Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
the pc "progressive's" nuclear hero
from suchoon mo:
here is one by NYT. Usually, small mis-rpint or mis-statement has the tendency to let a cat out of bag.
"let one who never sinned cast the first stone."
Nuclear Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate
By MIKE McINTIRE
Published: February 3, 2008
When residents in Illinois voiced outrage two years ago upon learning that the Exelon Corporation had not disclosed radioactive leaks at one of its nuclear plants, the state’s freshman senator, Barack Obama, took up their cause.
John W. Rowe, chairman of Exelon and also of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a lobbying group, has been an Obama donor.
Mr. Obama scolded Exelon and federal regulators for inaction and introduced a bill to require all plant owners to notify state and local authorities immediately of even small leaks. He has boasted of it on the campaign trail, telling a crowd in Iowa in December that it was “the only nuclear legislation that I’ve passed.”
“I just did that last year,” he said, to murmurs of approval.
A close look at the path his legislation took tells a very different story. While he initially fought to advance his bill, even holding up a presidential nomination to try to force a hearing on it, Mr. Obama eventually rewrote it to reflect changes sought by Senate Republicans, Exelon and nuclear regulators. The new bill removed language mandating prompt reporting and simply offered guidance to regulators, whom it charged with addressing the issue of unreported leaks.
Those revisions propelled the bill through a crucial committee. But, contrary to Mr. Obama’s comments in Iowa, it ultimately died amid parliamentary wrangling in the full Senate.
“Senator Obama’s staff was sending us copies of the bill to review, and we could see it weakening with each successive draft,” said Joe Cosgrove, a park district director in Will County, Ill., where low-level radioactive runoff had turned up in groundwater. “The teeth were just taken out of it.”
The history of the bill shows Mr. Obama navigating a home-state controversy that pitted two important constituencies against each other and tested his skills as a legislative infighter. On one side were neighbors of several nuclear plants upset that low-level radioactive leaks had gone unreported for years; on the other was Exelon, the country’s largest nuclear plant operator and one of Mr. Obama’s largest sources of campaign money.
Since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon, which is based in Illinois, have contributed at least $227,000 to Mr. Obama’s campaigns for the United States Senate and for president. Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice president, and John W. Rogers Jr., a director, are among his largest fund-raisers.
Another Obama donor, John W. Rowe, chairman of Exelon, is also chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear power industry’s lobbying group, based in Washington. Exelon’s support for Mr. Obama far exceeds its support for any other presidential candidate.
In addition, Mr. Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, has worked as a consultant to Exelon. A spokeswoman for Exelon said Mr. Axelrod’s company had helped an Exelon subsidiary, Commonwealth Edison, with communications strategy periodically since 2002, but had no involvement in the leak controversy or other nuclear issues.
The Obama campaign said in written responses to questions that Mr. Obama “never discussed this issue or this bill” with Mr. Axelrod. The campaign acknowledged that Exelon executives had met with Mr. Obama’s staff about the bill, as had concerned residents, environmentalists and regulators. It said the revisions resulted not from any influence by Exelon, but as a necessary response to a legislative roadblock put up by Republicans, who controlled the Senate at the time.
“If Senator Obama had listened to industry demands, he wouldn’t have repeatedly criticized Exelon in the press, introduced the bill and then fought for months to get action on it,” the campaign said. “Since he has over a decade of legislative experience, Senator Obama knows that it’s very difficult to pass a perfect bill.”
Asked why Mr. Obama had cited it as an accomplishment while campaigning for president, the campaign noted that after the senator introduced his bill, nuclear plants started making such reports on a voluntary basis. The campaign did not directly address the question of why Mr. Obama had told Iowa voters that the legislation had passed.
Nuclear safety advocates are divided on whether Mr. Obama’s efforts yielded any lasting benefits. David A. Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists agreed that “it took the introduction of the bill in the first place to get a reaction from the industry.”
“But of course because it is all voluntary,” Mr. Lochbaum said, “who’s to say where things will be a few years from now?”
And here is another piece from a different direction.
Another Automaton of the Atomic Lobby
Barack Obama's Nuclear Ambitions
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
and JOSHUA FRANK
It is fast becoming one of the most important issues of the 2008 presidential campaign. Oil prices are expected to rise to even higher levels as the United States dependence on foreign crude is becoming increasingly unstable. And the perceived threat of global warming is making even the most skeptical of politicians nervous. The future of planet Earth, they claim, is more perilous than ever. Al Gore has made an impact.
But the Gore effect is like a bad hangover: all headache no buzz. The purported solution to the imminent warming crisis, nuclear technology, is just as hazardous as our current methods of energy procurement. Al Gore, who wrote of the potential green virtues of nuclear power in his book Earth in the Balance, earned his stripes as a congressman protecting the interests of two of the nuclear industry's most problematic enterprises, the TVA and the Oak Ridge Labs. And, of course, Bill Clinton backed the Entergy Corporation's outrageous plan to soak Arkansas ratepayers with the cost overruns on the company's Grand Gulf reactor which provided power to electricity consumers in Louisiana.
The Clinton years indeed saw an all-out expansion of nuclear power, not only in the US, but all over the globe. First came the deal to begin selling nuclear reactors to China, announced during Jiang Zemin's 1997 visit Washington, even though Zemin brazenly vowed at the time not to abide by the so-called "full scope safeguards" spelled out in the International Atomic Energy Act. The move was apparently made over the objections of Clinton's National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, who cited repeated exports by China of "dual use" technologies to Iran, Pakistan and Iraq. The CIA also weighed in against the deal, pointing out in a report to the President that "China was the single most import supplier of equipment and technology for weapons of mass destruction" worldwide. In a press conference on the deal, Mike McCurry said these nuclear reactors will be "a lot better for the planet than a bunch of dirty coal-fired plants" and will be "a great opportunity for American vendors" -- that is, Westinghouse.
A day later Clinton signed an agreement to begin selling nuclear technology to Brazil and Argentina for the first time since 1978, when Jimmy Carter canceled a previous deal after repeated violations of safety guidelines and nonproliferation agreements.
In a letter to congress, Clinton vouched for the South American countries, saying they had made "a definitive break with earlier ambivalent nuclear policies." Deputy National Security Advisor Jim Steinberg justified the nuclear pact with Brazil and Argentina as "a partnership in developing clean and reliable energy supplies for the future." Steinberg noted that both countries had opposed binding limits on greenhouse emissions and that new nuclear plants would be one way "to take advantage of the fact that today we have technologies available for energy use which were not available at the time that the United States and other developed countries were going through their periods of development."
The atom lobby during the 1990s had a stranglehold on the Clinton administration and now they seem to have the same suffocating grip around the neck of the brightest star in the Democratic field today: Barack Obama.
Barack, for the second quarter in a row, has surpassed the fundraising prowess of Hillary Clinton. To be sure small online donations have propelled the young senator to the top, but so too have his connections to big industry. The Obama campaign, as of late March 2007, has accepted $159,800 from executives and employees of Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear power plant operator.
The Illinois-based company also helped Obama's 2004 senatorial campaign. As Ken Silverstein reported in the November 2006 issue of Harper's, "[Exelon] is Obama's fourth largest patron, having donated a total of $74,350 to his campaigns. During debate on the 2005 energy bill, Obama helped to vote down an amendment that would have killed vast loan guarantees for power-plant operators to develop new energy projects the public will not only pay millions of dollars in loan costs but will risk losing billions of dollars if the companies default."
"Senator Obama has all the necessary leadership skills required to be president,'' says Frank M. Clark, chairman of Exelon's Commonwealth Edison utility.
These gracious accolades come from one of Exelon's top executives, despite the fact that Obama proposed legislation in 2006 that would require nuclear plant operators to report any hazardous leaks. While introducing the legislation Obama noted the failure of Exelon to report a leak of radioactive tritium into groundwater near one of their Illinois plants. But the senator's criticism of nuclear power goes only so far.
During a Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works hearing in 2005, Obama, who serves on the committee, asserted that since Congress was debating the negative impact of CO2 emissions "on the global ecosystem, it is reasonable -- and realistic -- for nuclear power to remain on the table for consideration." Shortly thereafter, Nuclear Notes, the industry's top trade publication, praised the senator. "Back during his campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2004, [Obama] said that he rejected both liberal and conservative labels in favor of 'common sense solutions.' And when it comes to nuclear energy, it seems like the Senator is keeping an open mind."
Sadly for the credibility of the atom lobby, some of their more eye-grabbing numbers don't check out. For example, as noted in a report by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuke industry claims that the world's 447 nuclear plants reduce CO2 emissions by 30 percent. But the true villain behind global warming is carbon. Existing nuclear plants save only about 5 percent of total CO2 emissions, hardly a bargain given the costs and risks associated with nuclear power. Moreover, the nuclear lobby likes to compare its record to coal-fired plants, rather than renewables such as solar, wind, and geothermal. Even when compared to coal, atomic power fails the test if investments are made to increase the efficient use of the existing energy supply. One recent study by the Rocky Mountain Institute found that "even under the most optimistic cost projections for future nuclear electricity, efficiency is found to be 2.5 to 10 times more cost effective for CO2-abatement. Thus, to the extent that investments in nuclear power divert funds away from efficiency, the pursuit of a nuclear response to global warming would effectively exacerbate the problem."
Clearly Senator Obama recognizes the inherent dangers of nuclear technology and knows of the disastrous failures that plagued Chernobyl, Mayak and Three Mile Island. Yet, despite his attempts to alert the public of future toxic nuclear leaks, Obama still considers atomic power a viable alternative to coal-fired plants. The atom lobby must certainly be pleased.
Jeffrey St. Clair is the author of Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: the Politics of Nature and Grand Theft Pentagon. His newest book is End Times: the Death of the Fourth Estate, co-written with Alexander Cockburn. St. Clair's new book on the environment, Born Under a Bad Sky, will be published in December.
Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of the forthcoming Red State Rebels, to be published by AK Press in March 2008.
They can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net
Now, little has been mentioned about "greeder reactor" which literally creates more nuclear fuel as it produces energy. The reactor was initially created at Arco, Idaho.
It is being tested in France and Japan.
The US has the coal supply of about 300 years. So, coal trains are are dumping at power plants and carbon dioxide is spewed out in the manner of giant volcanos. Here is another article about political side of energy issue.
Obama Very Cozy with Nuclear-power and Coal Industries
by Enviro, Mon Feb 04, 2008 at 10:57:46 AM EST
Obama is tight with the nuclear power industry and coal. He has accepted $159,800 in contributions from executives and employees of Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear power-plant operator, for his presidential campaign as of late March 2007, and received notable support from Exelon in his previous political campaigns.
He wants FutureGen's "clean" coal-fired power plant in Illinois. The group doesn't count the energy used before and after the coal is burned. With net energy gain reduced by these processes, you're better off with wind and solar.
Plus he voted FOR Bush 2005 Energy Policy Act, a sweeping, oil-friendly energy bill that gave lots of presents to Bushes friend's in the oil industry. Environmentalist strong opposed it. Hillary voted AGAINST it.
He opposes the House-passed bill that would reform the 1872 Mining Law. That law lets companies mine public lands without paying royalties and doesn't hold them responsible for mine cleanup.
Looks like if Obama wins the presidency , the US will be replacing an oil president with a nuclear-power and coal president.
Musical Landscape
her name is elizabethelizabethelizabethelizabeth
a coal train is coming
a long snaking coal train is coming
a coaltraincoaltraincoaltrainicoaltraiin is coming
elizabeth is watching a coaltrain
elizabeth is watching a coaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltrain
elizabethelizabethelizabethelizabeth is watching
a coaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltrain
where is barbara?
barbara is in a coal train
barbara is in a coaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltrain
barbarabarbarbarabarbarabarbara is in a coaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltrain
here is one by NYT. Usually, small mis-rpint or mis-statement has the tendency to let a cat out of bag.
"let one who never sinned cast the first stone."
Nuclear Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate
By MIKE McINTIRE
Published: February 3, 2008
When residents in Illinois voiced outrage two years ago upon learning that the Exelon Corporation had not disclosed radioactive leaks at one of its nuclear plants, the state’s freshman senator, Barack Obama, took up their cause.
John W. Rowe, chairman of Exelon and also of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a lobbying group, has been an Obama donor.
Mr. Obama scolded Exelon and federal regulators for inaction and introduced a bill to require all plant owners to notify state and local authorities immediately of even small leaks. He has boasted of it on the campaign trail, telling a crowd in Iowa in December that it was “the only nuclear legislation that I’ve passed.”
“I just did that last year,” he said, to murmurs of approval.
A close look at the path his legislation took tells a very different story. While he initially fought to advance his bill, even holding up a presidential nomination to try to force a hearing on it, Mr. Obama eventually rewrote it to reflect changes sought by Senate Republicans, Exelon and nuclear regulators. The new bill removed language mandating prompt reporting and simply offered guidance to regulators, whom it charged with addressing the issue of unreported leaks.
Those revisions propelled the bill through a crucial committee. But, contrary to Mr. Obama’s comments in Iowa, it ultimately died amid parliamentary wrangling in the full Senate.
“Senator Obama’s staff was sending us copies of the bill to review, and we could see it weakening with each successive draft,” said Joe Cosgrove, a park district director in Will County, Ill., where low-level radioactive runoff had turned up in groundwater. “The teeth were just taken out of it.”
The history of the bill shows Mr. Obama navigating a home-state controversy that pitted two important constituencies against each other and tested his skills as a legislative infighter. On one side were neighbors of several nuclear plants upset that low-level radioactive leaks had gone unreported for years; on the other was Exelon, the country’s largest nuclear plant operator and one of Mr. Obama’s largest sources of campaign money.
Since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon, which is based in Illinois, have contributed at least $227,000 to Mr. Obama’s campaigns for the United States Senate and for president. Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice president, and John W. Rogers Jr., a director, are among his largest fund-raisers.
Another Obama donor, John W. Rowe, chairman of Exelon, is also chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear power industry’s lobbying group, based in Washington. Exelon’s support for Mr. Obama far exceeds its support for any other presidential candidate.
In addition, Mr. Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, has worked as a consultant to Exelon. A spokeswoman for Exelon said Mr. Axelrod’s company had helped an Exelon subsidiary, Commonwealth Edison, with communications strategy periodically since 2002, but had no involvement in the leak controversy or other nuclear issues.
The Obama campaign said in written responses to questions that Mr. Obama “never discussed this issue or this bill” with Mr. Axelrod. The campaign acknowledged that Exelon executives had met with Mr. Obama’s staff about the bill, as had concerned residents, environmentalists and regulators. It said the revisions resulted not from any influence by Exelon, but as a necessary response to a legislative roadblock put up by Republicans, who controlled the Senate at the time.
“If Senator Obama had listened to industry demands, he wouldn’t have repeatedly criticized Exelon in the press, introduced the bill and then fought for months to get action on it,” the campaign said. “Since he has over a decade of legislative experience, Senator Obama knows that it’s very difficult to pass a perfect bill.”
Asked why Mr. Obama had cited it as an accomplishment while campaigning for president, the campaign noted that after the senator introduced his bill, nuclear plants started making such reports on a voluntary basis. The campaign did not directly address the question of why Mr. Obama had told Iowa voters that the legislation had passed.
Nuclear safety advocates are divided on whether Mr. Obama’s efforts yielded any lasting benefits. David A. Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists agreed that “it took the introduction of the bill in the first place to get a reaction from the industry.”
“But of course because it is all voluntary,” Mr. Lochbaum said, “who’s to say where things will be a few years from now?”
And here is another piece from a different direction.
Another Automaton of the Atomic Lobby
Barack Obama's Nuclear Ambitions
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
and JOSHUA FRANK
It is fast becoming one of the most important issues of the 2008 presidential campaign. Oil prices are expected to rise to even higher levels as the United States dependence on foreign crude is becoming increasingly unstable. And the perceived threat of global warming is making even the most skeptical of politicians nervous. The future of planet Earth, they claim, is more perilous than ever. Al Gore has made an impact.
But the Gore effect is like a bad hangover: all headache no buzz. The purported solution to the imminent warming crisis, nuclear technology, is just as hazardous as our current methods of energy procurement. Al Gore, who wrote of the potential green virtues of nuclear power in his book Earth in the Balance, earned his stripes as a congressman protecting the interests of two of the nuclear industry's most problematic enterprises, the TVA and the Oak Ridge Labs. And, of course, Bill Clinton backed the Entergy Corporation's outrageous plan to soak Arkansas ratepayers with the cost overruns on the company's Grand Gulf reactor which provided power to electricity consumers in Louisiana.
The Clinton years indeed saw an all-out expansion of nuclear power, not only in the US, but all over the globe. First came the deal to begin selling nuclear reactors to China, announced during Jiang Zemin's 1997 visit Washington, even though Zemin brazenly vowed at the time not to abide by the so-called "full scope safeguards" spelled out in the International Atomic Energy Act. The move was apparently made over the objections of Clinton's National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, who cited repeated exports by China of "dual use" technologies to Iran, Pakistan and Iraq. The CIA also weighed in against the deal, pointing out in a report to the President that "China was the single most import supplier of equipment and technology for weapons of mass destruction" worldwide. In a press conference on the deal, Mike McCurry said these nuclear reactors will be "a lot better for the planet than a bunch of dirty coal-fired plants" and will be "a great opportunity for American vendors" -- that is, Westinghouse.
A day later Clinton signed an agreement to begin selling nuclear technology to Brazil and Argentina for the first time since 1978, when Jimmy Carter canceled a previous deal after repeated violations of safety guidelines and nonproliferation agreements.
In a letter to congress, Clinton vouched for the South American countries, saying they had made "a definitive break with earlier ambivalent nuclear policies." Deputy National Security Advisor Jim Steinberg justified the nuclear pact with Brazil and Argentina as "a partnership in developing clean and reliable energy supplies for the future." Steinberg noted that both countries had opposed binding limits on greenhouse emissions and that new nuclear plants would be one way "to take advantage of the fact that today we have technologies available for energy use which were not available at the time that the United States and other developed countries were going through their periods of development."
The atom lobby during the 1990s had a stranglehold on the Clinton administration and now they seem to have the same suffocating grip around the neck of the brightest star in the Democratic field today: Barack Obama.
Barack, for the second quarter in a row, has surpassed the fundraising prowess of Hillary Clinton. To be sure small online donations have propelled the young senator to the top, but so too have his connections to big industry. The Obama campaign, as of late March 2007, has accepted $159,800 from executives and employees of Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear power plant operator.
The Illinois-based company also helped Obama's 2004 senatorial campaign. As Ken Silverstein reported in the November 2006 issue of Harper's, "[Exelon] is Obama's fourth largest patron, having donated a total of $74,350 to his campaigns. During debate on the 2005 energy bill, Obama helped to vote down an amendment that would have killed vast loan guarantees for power-plant operators to develop new energy projects the public will not only pay millions of dollars in loan costs but will risk losing billions of dollars if the companies default."
"Senator Obama has all the necessary leadership skills required to be president,'' says Frank M. Clark, chairman of Exelon's Commonwealth Edison utility.
These gracious accolades come from one of Exelon's top executives, despite the fact that Obama proposed legislation in 2006 that would require nuclear plant operators to report any hazardous leaks. While introducing the legislation Obama noted the failure of Exelon to report a leak of radioactive tritium into groundwater near one of their Illinois plants. But the senator's criticism of nuclear power goes only so far.
During a Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works hearing in 2005, Obama, who serves on the committee, asserted that since Congress was debating the negative impact of CO2 emissions "on the global ecosystem, it is reasonable -- and realistic -- for nuclear power to remain on the table for consideration." Shortly thereafter, Nuclear Notes, the industry's top trade publication, praised the senator. "Back during his campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2004, [Obama] said that he rejected both liberal and conservative labels in favor of 'common sense solutions.' And when it comes to nuclear energy, it seems like the Senator is keeping an open mind."
Sadly for the credibility of the atom lobby, some of their more eye-grabbing numbers don't check out. For example, as noted in a report by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuke industry claims that the world's 447 nuclear plants reduce CO2 emissions by 30 percent. But the true villain behind global warming is carbon. Existing nuclear plants save only about 5 percent of total CO2 emissions, hardly a bargain given the costs and risks associated with nuclear power. Moreover, the nuclear lobby likes to compare its record to coal-fired plants, rather than renewables such as solar, wind, and geothermal. Even when compared to coal, atomic power fails the test if investments are made to increase the efficient use of the existing energy supply. One recent study by the Rocky Mountain Institute found that "even under the most optimistic cost projections for future nuclear electricity, efficiency is found to be 2.5 to 10 times more cost effective for CO2-abatement. Thus, to the extent that investments in nuclear power divert funds away from efficiency, the pursuit of a nuclear response to global warming would effectively exacerbate the problem."
Clearly Senator Obama recognizes the inherent dangers of nuclear technology and knows of the disastrous failures that plagued Chernobyl, Mayak and Three Mile Island. Yet, despite his attempts to alert the public of future toxic nuclear leaks, Obama still considers atomic power a viable alternative to coal-fired plants. The atom lobby must certainly be pleased.
Jeffrey St. Clair is the author of Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: the Politics of Nature and Grand Theft Pentagon. His newest book is End Times: the Death of the Fourth Estate, co-written with Alexander Cockburn. St. Clair's new book on the environment, Born Under a Bad Sky, will be published in December.
Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of the forthcoming Red State Rebels, to be published by AK Press in March 2008.
They can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net
Now, little has been mentioned about "greeder reactor" which literally creates more nuclear fuel as it produces energy. The reactor was initially created at Arco, Idaho.
It is being tested in France and Japan.
The US has the coal supply of about 300 years. So, coal trains are are dumping at power plants and carbon dioxide is spewed out in the manner of giant volcanos. Here is another article about political side of energy issue.
Obama Very Cozy with Nuclear-power and Coal Industries
by Enviro, Mon Feb 04, 2008 at 10:57:46 AM EST
Obama is tight with the nuclear power industry and coal. He has accepted $159,800 in contributions from executives and employees of Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear power-plant operator, for his presidential campaign as of late March 2007, and received notable support from Exelon in his previous political campaigns.
He wants FutureGen's "clean" coal-fired power plant in Illinois. The group doesn't count the energy used before and after the coal is burned. With net energy gain reduced by these processes, you're better off with wind and solar.
Plus he voted FOR Bush 2005 Energy Policy Act, a sweeping, oil-friendly energy bill that gave lots of presents to Bushes friend's in the oil industry. Environmentalist strong opposed it. Hillary voted AGAINST it.
He opposes the House-passed bill that would reform the 1872 Mining Law. That law lets companies mine public lands without paying royalties and doesn't hold them responsible for mine cleanup.
Looks like if Obama wins the presidency , the US will be replacing an oil president with a nuclear-power and coal president.
Musical Landscape
her name is elizabethelizabethelizabethelizabeth
a coal train is coming
a long snaking coal train is coming
a coaltraincoaltraincoaltrainicoaltraiin is coming
elizabeth is watching a coaltrain
elizabeth is watching a coaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltrain
elizabethelizabethelizabethelizabeth is watching
a coaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltrain
where is barbara?
barbara is in a coal train
barbara is in a coaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltrain
barbarabarbarbarabarbarabarbara is in a coaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltrain
Why Paul Volcker loves Obama
To all Obama Worshippers: Take this as denigration if you will. Keep your blinders on and think I'm a gungho Hillary supporter. I'm not. But this guy is such a fraud I can't stand it.
World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
WSWS : News & Analysis : North America
The two faces of Barack Obama
By Bill Van Auken
14 February 2008
Appearing before a packed auditorium at the University of Wisconsin Tuesday on the night of his victories in the "Potomac primaries," held in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama delivered a speech that was notable for its populist demagogy, not only on the war in Iraq but also social conditions in America.
The Wisconsin rally is the latest in a series of campaign events that have drawn large and predominantly younger crowds--20,000 at the University of Maryland and 17,000 in Virginia Beach on the eve of Tuesday's primaries--and which have seen Obama adopt a more "left"
public face.
The Illinois senator has the instincts of an agitator and seeks to give the crowds what he senses they want. In Wisconsin, he linked "record profits" for Exxon to the rising "price at the pump," provoking enthusiastic applause. He spoke of trade agreements that "ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers for minimum wage at Wal-Mart." And he pledged to be a "president who will listen to Main Street--not just Wall Street; a president who will stand with workers not just when it's easy, but when it's hard."
Turning to the question of Iraq, he declared that "our troops are sent to fight tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and should've never been waged," and derided those who "use 9/11 to scare up votes."
He continued by citing deteriorating social conditions facing average Americans: "the father who goes to work before dawn and then lies awake at night wondering how he's going to pay the bills;" "the woman who told me she works the night shift after a full day at college and still can't afford health care for a sister who's ill;" the retiree "who lost his pension when the company he gave his life to went bankrupt;" and "the teacher who works at Dunkin Donuts after school just to make ends meet."
He responded with promises of tax cuts for working people, health care reform, better pay and a government that would "protect pensions, not CEO bonuses."
Echoing the rhetoric of Martin Luther King, he concluded his speech with the vow that "our dream will not be deferred, our future will not be denied, and our time for change has come."
There is an element in these speeches that would seem to give pause to the Democratic Party establishment and the big business interests it represents. Obama's rhetorical excursions could be seen as leading into dangerous territory. After all, the Democratic Party has served as an indispensable partner in the Bush administration's policies of war abroad and social reaction at home.
But this populist primary rhetoric is only one face of Obama. There is another, and it is turned firmly towards the very corporate interests he publicly criticizes, which have poured tens of millions of dollars into his campaign.
On the day after the Potomac primaries, BusinessWeek ran a special report entitled, "Is Obama Good for Business?" While the piece provided no direct answer to this question, the attitude taken by the business magazine appeared to be a qualified "yes," based in large part on the private discussions that the Illinois senator is holding with top Wall Street and corporate insiders even as he is delivering his public appeals for "change."
Thus, BusinessWeek noted, last Sunday, after learning of his victory in the Maine Democratic caucuses, Obama sat down at his computer to exchange emails with Robert Wolf, CEO of UBS America, one of his major Wall Street "bundlers," responsible for bringing in millions in donations from fellow multi-millionaires to finance what Obama refers to as his "movement." According to estimates made by the Center for Responsive Politics, 80 percent of the money raised by the Obama campaign last year came from donors affiliated with business, with Wall Street leading the pack.
More than half of the money came in the form of donations totaling $2,300 or more.
In addition to Wolf, Obama stays in regular touch with Warren Buffett, the second-wealthiest individual in America, with a net worth of some $52 billion. Among his leading economic advisors is Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago professor and prominent advocate of free market policies.
The Volcker endorsement
Perhaps most significant was last month's little reported endorsement of Obama by Paul Volcker, who was appointed Federal Reserve Board chairman by Democratic President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and remained in charge of the US central bank for nearly seven years under the right-wing Republican administration of Ronald Reagan.
Volcker was responsible for inaugurating a high-interest-rate regime demanded by the dominant sections of finance capital in the name of the battle against inflation. His monetary policy was inextricably linked to the offensive against the working class begun with the firing of the air traffic controllers and the breaking of the PATCO strike and continued with the shutdown of large sections of basic industry and the unleashing of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The ultimate effect of these policies was a vast transfer of wealth from the mass of working people to a narrow financial elite, a process that has continued to this day.
In a statement announcing his backing for Obama, Volcker noted that he had previously avoided involvement in partisan politics. He said that he was moved to intervene now not "by the current turmoil in markets," but because of "the breadth and depth of challenges that face our nation at home and abroad." He added, "Those challenges demand a new leadership and a fresh approach." Obama's leadership, he concluded, would be able to "restore needed confidence in our vision, our strength and our purposes right around the world."
Larry Kudlow, the right-wing pundit and former Reagan administration economic advisor, commented on the endorsement earlier this month, noting that he had once worked as a speechwriter for Volcker and describing him as "a great American... a classic conservative... a man of fiscal and monetary rectitude."
Volcker, Kudlow wrote, "would not have made this endorsement on a whim. Believe me. He never gets involved in these kinds of political decisions." He concluded by asking: "Is Volcker the new Robert Rubin [the Wall Street insider who directed the Clinton administration's economic policy]? Is it possible that Mr. Volcker is somehow tutoring Obama? Is it possible that Obama is more financially conservative than originally believed?"
These are the real relations that are being forged behind the scenes as Obama delivers left phrases from the podium. Those like Volcker see the Illinois senator as a useful vehicle for effecting major changes aimed not at ameliorating the conditions of life for masses of working people, but rather at securing the global interests of American finance capital.
No doubt, they believe Obama, who would be America's first African-American president, is best suited to confront the dangers posed by continuing economic crisis and rising social tensions. Who better to demand even greater sacrifices from the working class, all in the name of national unity and "change?" At the same time, he would present a fresh face to the world, which they hope would help extricate US imperialism from the foreign policy debacles and growing global isolation that are the legacy of the Bush administration.
Given these big business ties, Obama's campaign rhetoric about confronting poverty and social inequality involve a level of cynicism and demagogy that is truly staggering. His incessant promises of change are not tied to any radical economic program that fundamentally challenges the profit interests of the giant corporations and Wall Street.
On the contrary, Obama has advanced a conservative fiscal policy, pledging himself to a "pay as you go" approach and stressing the need to reduce debt and deficits. Given that he would take office with a near-record $400 billion deficit inherited from the Bush administration, this already determines an agenda of austerity measures.
On Wednesday, the candidate toured a General Motors plant in Janesville, Wisconsin and put forward a so-called jobs program involving investments in infrastructure and alternative energy that would total $210 billion over 10 years. In the face of the deep-going crisis confronting American capitalism, this is less than a drop in the bucket--and even this drop would quickly evaporate in the face of demands for deficit reduction.
Those who don't want to talk about capitalism should by rights keep their mouths shut when it comes to poverty and unemployment. One cannot deal with either seriously without confronting the private ownership of society's productive forces and the immense social inequality that it has created. The defense of jobs and living standards, the right to decent housing, health care and education for hundreds of millions of Americans can be advanced only through a far-reaching redistribution of wealth from the super rich to the broad mass of working people.
Clearly, the likes of Wolf, Buffett and Volcker are backing Obama because they know that he has no intention of going anywhere near such a policy.
As for the question of war, those looking to the Obama campaign as a means of ending American militarism will be sorely disappointed. The Illinois Senator has vowed not to reduce the ballooning US military budget--which consumes an estimated $700 billion annually--but rather to increase it. He has called for the recruitment of another 65,000 soldiers for the Army as well as 27,000 more Marines. He has vowed to put "more boots on the ground" in the "war on terror," the pretext invented by the Bush administration to justify "preemptive war," i.e., military aggression aimed at asserting US hegemony over the oil-rich regions of the Middle East and Central Asia.
As for Iraq itself, his promises to end the war are belied by his pledge to keep American forces in Iraq to defend "US interests" and conduct "counterterrorism operations," a formula that would see tens of thousands of US soldiers and Marines continuing to occupy Iraq and repress its population for many years to come.
To the extent that Obama's rhetoric arouses popular expectations--and there are indications that it does--these will inevitably be dashed. In all probability, this will happen once the primary season is over and Obama is confronted by the Republican right as well as elements within the Democratic Party itself with the demand that he clarify his program. Should he capture the White House in November, he will head an administration committed to defending the interests of the American oligarchy both at home and abroad.
Those turning towards the Obama campaign as a means of effecting progressive social change in the US and bringing an end to US militarism abroad will find that the Democratic Party and the corporate and financial interests it represents will allow neither.
These necessary goals can be achieved only through a decisive break with the Democrats and the entire two-party system and the independent mobilization of the working class through the building of a mass socialist movement.
Copyright 1998-2007
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved
World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
WSWS : News & Analysis : North America
The two faces of Barack Obama
By Bill Van Auken
14 February 2008
Appearing before a packed auditorium at the University of Wisconsin Tuesday on the night of his victories in the "Potomac primaries," held in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama delivered a speech that was notable for its populist demagogy, not only on the war in Iraq but also social conditions in America.
The Wisconsin rally is the latest in a series of campaign events that have drawn large and predominantly younger crowds--20,000 at the University of Maryland and 17,000 in Virginia Beach on the eve of Tuesday's primaries--and which have seen Obama adopt a more "left"
public face.
The Illinois senator has the instincts of an agitator and seeks to give the crowds what he senses they want. In Wisconsin, he linked "record profits" for Exxon to the rising "price at the pump," provoking enthusiastic applause. He spoke of trade agreements that "ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers for minimum wage at Wal-Mart." And he pledged to be a "president who will listen to Main Street--not just Wall Street; a president who will stand with workers not just when it's easy, but when it's hard."
Turning to the question of Iraq, he declared that "our troops are sent to fight tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and should've never been waged," and derided those who "use 9/11 to scare up votes."
He continued by citing deteriorating social conditions facing average Americans: "the father who goes to work before dawn and then lies awake at night wondering how he's going to pay the bills;" "the woman who told me she works the night shift after a full day at college and still can't afford health care for a sister who's ill;" the retiree "who lost his pension when the company he gave his life to went bankrupt;" and "the teacher who works at Dunkin Donuts after school just to make ends meet."
He responded with promises of tax cuts for working people, health care reform, better pay and a government that would "protect pensions, not CEO bonuses."
Echoing the rhetoric of Martin Luther King, he concluded his speech with the vow that "our dream will not be deferred, our future will not be denied, and our time for change has come."
There is an element in these speeches that would seem to give pause to the Democratic Party establishment and the big business interests it represents. Obama's rhetorical excursions could be seen as leading into dangerous territory. After all, the Democratic Party has served as an indispensable partner in the Bush administration's policies of war abroad and social reaction at home.
But this populist primary rhetoric is only one face of Obama. There is another, and it is turned firmly towards the very corporate interests he publicly criticizes, which have poured tens of millions of dollars into his campaign.
On the day after the Potomac primaries, BusinessWeek ran a special report entitled, "Is Obama Good for Business?" While the piece provided no direct answer to this question, the attitude taken by the business magazine appeared to be a qualified "yes," based in large part on the private discussions that the Illinois senator is holding with top Wall Street and corporate insiders even as he is delivering his public appeals for "change."
Thus, BusinessWeek noted, last Sunday, after learning of his victory in the Maine Democratic caucuses, Obama sat down at his computer to exchange emails with Robert Wolf, CEO of UBS America, one of his major Wall Street "bundlers," responsible for bringing in millions in donations from fellow multi-millionaires to finance what Obama refers to as his "movement." According to estimates made by the Center for Responsive Politics, 80 percent of the money raised by the Obama campaign last year came from donors affiliated with business, with Wall Street leading the pack.
More than half of the money came in the form of donations totaling $2,300 or more.
In addition to Wolf, Obama stays in regular touch with Warren Buffett, the second-wealthiest individual in America, with a net worth of some $52 billion. Among his leading economic advisors is Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago professor and prominent advocate of free market policies.
The Volcker endorsement
Perhaps most significant was last month's little reported endorsement of Obama by Paul Volcker, who was appointed Federal Reserve Board chairman by Democratic President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and remained in charge of the US central bank for nearly seven years under the right-wing Republican administration of Ronald Reagan.
Volcker was responsible for inaugurating a high-interest-rate regime demanded by the dominant sections of finance capital in the name of the battle against inflation. His monetary policy was inextricably linked to the offensive against the working class begun with the firing of the air traffic controllers and the breaking of the PATCO strike and continued with the shutdown of large sections of basic industry and the unleashing of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The ultimate effect of these policies was a vast transfer of wealth from the mass of working people to a narrow financial elite, a process that has continued to this day.
In a statement announcing his backing for Obama, Volcker noted that he had previously avoided involvement in partisan politics. He said that he was moved to intervene now not "by the current turmoil in markets," but because of "the breadth and depth of challenges that face our nation at home and abroad." He added, "Those challenges demand a new leadership and a fresh approach." Obama's leadership, he concluded, would be able to "restore needed confidence in our vision, our strength and our purposes right around the world."
Larry Kudlow, the right-wing pundit and former Reagan administration economic advisor, commented on the endorsement earlier this month, noting that he had once worked as a speechwriter for Volcker and describing him as "a great American... a classic conservative... a man of fiscal and monetary rectitude."
Volcker, Kudlow wrote, "would not have made this endorsement on a whim. Believe me. He never gets involved in these kinds of political decisions." He concluded by asking: "Is Volcker the new Robert Rubin [the Wall Street insider who directed the Clinton administration's economic policy]? Is it possible that Mr. Volcker is somehow tutoring Obama? Is it possible that Obama is more financially conservative than originally believed?"
These are the real relations that are being forged behind the scenes as Obama delivers left phrases from the podium. Those like Volcker see the Illinois senator as a useful vehicle for effecting major changes aimed not at ameliorating the conditions of life for masses of working people, but rather at securing the global interests of American finance capital.
No doubt, they believe Obama, who would be America's first African-American president, is best suited to confront the dangers posed by continuing economic crisis and rising social tensions. Who better to demand even greater sacrifices from the working class, all in the name of national unity and "change?" At the same time, he would present a fresh face to the world, which they hope would help extricate US imperialism from the foreign policy debacles and growing global isolation that are the legacy of the Bush administration.
Given these big business ties, Obama's campaign rhetoric about confronting poverty and social inequality involve a level of cynicism and demagogy that is truly staggering. His incessant promises of change are not tied to any radical economic program that fundamentally challenges the profit interests of the giant corporations and Wall Street.
On the contrary, Obama has advanced a conservative fiscal policy, pledging himself to a "pay as you go" approach and stressing the need to reduce debt and deficits. Given that he would take office with a near-record $400 billion deficit inherited from the Bush administration, this already determines an agenda of austerity measures.
On Wednesday, the candidate toured a General Motors plant in Janesville, Wisconsin and put forward a so-called jobs program involving investments in infrastructure and alternative energy that would total $210 billion over 10 years. In the face of the deep-going crisis confronting American capitalism, this is less than a drop in the bucket--and even this drop would quickly evaporate in the face of demands for deficit reduction.
Those who don't want to talk about capitalism should by rights keep their mouths shut when it comes to poverty and unemployment. One cannot deal with either seriously without confronting the private ownership of society's productive forces and the immense social inequality that it has created. The defense of jobs and living standards, the right to decent housing, health care and education for hundreds of millions of Americans can be advanced only through a far-reaching redistribution of wealth from the super rich to the broad mass of working people.
Clearly, the likes of Wolf, Buffett and Volcker are backing Obama because they know that he has no intention of going anywhere near such a policy.
As for the question of war, those looking to the Obama campaign as a means of ending American militarism will be sorely disappointed. The Illinois Senator has vowed not to reduce the ballooning US military budget--which consumes an estimated $700 billion annually--but rather to increase it. He has called for the recruitment of another 65,000 soldiers for the Army as well as 27,000 more Marines. He has vowed to put "more boots on the ground" in the "war on terror," the pretext invented by the Bush administration to justify "preemptive war," i.e., military aggression aimed at asserting US hegemony over the oil-rich regions of the Middle East and Central Asia.
As for Iraq itself, his promises to end the war are belied by his pledge to keep American forces in Iraq to defend "US interests" and conduct "counterterrorism operations," a formula that would see tens of thousands of US soldiers and Marines continuing to occupy Iraq and repress its population for many years to come.
To the extent that Obama's rhetoric arouses popular expectations--and there are indications that it does--these will inevitably be dashed. In all probability, this will happen once the primary season is over and Obama is confronted by the Republican right as well as elements within the Democratic Party itself with the demand that he clarify his program. Should he capture the White House in November, he will head an administration committed to defending the interests of the American oligarchy both at home and abroad.
Those turning towards the Obama campaign as a means of effecting progressive social change in the US and bringing an end to US militarism abroad will find that the Democratic Party and the corporate and financial interests it represents will allow neither.
These necessary goals can be achieved only through a decisive break with the Democrats and the entire two-party system and the independent mobilization of the working class through the building of a mass socialist movement.
Copyright 1998-2007
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Reading on March 20th
5th Big CLWN WR Event
Thursday, March 20, 2008
7:00 - 10:00 pm
SAFE-T-GALLERY
Gallery 214
111 Front Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
FREE ADMISSION!!!
featuring
Carol Novack
Liza Wolsky
with special guests
R. Nemo Hill
Sheila Lanham
Richard Loranger
Mindy Levokove
Jane Ormerod
Adriana Scopino
Moira T. Smith
Joanne Pagano Weber
Nathan Whiting
Francine Witte
hosted by Bob Heman
editor of CLWN WR since 1971
Take the F train to York Street, walk downhill to Front and turn left under the Manhattan Bridge. For more information, maps, and directions from other subway lines please check the Gallery website at http://www.safetgallery.com
Thursday, March 20, 2008
7:00 - 10:00 pm
SAFE-T-GALLERY
Gallery 214
111 Front Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
FREE ADMISSION!!!
featuring
Carol Novack
Liza Wolsky
with special guests
R. Nemo Hill
Sheila Lanham
Richard Loranger
Mindy Levokove
Jane Ormerod
Adriana Scopino
Moira T. Smith
Joanne Pagano Weber
Nathan Whiting
Francine Witte
hosted by Bob Heman
editor of CLWN WR since 1971
Take the F train to York Street, walk downhill to Front and turn left under the Manhattan Bridge. For more information, maps, and directions from other subway lines please check the Gallery website at http://www.safetgallery.com
Friday, February 15, 2008
Ok. I'm supporting Hillary Clinton: I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!
After listening to/watching PBS Channel 13 - Tom's hour, with commentaries by a few male journalists, I've decided this is it. One guy, Shield, who thinks it's appropriate that Congress hear evidence re that baseball player's alleged crimes - referred to H. Clinton as: "her claim to fame is her husband." (or substantially similar words). Well, hey, I realize that all of my so-called "progressive" friends are going for Obama, with his empty rhetoric, his messianic messages and little if anything to show substance and record. Who cares that neither he nor Hillary voted on water torture? Who cares that Lieberman's his mentor? Who cares that he voted for the Patriot Act? Who cares that he's pro death penalty and anti same sex marriage? Who cares that his pals are telecommunications bigwigs? Who cares that he's wigwagged on many issues? Who cares that he's got more money than H Clinton ... poured into wooing the super delegates? (hey, where's he getting the dough?) Who cares he's a corporate tool without a cogent healthcare plan? I do. If I have to choose between being a p.c. so-called progressive to back some inexperienced yet charismatic half-black guy, whose ancestors weren't slaves but who's playing the race card big time and duping progressives into thinking he's going to be more effective as a change agent than Hillary, who's been maligned by the big press cause she's an assertive woman, guess whom I'm going to support? This entire campaign makes me ill. We're going to end up with McCain, who knows how to dupe people into thinking he's a liberal. Ha. Good match with Obama, who's duped progressives into thinking he's a progressive. He knows little, yet speaks eloquently. Style without substance. The kiddies love him. MoveOn loves him.
So as much as it makes me not quite ecstatic to support a moderate Democrat who should send her ridiculous husband to an island for the duration of the campaign, I'm resigning myself to doing so, for many reasons, including those already enumerated on this blog --- principally, I don't buy the rhetoric and like a good lawyer, I scrutinize the evidence. This is not a choice between progressives. Face it. Be wary. I've been wary of the Obama PC Cult hype since the getgo. You should be too.
So as much as it makes me not quite ecstatic to support a moderate Democrat who should send her ridiculous husband to an island for the duration of the campaign, I'm resigning myself to doing so, for many reasons, including those already enumerated on this blog --- principally, I don't buy the rhetoric and like a good lawyer, I scrutinize the evidence. This is not a choice between progressives. Face it. Be wary. I've been wary of the Obama PC Cult hype since the getgo. You should be too.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Everyone's Progressive Hero Obama didn't bother to vote against waterboarding
Breaking News and Commentary from Citizens For Legitimate Government
14 Feb 2008
http://www.legitgov.org/
Bill Curbing Terror Interrogators Is Sent to Bush, Who Has Vowed to Veto It 14 Feb 2008 The Senate voted Wednesday to ban waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods tortures that have been used by the Central Intelligence Agency against high-level terrorism suspects. The vote, following House passage of the measure in December, set up a confrontation with President [sic] Bush, who has threatened to veto it. Democratic supporters of the measure hailed its passage and immediately challenged Mr. Bush to veto it, saying that to do so would effectively endorse torture. Democratic presidential candidates Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, did not vote. Republican opponents of the bill were joined by Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, Bush, the Connecticut independent, and Ben Nelson (D-NE).
14 Feb 2008
http://www.legitgov.org/
Bill Curbing Terror Interrogators Is Sent to Bush, Who Has Vowed to Veto It 14 Feb 2008 The Senate voted Wednesday to ban waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods tortures that have been used by the Central Intelligence Agency against high-level terrorism suspects. The vote, following House passage of the measure in December, set up a confrontation with President [sic] Bush, who has threatened to veto it. Democratic supporters of the measure hailed its passage and immediately challenged Mr. Bush to veto it, saying that to do so would effectively endorse torture. Democratic presidential candidates Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, did not vote. Republican opponents of the bill were joined by Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, Bush, the Connecticut independent, and Ben Nelson (D-NE).
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Writing/publication News
With all the nauseating Obama whoopha & the Clinton misogyny, I think I forgot to post news of a personal nature:
1) My first prosey chapbook, "The Architect's Play," will be published by Poets Wear Prada Press by the end of March or beginning of April.
2) My revamped collaborative CD with more music & audio affects by the exquisitely talented Ben Miller and Don C. Meyer (hear a few tracks at myspace) is available for sale via Mad Hatters' Review
.
3) I'll be featured at a CLWN WR reading in Dumbo on MARCH 20TH (details to be posted).
4) I'll be featured in Buffalo, NY on APRIL 3rd (details to be posted).
5) I'll also be reading at the &NOW Festival (andnow.com) at Chapman University, CA (a bastion of rightwing mentality -- an absolutely appropriate venue for a festival of "innovative" writing), APRIL 15th through 17th (details to be posted).
6) I'll be featured in the gifted writer Patricia Eakins's Sunday afternoon series in Riverdale on APRIL 20TH (details forthcoming).
7) The MHR multi-media BENEFIT on MAY 4TH, 4 - 8pm, at The Bowery Poetry Club will be AMAZING. A list of participants will be posted shortly.
8) The delightful, multi-gifted multi-media writer, Sheila E. Murphy, and I completed our first collaborative project, a streamy, fusionary thang called ROOM. We'll begin our next one soon.
9) I'm not busy waiting for my first rejection of "Violet's Dream."
10) Several writings will most likely appear in Romanian translation in a Romanian print and online journal. Details will be provided sooner or later.
11) I am still having fun with "Gated Communities."
12) I LOVE the latest issue of MAD HATTERS' REVIEW!
1) My first prosey chapbook, "The Architect's Play," will be published by Poets Wear Prada Press by the end of March or beginning of April.
2) My revamped collaborative CD with more music & audio affects by the exquisitely talented Ben Miller and Don C. Meyer (hear a few tracks at myspace) is available for sale via Mad Hatters' Review
.
3) I'll be featured at a CLWN WR reading in Dumbo on MARCH 20TH (details to be posted).
4) I'll be featured in Buffalo, NY on APRIL 3rd (details to be posted).
5) I'll also be reading at the &NOW Festival (andnow.com) at Chapman University, CA (a bastion of rightwing mentality -- an absolutely appropriate venue for a festival of "innovative" writing), APRIL 15th through 17th (details to be posted).
6) I'll be featured in the gifted writer Patricia Eakins's Sunday afternoon series in Riverdale on APRIL 20TH (details forthcoming).
7) The MHR multi-media BENEFIT on MAY 4TH, 4 - 8pm, at The Bowery Poetry Club will be AMAZING. A list of participants will be posted shortly.
8) The delightful, multi-gifted multi-media writer, Sheila E. Murphy, and I completed our first collaborative project, a streamy, fusionary thang called ROOM. We'll begin our next one soon.
9) I'm not busy waiting for my first rejection of "Violet's Dream."
10) Several writings will most likely appear in Romanian translation in a Romanian print and online journal. Details will be provided sooner or later.
11) I am still having fun with "Gated Communities."
12) I LOVE the latest issue of MAD HATTERS' REVIEW!
Another Obama Expose + The Urgency of Media Reform
There are plenty of critiques of Hillary R Clinton. I'm more interested in the exposes of Obama, due to his attraction to voters who think he's progressive and are drawn to his youth, vitality, and vapid rhetoric (his speech writers are damn good and he speaks with silver tongue!). Americans and many others have a tendency to go for style over substance - Arnie and Ronnie are good examples of that. Frankly, I don't care for either candidate, as I've said before. There are no choices; either "Democrat," if elected, might prove to be somewhat of an alleviation from Cheney-Bush & co., but unhappily slight - certainly insufficient to undo the damage. The uber capitalistic paradigm of American democracy has failed to provide the constitutional safeguards and benefits we all need. Many of us progressives know that. Yet so many so-called liberals and progressives (eg, moveon) are in denial, wanting desperately to wave a flag and believe in a political messiah. What's the solution when our population doesn't get the truth from the mainstream media? (See, eg, "Former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson says the recent disclosures in the UK's Sunday Times concerning the sale of U.S. nuclear secrets to the foreign black market, as aided by high-ranking government officials, are "stunning." The Brad Blog.) The only possible way out of the seemingly irreversible mess must begin with the transformational takeover of media -- a daunting task, but at least some fearless Internet reporters and investigators are devoting their lives to it. If the people are not educated, the paradigm will remain the same. -- CN
_____________________
from counterpunch.org
Declaration of Independence Day Edition
July 4, 2007
Another Automaton of the Atomic Lobby
Barack Obama's Nuclear Ambitions
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
and JOSHUA FRANK
It is fast becoming one of the most important issues of the 2008 presidential campaign. Oil prices are expected to rise to even higher levels as the United States dependence on foreign crude is becoming increasingly unstable. And the perceived threat of global warming is making even the most skeptical of politicians nervous. The future of planet Earth, they claim, is more perilous than ever. Al Gore has made an impact.
But the Gore effect is like a bad hangover: all headache no buzz. The purported solution to the imminent warming crisis, nuclear technology, is just as hazardous as our current methods of energy procurement. Al Gore, who wrote of the potential green virtues of nuclear power in his book Earth in the Balance, earned his stripes as a congressman protecting the interests of two of the nuclear industry's most problematic enterprises, the TVA and the Oak Ridge Labs. And, of course, Bill Clinton backed the Entergy Corporation's outrageous plan to soak Arkansas ratepayers with the cost overruns on the company's Grand Gulf reactor which provided power to electricity consumers in Louisiana.
The Clinton years indeed saw an all-out expansion of nuclear power, not only in the US, but all over the globe. First came the deal to begin selling nuclear reactors to China, announced during Jiang Zemin's 1997 visit Washington, even though Zemin brazenly vowed at the time not to abide by the so-called "full scope safeguards" spelled out in the International Atomic Energy Act. The move was apparently made over the objections of Clinton's National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, who cited repeated exports by China of "dual use" technologies to Iran, Pakistan and Iraq. The CIA also weighed in against the deal, pointing out in a report to the President that "China was the single most import supplier of equipment and technology for weapons of mass destruction" worldwide. In a press conference on the deal, Mike McCurry said these nuclear reactors will be "a lot better for the planet than a bunch of dirty coal-fired plants" and will be "a great opportunity for American vendors" -- that is, Westinghouse.
A day later Clinton signed an agreement to begin selling nuclear technology to Brazil and Argentina for the first time since 1978, when Jimmy Carter canceled a previous deal after repeated violations of safety guidelines and nonproliferation agreements.
In a letter to congress, Clinton vouched for the South American countries, saying they had made "a definitive break with earlier ambivalent nuclear policies." Deputy National Security Advisor Jim Steinberg justified the nuclear pact with Brazil and Argentina as "a partnership in developing clean and reliable energy supplies for the future." Steinberg noted that both countries had opposed binding limits on greenhouse emissions and that new nuclear plants would be one way "to take advantage of the fact that today we have technologies available for energy use which were not available at the time that the United States and other developed countries were going through their periods of development."
The atom lobby during the 1990s had a stranglehold on the Clinton administration and now they seem to have the same suffocating grip around the neck of the brightest star in the Democratic field today: Barack Obama.
Barack, for the second quarter in a row, has surpassed the fundraising prowess of Hillary Clinton. To be sure small online donations have propelled the young senator to the top, but so too have his connections to big industry. The Obama campaign, as of late March 2007, has accepted $159,800 from executives and employees of Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear power plant operator.
The Illinois-based company also helped Obama's 2004 senatorial campaign. As Ken Silverstein reported in the November 2006 issue of Harper's, "[Exelon] is Obama's fourth largest patron, having donated a total of $74,350 to his campaigns. During debate on the 2005 energy bill, Obama helped to vote down an amendment that would have killed vast loan guarantees for power-plant operators to develop new energy projects the public will not only pay millions of dollars in loan costs but will risk losing billions of dollars if the companies default."
"Senator Obama has all the necessary leadership skills required to be president,'' says Frank M. Clark, chairman of Exelon's Commonwealth Edison utility.
These gracious accolades come from one of Exelon's top executives, despite the fact that Obama proposed legislation in 2006 that would require nuclear plant operators to report any hazardous leaks. While introducing the legislation Obama noted the failure of Exelon to report a leak of radioactive tritium into groundwater near one of their Illinois plants. But the senator's criticism of nuclear power goes only so far.
During a Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works hearing in 2005, Obama, who serves on the committee, asserted that since Congress was debating the negative impact of CO2 emissions "on the global ecosystem, it is reasonable -- and realistic -- for nuclear power to remain on the table for consideration." Shortly thereafter, Nuclear Notes, the industry's top trade publication, praised the senator. "Back during his campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2004, [Obama] said that he rejected both liberal and conservative labels in favor of 'common sense solutions.' And when it comes to nuclear energy, it seems like the Senator is keeping an open mind."
Sadly for the credibility of the atom lobby, some of their more eye-grabbing numbers don't check out. For example, as noted in a report by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuke industry claims that the world's 447 nuclear plants reduce CO2 emissions by 30 percent. But the true villain behind global warming is carbon. Existing nuclear plants save only about 5 percent of total CO2 emissions, hardly a bargain given the costs and risks associated with nuclear power. Moreover, the nuclear lobby likes to compare its record to coal-fired plants, rather than renewables such as solar, wind, and geothermal. Even when compared to coal, atomic power fails the test if investments are made to increase the efficient use of the existing energy supply. One recent study by the Rocky Mountain Institute found that "even under the most optimistic cost projections for future nuclear electricity, efficiency is found to be 2.5 to 10 times more cost effective for CO2-abatement. Thus, to the extent that investments in nuclear power divert funds away from efficiency, the pursuit of a nuclear response to global warming would effectively exacerbate the problem."
Clearly Senator Obama recognizes the inherent dangers of nuclear technology and knows of the disastrous failures that plagued Chernobyl, Mayak and Three Mile Island. Yet, despite his attempts to alert the public of future toxic nuclear leaks, Obama still considers atomic power a viable alternative to coal-fired plants. The atom lobby must certainly be pleased.
Jeffrey St. Clair is the author of Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: the Politics of Nature and Grand Theft Pentagon. His newest book is End Times: the Death of the Fourth Estate, co-written with Alexander Cockburn. St. Clair's new book on the environment, Born Under a Bad Sky, will be published in December.
Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of the forthcoming Red State Rebels, to be published by AK Press in March 2008.
They can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net
_____________________
from counterpunch.org
Declaration of Independence Day Edition
July 4, 2007
Another Automaton of the Atomic Lobby
Barack Obama's Nuclear Ambitions
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
and JOSHUA FRANK
It is fast becoming one of the most important issues of the 2008 presidential campaign. Oil prices are expected to rise to even higher levels as the United States dependence on foreign crude is becoming increasingly unstable. And the perceived threat of global warming is making even the most skeptical of politicians nervous. The future of planet Earth, they claim, is more perilous than ever. Al Gore has made an impact.
But the Gore effect is like a bad hangover: all headache no buzz. The purported solution to the imminent warming crisis, nuclear technology, is just as hazardous as our current methods of energy procurement. Al Gore, who wrote of the potential green virtues of nuclear power in his book Earth in the Balance, earned his stripes as a congressman protecting the interests of two of the nuclear industry's most problematic enterprises, the TVA and the Oak Ridge Labs. And, of course, Bill Clinton backed the Entergy Corporation's outrageous plan to soak Arkansas ratepayers with the cost overruns on the company's Grand Gulf reactor which provided power to electricity consumers in Louisiana.
The Clinton years indeed saw an all-out expansion of nuclear power, not only in the US, but all over the globe. First came the deal to begin selling nuclear reactors to China, announced during Jiang Zemin's 1997 visit Washington, even though Zemin brazenly vowed at the time not to abide by the so-called "full scope safeguards" spelled out in the International Atomic Energy Act. The move was apparently made over the objections of Clinton's National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, who cited repeated exports by China of "dual use" technologies to Iran, Pakistan and Iraq. The CIA also weighed in against the deal, pointing out in a report to the President that "China was the single most import supplier of equipment and technology for weapons of mass destruction" worldwide. In a press conference on the deal, Mike McCurry said these nuclear reactors will be "a lot better for the planet than a bunch of dirty coal-fired plants" and will be "a great opportunity for American vendors" -- that is, Westinghouse.
A day later Clinton signed an agreement to begin selling nuclear technology to Brazil and Argentina for the first time since 1978, when Jimmy Carter canceled a previous deal after repeated violations of safety guidelines and nonproliferation agreements.
In a letter to congress, Clinton vouched for the South American countries, saying they had made "a definitive break with earlier ambivalent nuclear policies." Deputy National Security Advisor Jim Steinberg justified the nuclear pact with Brazil and Argentina as "a partnership in developing clean and reliable energy supplies for the future." Steinberg noted that both countries had opposed binding limits on greenhouse emissions and that new nuclear plants would be one way "to take advantage of the fact that today we have technologies available for energy use which were not available at the time that the United States and other developed countries were going through their periods of development."
The atom lobby during the 1990s had a stranglehold on the Clinton administration and now they seem to have the same suffocating grip around the neck of the brightest star in the Democratic field today: Barack Obama.
Barack, for the second quarter in a row, has surpassed the fundraising prowess of Hillary Clinton. To be sure small online donations have propelled the young senator to the top, but so too have his connections to big industry. The Obama campaign, as of late March 2007, has accepted $159,800 from executives and employees of Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear power plant operator.
The Illinois-based company also helped Obama's 2004 senatorial campaign. As Ken Silverstein reported in the November 2006 issue of Harper's, "[Exelon] is Obama's fourth largest patron, having donated a total of $74,350 to his campaigns. During debate on the 2005 energy bill, Obama helped to vote down an amendment that would have killed vast loan guarantees for power-plant operators to develop new energy projects the public will not only pay millions of dollars in loan costs but will risk losing billions of dollars if the companies default."
"Senator Obama has all the necessary leadership skills required to be president,'' says Frank M. Clark, chairman of Exelon's Commonwealth Edison utility.
These gracious accolades come from one of Exelon's top executives, despite the fact that Obama proposed legislation in 2006 that would require nuclear plant operators to report any hazardous leaks. While introducing the legislation Obama noted the failure of Exelon to report a leak of radioactive tritium into groundwater near one of their Illinois plants. But the senator's criticism of nuclear power goes only so far.
During a Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works hearing in 2005, Obama, who serves on the committee, asserted that since Congress was debating the negative impact of CO2 emissions "on the global ecosystem, it is reasonable -- and realistic -- for nuclear power to remain on the table for consideration." Shortly thereafter, Nuclear Notes, the industry's top trade publication, praised the senator. "Back during his campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2004, [Obama] said that he rejected both liberal and conservative labels in favor of 'common sense solutions.' And when it comes to nuclear energy, it seems like the Senator is keeping an open mind."
Sadly for the credibility of the atom lobby, some of their more eye-grabbing numbers don't check out. For example, as noted in a report by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuke industry claims that the world's 447 nuclear plants reduce CO2 emissions by 30 percent. But the true villain behind global warming is carbon. Existing nuclear plants save only about 5 percent of total CO2 emissions, hardly a bargain given the costs and risks associated with nuclear power. Moreover, the nuclear lobby likes to compare its record to coal-fired plants, rather than renewables such as solar, wind, and geothermal. Even when compared to coal, atomic power fails the test if investments are made to increase the efficient use of the existing energy supply. One recent study by the Rocky Mountain Institute found that "even under the most optimistic cost projections for future nuclear electricity, efficiency is found to be 2.5 to 10 times more cost effective for CO2-abatement. Thus, to the extent that investments in nuclear power divert funds away from efficiency, the pursuit of a nuclear response to global warming would effectively exacerbate the problem."
Clearly Senator Obama recognizes the inherent dangers of nuclear technology and knows of the disastrous failures that plagued Chernobyl, Mayak and Three Mile Island. Yet, despite his attempts to alert the public of future toxic nuclear leaks, Obama still considers atomic power a viable alternative to coal-fired plants. The atom lobby must certainly be pleased.
Jeffrey St. Clair is the author of Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: the Politics of Nature and Grand Theft Pentagon. His newest book is End Times: the Death of the Fourth Estate, co-written with Alexander Cockburn. St. Clair's new book on the environment, Born Under a Bad Sky, will be published in December.
Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of the forthcoming Red State Rebels, to be published by AK Press in March 2008.
They can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net
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