpassed some: for example, massive releases of methane as Arctic permafrost thaws (methane is 25 times more potent than CO2 as an agent promoting global warming). All the predictions of even two years ago have proven too low; the high range forecasts (faster global warming) appear to be the low-range of what has already occurred.

Yet, the meeting on climate change in Copenhagen, in which the US was supposed to lead the world in a global response, was an abject failure. It was in large part because Obama offered only the limp-wristed cap and trade and low-ball cut to emissions that has apparently foundered in the stalemated US Congress. Republicans and corporate Democrats reject even that inadequate response.

So, what to do? Bio-engineering? Will the US unilaterally spray the atmosphere with various additives to make clouds more opaque, or to reduce ocean reflectivity, or…?

If not the US, then who? Russia? China?

Put this way, perhaps you can see the problem: if we can't agree on reducing CO2 emissions, how on earth are humans going to agree on something that is still highly speculative, that might cool the earth, but might just screw up the climate even more?

Parenthetically, the scientist on the above-mentioned radio show let drop that 2 billion people depend on the monsoon rains in South and Southeast Asia. What would they do if the US unilaterally sprayed clouds and the result was that the monsoon rains failed? They'd have to leave, or starve! Two billion desperate people. Oh, and they have nuclear weapons: we're talking about India, Pakistan and southern China.

No wonder US intelligence rated the threat from global warming/climate change as greater than al Qaeda!

Perhaps humans are incapable of cooperating globally. Instead, oil and coal (and other) interests must safeguard profits: they have a lot of money to buy policy-makers: vested interests always do.

Perhaps this will be the epitaph of global civilization: vested interests trumped common sense.

We still have time to redeem Earth Day 2010, but not much time. Forget about the American Empire. We can't replace Ephesus with Constantinople as the Romans did. Some humans may survive, but it might be in caves.