A View From Down Under

Here's an interesting piece from Australia following their recent election, where the Labor Party took control from the Liberal Party and John Howard. Note that in Australia what they call the Liberal Party is actually the conservative party. Labor is the middle-left.

The writer, Steve Biddulph, sees a major shift early in the next decade, where the right will virtually disappear from the scene, Labor will be the new middle right, and the Greens will be the opposition. He sees gains coming for the Greens simply because environmental concerns will become too glaring to ignore any longer. Interesting thought -- if anybody from Australia catches this post, I'd like to hear your take on it.

So, if it plays out that way, does that signal changes world-wide over the next few election cycles where business as usual will fall by the wayside and Green politics will begin a steady rise? Hmm...

A Fine New Blog

It's always a pleasure to come across a good new blog. I discovered Red Montana earlier today, and though some of you have already found it, I'll take a moment here to pass it along.

I don't often come across a good, solid communist blog, but here's one. From Butte. Check him out.

Welcome to Montana jjack. I look forward to what you have to say.

Those Bastards

What else can you say, short of launching into a long stream of obscenities, about something like this?

My Kind Of Holiday

I kind of like Thanksgiving. It's a time to get together with a few folks and reflect on what we all have to be thankful for. And we do have plenty.

We don't make a huge deal of it here at my place. My daughter loves to plan these kinds of things, so I let her plan it. She's good. She takes care of all the details -- who's coming, where we're going to sit, what we're going to eat -- all of it. There's not much left for me to do. Just pay for the food, cook it, and clean up afterwards. Simple. We'll usually have a couple of strays over who otherwise have no place else to go, eat a reasonably good meal, I'll send them off with a sack of leftovers, and we all end up happy. A good time of year. Besides, I get a couple of days off.

But that's not the holiday I'm talking about today. There's this one that always has me chortling with glee. It's the 15th annual Buy Nothing Day here in the US, an anti-shopping day which was started by Kalle Lasn of Adbusters as a protest to the runaway consumerism that is threatening to choke the life right out of our society. It will be observed internationally tomorrow. It's not something you hear about much on the news, but there are some interesting things going on. Maybe someday, soon I hope, we'll finally figure out that this chronic and ever-increasing consumption of stuff isn't good for us. Shane has a good post today at Montana Netroots related to this, and I urge you to go read it. Meanwhile I'm going to kick back and enjoy another day of no shopping.

I have one other suggestion for Buy Nothing Day, whichever day you want to observe it, one we could all do if we wanted to. First of all stay home. Don't shop. Then make an estimate, it doesn't really have to be very accurate, of what you might have spent had you gone to the stores. Then take that amount, or even a fraction of it, and send it here as soon as you can. That's what I intend to do. Happy holiday everyone.

Talk About A Fringe Candidate!

When we hear about fringe candidates we usually think of guys like Ron Paul, or maybe Dennis Kucinich. Here's a guy though that puts them all to shame.

Insignificant. But More Than A Hobby

I've been part of the Montana 'sphere for a while now. A year and a half or so I guess. I'm not one of those that believes, and never have been, that us bloggers really make much of a difference. I think our influence is minor at best. To be honest, I do this for myself. If it reaches someone, fine. If not, that's fine too. I'm not going to change the world. I have no illusions about that.

Yet at the same time I feel that this is more than a hobby as some say it is. It's a way to communicate thoughts and ideas to others, a basic need of us humans. We can reach others, others can reach us, and that is a valuable thing. Is that a contradiction? Not really being important, but at the same time being valuable? I don't know. Doesn't really matter I guess. I do it anyway. I'm just speaking my mind, and I do it now on-screen like this rather than in public. Whenever I'd do that someone would invariably start swinging at me, and I can't take the beating anymore. It's much safer and easier this way.

That said, I'll attempt some of that communication. My adult life has been based on three main concerns, and I have done my best to live accordingly. These aren't my only concerns, not by a long shot, but they have been a common thread for nearly forty years now.

• I believe in preserving wilderness. As much as we can while we still can. Much more than we have. The wild is our home, and without it I truly believe we will eventually go insane and destroy ourselves. The signs of that are already evident.

• Beyond wilderness protection, or better yet hand in hand with it because it's really the same thing, I believe in protecting and preserving the life-support system of this planet. That should go without saying, but our way of life seems to blithely ignore that little detail. We need to protect our water and our air and our climate and other living things. Without a healthy planet we're dead. Period.

• I've spent years turning over rocks and beating the bushes looking for political candidates who will seriously address these things. I don't mean someone who pays them occasional lip service. I look for someone who will admit that we face some tough choices, who won't trot out a bunch of BS about doing it painlessly, and will roll up their sleeves and get to work. I haven't seen that yet, at least not from the dominant parties, and honestly I don't expect to. I may be tilting at windmills again, but I look toward the Greens.

All of this is a fairly long-winded way to point out that I've added new Green links and a Green blogwire to this site. If you're so inclined, take a look through them. Some are political, others show ways we can live in a more sane manner. I think they're all worth spending a little time with, and I'll add more as I come across them. Will any of it make a difference? Well, like I said at the beginning of all this, I have my doubts. But it is sharing thoughts and ideas, and that never hurts. And that's about enough valuable communication for now. Have a good and safe holiday folks.

FOE Action Alert

I receive regular email alerts from Friends of the Earth concerning various environmental outrages with links to what we can all do. I will post them here as I get them. Feel free to take action if you so choose.

The latest is about the use of bunker fuel, which is about the dirtiest and nastiest form of oil known. It is the asphalt-like sludge left when crude oil is refined, and is primarily used to fuel ships. A big spill, 58,000 gallons, happened in San Francisco Bay the other day and could affect the marine life there for months or years to come.

Here's what's being done:

SIGN OUR PETITION TO END BUNKER FUEL USE Petition text: Bunker fuel is a toxic, asphalt-like substance that is causing air pollution and global warming, harming marine life, and damaging human health and the environment. I join with Friends of the Earth in calling on Congress to require the cruise and shipping industries to end their use of this dirty fuel and transition to cleaner alternatives.

On November 7, a container ship crashed into the San Francisco Bay Bridge and spilled an estimated 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel -- a tragedy of immense proportions that creates both immediate and long-term threats to marine life in and around the bay.

Today, Friends of the Earth is calling on Congress to ban the use of this dirty fuel forever. Will you join our call?

Bunker fuel literally comes from the bottom of the barrel. It is the asphalt-like gunk that's left over after crude oil is refined into gasoline for cars and is especially damaging when spilled in accidents.* Even when used as intended, though -- to power cruise and cargo ships -- it is extremely harmful. Indeed, a study released just last week found that more than 60,000 people died from shipping emissions in 2002, due in large part to the use of bunker fuel, which is more than 1,000 times dirtier than the highway diesel used by trucks and buses. Its reliance on this dirty fuel is also a key reason that the shipping industry is a major global warming polluter.

Friends of the Earth's Clean Vessels Campaign has been leading the fight against shipping pollution for years, at the local level, nationally, and in the international arena, and phasing out the use of bunker fuel has been one of our key aims. Now, this dirty fuel has led to a disaster in the San Francisco Bay. Let's ensure that this tragedy isn't repeated and phase out this dirty fuel forever.

Please sign our petition calling for an end to bunker fuel use today.

Danielle Fugere, Friends of the Earth
(Our superb vessels campaign director, Teri Shore, is on a leave of absence working with FoE Australia on this important set of issues.)

The petition can be found at: http://action.foe.org/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=816

*As Gerald Graham, an on-scene oil spill commander for the Canadian coast guard, told the San Francisco Chronicle, bunker fuel "is the nastiest stuff around. … It doesn't tend to break down very quickly. … It's cheap, and it's dirty. If the wind happens to blow it out into a channel or bay, it could spread, and then you could have miles of shoreline that could be affected."

Hanging Out With Mountain Goats

Some years back I lived for a while up the East Fork of the Bitterroot in the Sapphire Mountains, a couple of miles or so off the edge of the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness. I spent about five or six summers up there, and every year around the summer solstice I would come across a band of several mountain goats. It was like clockwork -- they would come down from high up in the Sapphires to where the grass and bushes were starting to green up, and then follow the new growth back up to the high country as the snow receded. Every year I would spend about a week hanging out with them. Or to be more accurate, they hung out with me. I never tried to get very close -- I was content to sit in the rocks about a hundred yards or so away from them and just watch. Invariably they would gradually wander over to me and lounge around, sometimes as close as six to eight feet away. They didn't fear me, I didn't fear them, and we all got along great.

I met this little guy in the photo the first year I saw the goats. At first he was a little leery of me and would come over and do this tough-guy act for a moment and then run back and hide behind his mother. Curiosity would always get the best of him though, and he'd be back again, just yards away. Soon he was following me everywhere I went. Mama was a little leery of me at first too, but she soon became used to me and paid me no mind even when her little one was tagging along at my heels. The last time I saw him, five or six years later, he was growing into a fine looking billy, and though he didn't hang with mama anymore he did hang with the band. I could always recognize him by the distinctive gait he had, impossible to explain but just as impossible to miss. And he'd remember me. He always came over to see me, and he always stayed close by.

I've been a lucky man. As I age I'll have a vast store of wilderness memories to reflect on. Those times spent hanging out with a band of mountain goats will rank very high on my memory list.

Nader vs The 'Corporados'

What the hell happened? Did Ralph Nader suddenly sprout horns, grow a pointed tail, and start carrying a pitchfork or something? Here's a man who has worked for the public interest for decades. A man who ran a gutsy Green Party campaign in 2000 that excited and energized a lot of people. A man who was muzzled and obstructed by the entrenched political powers in all his presidential runs, and isn't afraid to file lawsuits to bring to the attention of the American people the lengths that those entrenched powers will go to to squash any real opposition. For this he gets vilified and demonized. The fact that in spite of all he's accomplished over the years, we'd rather turn on him and point the finger of blame is disgusting. That we'd rather blame him for Bush II and call him an egomaniac and a megalomaniac than to listen to what he has to say speaks worse of us than it does him.

Is Ralph Nader a megalomaniac? An egotistical menace? Naaww. I don't think so. What I do think is that Ralph Nader may well be the last public figure with the balls to stand up to and expose the dark bloated underbelly of the beast with two right wings, and the 'corporados' who control it.

Green, And Getting Greener

I'm not going to waste a lot of time here over the next year rattling on about the upcoming presidential election. I'll do a little bit though -- it's fun to sharpen a stick now and then and jab it into the hole. You never know what you might annoy.

I've been participating in this quadrennial circus for quite a while now. Next year will be my tenth presidential election. I'm still waiting for someone to offer up more than the same old tired slogans. You know the ones -- It's Time For A Change. America Deserves Better. We Can Enjoy Unlimited Growth And Protect The Environment -- and on and on. Yet little changes, except maybe to get worse.

2008 doesn't promise to be any different. The choices are largely determined already, and I get that sinking feeling in the pit of my gut like I do every four years. Is this the best we can do? It's beginning to look that way. It's said among Democrats, and with some truth, that the Democrats are a better choice than the Republicans, so we should support the Democratic Party. Better is relative though, and in this case the difference is marginal. We need fundamentally different, not marginally better.

Over the years I've voted for Democrats for the most part. Not always, but for the most part. I've voted Green when the opportunity has been there to do so, but mostly it's been Dems, and mostly as a default setting. But it's getting harder and harder to do that. My conscience is making it harder to choose the lesser of two evils when what we need is radically better. The lesser of two evils isn't good enough. We should know that by now.

The Green Party platform contains their ten key values, and that's what I look for in a candidate. How closely do they hold to these principles? I don't see much. Occasional lip service once in a while, maybe, but not much. I'm going to put up those values here in their entirety:

10 KEY VALUES

1. GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY

Every human being deserves a say in the decisions that affect his or her life and should not be subject to the will of another. Therefore, we will work to increase public participation at every level of government and to ensure that our public representatives are fully accountable to the people who elect them. We will also work to create new types of political organizations which expand the process of participatory democracy by directly including citizens in the decision-making process.

2. SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

All persons should have the rights and opportunity to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment. We must consciously confront in ourselves, our organizations, and society at large, barriers such as racism and class oppression, sexism and homophobia, ageism and disability, which act to deny fair treatment and equal justice under the law.

3. ECOLOGICAL WISDOM

Human societies must operate with the understanding that we are part of nature, not separate from nature.

We must maintain an ecological balance and live within the ecological and resource limits of our communities and our planet. We support a sustainable society which utilizes resources in such a way that future generations will benefit and not suffer from the practices of our generation. To this end we must practice agriculture which replenishes the soil; move to an energy efficient economy; and live in ways that respect the integrity of natural systems.

4. NON-VIOLENCE

It is essential that we develop effective alternatives to society's current patterns of violence. We will work to demilitarize, and eliminate weapons of mass destruction, without being naive about the intentions of other governments.

We recognize the need for self-defense and the defense of others who are in helpless situations. We promote non-violent methods to oppose practices and policies with which we disagree, and will guide our actions toward lasting personal, community and global peace.

5. DECENTRALIZATION

Centralization of wealth and power contributes to social and economic injustice, environmental destruction, and militarization. Therefore, we support a restructuring of social, political and economic institutions away from a system which is controlled by and mostly benefits the powerful few, to a democratic, less bureaucratic system. Decision-making should, as much as possible, remain at the individual and local level, while assuring that civil rights are protected for all citizens.

6. COMMUNITY BASED ECONOMICS

Redesign our work structures to encourage employee ownership and workplace democracy. Develop new economic activities and institutions that will allow us to use our new technologies in ways that are humane, freeing, ecological and accountable, and responsive to communities.

Establish some form of basic economic security, open to all.

Move beyond the narrow "job ethic" to new definitions of "work," jobs" and "income" that reflect the changing economy.

Restructure our patterns of income distribution to reflect the wealth created by those outside the formal monetary economy: those who take responsibility for parenting, housekeeping, home gardens, community volunteer work, etc.

Restrict the size and concentrated power of corporations without discouraging superior efficiency or technological innovation.

7. FEMINISM AND GENDER EQUITY

We have inherited a social system based on male domination of politics and economics. We call for the replacement of the cultural ethics of domination and control with more cooperative ways of interacting that respect differences of opinion and gender. Human values such as equity between the sexes, interpersonal responsibility, and honesty must be developed with moral conscience. We should remember that the process that determines our decisions and actions is just as important as achieving the outcome we want.

8. RESPECT FOR DIVERSITY

We believe it is important to value cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual, religious and spiritual diversity, and to promote the development of respectful relationships across these lines.

We believe that the many diverse elements of society should be reflected in our organizations and decision-making bodies, and we support the leadership of people who have been traditionally closed out of leadership roles. We acknowledge and encourage respect for other life forms than our own and the preservation of biodiversity.

9. PERSONAL AND GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY

We encourage individuals to act to improve their personal well-being and, at the same time, to enhance ecological balance and social harmony. We seek to join with people and organizations around the world to foster peace, economic justice, and the health of the planet.

10. FUTURE FOCUS AND SUSTAINABILITY

Our actions and policies should be motivated by long-term goals. We seek to protect valuable natural resources, safely disposing of or "unmaking" all waste we create, while developing a sustainable economics that does not depend on continual expansion for survival. We must counterbalance the drive for short-term profits by assuring that economic development, new technologies, and fiscal policies are responsible to future generations who will inherit the results of our actions.

Make the quality of life, rather than open-ended economic growth, the focus of future thinking.

You don't hear this from the Republican Party. Nor do you hear it from the Democrats. They say pretty much what the Republicans do. They may change a lyric a little bit here and there, but they sing the same old song. We're at a turning point now where bold vision and bold leadership are needed to guide us in the right direction. We're not getting it from either mainstream party. A minor tweak to either the right or the left won't be enough, and neither party offers much hope for fundamental change. That's why my heart is with the Green Party. Maybe my vote will be too.