Avaaz email update about copenhagen
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Lila Smith
Dec 21, 2009, 12:02:26 AM12/21/09
to monbiot-google
these words from the Avaaz email update
about Copenhagen.
PS - There were some opening champagne in Copenhagen
today. The polluting industry lobbyists and corporations -- those who have
captured our democracies and divided our leaders -- celebrated their victory.
They operated quietly in the shadows, but their voices were loud in some
politicians' ears. As they drank their champagne their one concern may have been
us - the potential of our new people-powered movement. In fact, they're
already launching an attempt to silence us, and next week, we'll take our fight
to the heart of this powerful polluter lobby - watch out for the email...
Lila Smith
www.windwand.co.nz
Taranaki Tourism Website
www.windwand.co.nz/organickitchengarden.htm
Organic Kitchen Gardening
Mob 021230 7962
06 7512942
122 Ngamotu Road
New Plymouth
New Zealand
www.windwand.co.nz
Taranaki Tourism Website
www.windwand.co.nz/organickitchengarden.htm
Organic Kitchen Gardening
Mob 021230 7962
06 7512942
122 Ngamotu Road
New Plymouth
New Zealand
V Wood
Dec 21, 2009, 4:15:32 AM12/21/09
to Monbiot List
In light of the 'historic and unprecedented' world agreement reached at Brokenhagen last week, this tops it off nicely.
Best
V
(trying hard not to become a cynic)
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/20-3
Published on Sunday, December 20, 2009 by Agence France Presse
Global Warming Hike May Be Steeper: Research
PARIS - Global temperatures could rise substantially more because of
increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than previously thought,
according to a new study by US and Chinese scientists released Sunday.
![[A woman looks at a giant globe at the Bella Center in Copenhagen on December 16. Pledges tabled so far at the UN climate talks for curbing greenhouse-gas emissions would doom the world to warming of as much as three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit), an internal UN memo showed Thursday.(AFP/File/Attila Kisbenedek)]](https://ci4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/BSNOj2zdbtwVQgr-T1ux3FHpCO-V30SZQjNalLe45LKyZegperGNXrm2Gkzj6jW1nN7XUfRkO1ORj7TaqFdFssl5YqdkC9AEx6k1zbPClBRS54xfFw=s0-d-e1-ft#http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/emissions-2_0.jpg "emissions-2.jpg")
A
woman looks at a giant globe at the Bella Center in Copenhagen on
December 16. Pledges tabled so far at the UN climate talks for curbing
greenhouse-gas emissions would doom the world to warming of as much as
three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit), an internal UN memo
showed Thursday.(AFP/File/Attila Kisbenedek)The researchers used
a long-term model for assessing climate change, confirming a similar
British study released this month that said calculations for man-made
global warming may be underestimated by between 30 and 50 percent.The
new study published online by Nature Geoscience focused on a period
three to five million years ago -- the most recent episode of sustained
global warming with geography similar to today's, a Yale University
statement said.
This was in order to look at the Earth's long-term sensitivity to climate fluctuation, including in changes to continental icesheets and vegetation cover on land.
More common estimates for climate change are based on relatively rapid feedback to increases in carbon dioxide, such as changes to sea ice and atmospheric water vapour.
Using sediment drilled from the ocean floor, the scientists' reconstruction of carbon dioxide concentrations found that "a relatively small rise in CO2 levels was associated with substantial global warming 4.5 million years ago."
They also found that the global temperature was between two and three degrees Celsius (3.6 and 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than today even though carbon dioxide levels were similar to the current ones, the statement said.
"This work and other ancient climate reconstructions reveal that Earth's climate is more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than is discussed in political circles," said the paper's lead author, Yale's Mark Pagani.
"Since there is no indication that the future will behave differently than the past, we should expect a couple of degrees of continued warming even if we held CO2 concentrations at the current level," he said in the statement.
The study was published on the heels of a 12-day UN conference in Copenhagen that was aimed at providing a durable solution to the greenhouse-gas problem and its disastrous consequences but was labelled a failure by critics.
The meeting set a commitment to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), but did not spell out the important stepping stones -- global emissions targets for 2020 or 2050 -- for getting there.
The British study released on December 6 had also researched the Pliocene era, between three to five million years ago.
A
woman looks at a giant globe at the Bella Center in Copenhagen on
December 16. Pledges tabled so far at the UN climate talks for curbing
greenhouse-gas emissions would doom the world to warming of as much as
three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit), an internal UN memo
showed Thursday.(AFP/File/Attila Kisbenedek)This was in order to look at the Earth's long-term sensitivity to climate fluctuation, including in changes to continental icesheets and vegetation cover on land.
More common estimates for climate change are based on relatively rapid feedback to increases in carbon dioxide, such as changes to sea ice and atmospheric water vapour.
Using sediment drilled from the ocean floor, the scientists' reconstruction of carbon dioxide concentrations found that "a relatively small rise in CO2 levels was associated with substantial global warming 4.5 million years ago."
They also found that the global temperature was between two and three degrees Celsius (3.6 and 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than today even though carbon dioxide levels were similar to the current ones, the statement said.
"This work and other ancient climate reconstructions reveal that Earth's climate is more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than is discussed in political circles," said the paper's lead author, Yale's Mark Pagani.
"Since there is no indication that the future will behave differently than the past, we should expect a couple of degrees of continued warming even if we held CO2 concentrations at the current level," he said in the statement.
The study was published on the heels of a 12-day UN conference in Copenhagen that was aimed at providing a durable solution to the greenhouse-gas problem and its disastrous consequences but was labelled a failure by critics.
The meeting set a commitment to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), but did not spell out the important stepping stones -- global emissions targets for 2020 or 2050 -- for getting there.
The British study released on December 6 had also researched the Pliocene era, between three to five million years ago.
V Wood
Dec 21, 2009, 4:19:55 AM12/21/09
to Monbiot List
After the criminal Republicans, Obama and the Democrats are leaving America without hope and deeply angered.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/20-8
Published on Sunday, December 20, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Now I’m Really Getting Pissed Off
by David Michael Green
Hey
did you hear about the iconic African-American guy who plays golf, and
whose relationship with the public is in a free-fall lately?
No, as a matter of fact - I'm not talking about Tiger Woods.
You know, I've really been trying not to write an article every other week about all the things I don't like about Barack Obama.
But the little prick is making it very hard.
Like any good progressive, I've gone from admiration to hope to disappointment to anger when it comes to this president. Now I'm fast getting to rage.
How much rage? I find myself thinking that the thing I want most from the 2010 elections is for his party to get absolutely clobbered, even if that means a repeat of 1994. And that what I most want from 2012 is for him to be utterly humiliated, even if that means President Palin at the helm. That much rage.
Did this clown really say on national television that "I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of you know, fat cat bankers on Wall Street"?!?!
Really, Barack? So, like, my question is: Then why the hell did you help out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street?!?! Why the hell did you surround yourself with nothing but Robert Rubin proteges in all the key economic positions in your government? Why did you allow them to open a Washington branch of Goldman Sachs in the West Wing? Why have your policies been tailored to helping Wall Street bankers, rather than the other 300 million of us, who just happen to be suffering badly right now?
Are you freakin' kidding me??? What's up with the passive president routine, anyhow, Fool? You hold the most powerful position in the world. Or maybe Rahm forgot to mention that to you. Or maybe the fat cat bankers don't actually let do that whole decision-making thing often enough that it would actually matter...
But, really, are you going to spend the next three interminable years perfecting your whiney victim persona? I don't really think I could bear that. Hearing you complain about how rough it all is, when you have vastly more power than any of us to fix it? Please. Not that.
Are you going to tell us that "I did not run for office to be shovel-feeding the military-industrial complex"? But what - they're just so darned pushy?
"...I did not run for office to continue George Bush's valiant effort at shredding the Bill of Rights. It's just that those government-limiting rules are so darned pesky."
"...I did not run for office to dump a ton of taxpayer money into the coffers of health insurance companies. It's just that they asked so nicely."
"...I did not run for office to block equality for gay Americans. I just never got around to doing anything about it."
"...I did not run for office to turn Afghanistan into Vietnam. I just didn't want to say no to all the nice generals asking for more troops."
Here's a guy who was supposed to actually do something with his presidency, and he's turned into the skinny little geek on Cell Block D who gets passed around like a rag doll for the pleasure of all the fellas with the tattoos there. He's being punked by John Boehner, for chrisakes. He's being rolled by the likes of Joe Lieberman. He calls a come-to-Jesus meeting with Wall Street bank CEOs, and half of them literally phone it in. Everyone from Bibi Netanyahu to the Japanese prime minister to sundry Iranian mullahs is stomping all over Mr. Happy.
And he doesn't even seem to realize it.
Did you see him tell Oprah that he gave himself "a good solid B+" for his first year in office? And that it will be an A, if he gets his healthcare legislation passed?
Somebody please pick me up and set me back on my chair, wouldya?
I am seriously beginning to worry that this cat is delusional. He has lopped off twenty full points from his job approval rating in less than a year's time, falling now below fifty percent. His party, once dominant in generic congressional election poll questions, is today almost even with hated Republicans in the public mind. Last month, Obama's inverted coattails (don't even ask where those go) got two Democrats clobbered running for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. The otherwise obnoxious George F. Will (very) rightly points out that in Kentucky, "a Republican candidate succeeded in nationalizing a state Senate race. Hugely outspent in a district in which Democrats have a lopsided registration advantage, the Republican won by 12 points a seat in Frankfort by running against Washington". Wow. Obama is now wrecking state senate races! What's next? Will local Republican candidates for sheriff win office just by opposing the embarrassment in the White House who chooses abysmal policies and then refuses to fight for them, lest he should ruffle any feathers?
"For Democrats, the red flags are flying at full mast," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart in a recent AP article. "What we don't know for certain is: Have we reached a bottoming-out point?"
Au contraire, Peter. Au contraire. I think anyone more sentient than a newborn amoeba can answer that question. The first thing to note is that the economy is not coming back anytime soon, if it comes back at all. Unless, of course, you're a fat cat Wall Street banker. Then you're just fine, because the Bush-Obama administration took care of you quite nicely, thanks very much. The rest of us poor slobs out here in real-world land, on the other hand, got a "jobs summit".
I can't even begin to describe how insulting Obama conducting a "jobs summit" is to me, or what an unbelievably ham-fisted piece of public relations that was for the White House, which is increasingly showing itself not just to be sickeningly regressive, but also fully inept. I think I speak for a whole lot of Americans when I say that, one year into his stewardship over a destroyed economy that was actually atomizing for at least six months before inauguration day, I don't want my president sitting around a table, running a dog-and-pony show, pretending to kick around ideas on how to generate jobs. I wanted him to have those ideas, himself, before he was inaugurated. I wanted those to be real ideas, that produce real jobs for real Americans who are really hurting. I wanted that to be, and still be, the be-all and end-all of his presidency, not some distant fourth-place priority, behind healthcare and the White House dog selection process. And, especially not some fourth-place priority behind jive healthcare reform.
Which brings us to the second answer to Mr. Hart's question. If Democrats think they'll be screwed next November because of unemployment, wait till Congress passes this healthcare monstrosity. Or doesn't. At this point, either way they're gonna get slammed for it, and rightly so.
If they don't pass anything, they will be seen as unable to govern. This perception will be quite true because they will have failed to pass a major piece of legislation, despite having 60-40 majorities in both houses of Congress and control of the presidency. It doesn't get much better than that for a governing party in the American system. But it will be true in an even more profound sense, because the whole priority structure of the Democratic agenda is wrong. Sure, people want healthcare reform right now (especially if it were to miraculously also have the virtue of being authentic healthcare reform), but what they really want, overwhelmingly, is jobs. This choice of priorities is the equivalent of, say, invading Iraq when you've been attacked by people in Afghanistan. Surely no president would be that stupid, right? Surely any political party would realize the costs of having priorities so divorced from those of the voters, right?
On the other hand, the Democrats and their hapless president are probably in worse shape if they actually pass this legislation. Especially now that it's been stripped of nearly every real progressive reform imaginable, it has become an incredibly stupid bill, from the political perspective. It will force people who can't afford it to spend a giant amount of money on lousy insurance, without any real choice to hold down costs, and it will fund this by hacking away at the Medicare budget. No wonder an insurance industry lobbyist broadcast an email last week declaring: "We WIN. Administered by private insurance companies. No government funding. No government insurance competitor."
But here's a little riddle that any sixth-grader can easily figure out, although it seems to have eluded the brain trust at the White House: If insurance companies are winning big-time, then who is doing the losing? Something tells me that if Democrats are dumb enough to pass their own legislation, voters will provide them the answer to that puzzle in November of 2010, and then again two years later. What could be stupider than saddling thirty-five million Americans with a new monthly bill that will probably represent the second or third biggest item in their budget, in exchange for crappy private sector health insurance that is unlikely to pay out when needed, and wastes a third of the dollars paid in premiums on bureaucracy and profits anyhow? Slapping big fines on them if they don't pony up for the insurance, perhaps? Yep, that's in there too.
This bill alone could mobilize legions of people to go to the polls and vote for whichever party didn't do it, and I'm pretty sure the GOP won't be shy about reminding Americans who that is. I mean, if Democrats were searching for legislation less likely to win them votes, why didn't they just bring back slavery or the debtor's prison? Why not come out for pedophilia? It would have been so much more efficient. At least they wouldn't have spent the last year looking like idiotic bunglers who, in addition to sponsoring really unpopular ideas, also inadvertently left their testicles at the coat check and have spent the last thirty years trying to find their way back to the gala.
Ah, but wait! If you order now, there's more!
As I understand it, the bill doesn't even actually force insurance companies to cover people, at least in the sense that they can charge prohibitive amounts to those with whatever they define as pre-existing conditions. You know, like the young woman who had a policy but died when she was denied cancer treatment because she had a bad case of acne as a teenager.
This will be a total train wreck for the Democratic Party. Already, the public opposes the plan by a ratio of 47 to 32 percent. And they haven't even been handed the bill for it yet. And they haven't even had their premiums skyrocket yet. And they haven't even seen insurance corporation executives buy small countries for use as second homes with the increased compensation they will be floating in. And they haven't even found out what this does to their Medicare yet. And they haven't even seen the impact on the national debt yet. And they haven't even realized that the ‘good' parts of the bill don't go into effect until FOUR YEARS from now.
You know, elite Republicans may be sociopaths, and they may be lower on the moral totem pole than your basic cannibal, but they're not stupid. I bet they're salivating at the idea that this thing passes. I bet they'd even have Olympia Snowe vote for it if necessary, just to put it over the top. They must be laughing their asses off at this gift. All they have to do is oppose it right down the line, then say "Told ya so!" at the next election, squashing the pathetic Demognats, one after the next. Hey, even if worse comes to worse and the thing eventually becomes popular, they can always wait a decade or two and become champions of the new publically beloved healthcare system - just like they did for Medicare, Social Security, civil rights, etc.
This is President Nothingburger's great gift to America, along with doing nothing about jobs, doing nothing about the Middle East, nothing about civil liberties, nothing about civil rights, and now doing nothing at Copenhagen. Regarding the latter, the world is literally on fire, and he jets in, gives a speech haranguing the delegates that "Now is not the time for talk, now is the time for action", then splits even before the vote in order to beat the snowstorm headed to the east coast that might delay him getting home to his comfy bed. I'm not kidding. You can't make this shit up, man.
This guy is killing me, though at the same time I still can't quite figure him out.
Here's what I get: This president is a corporate hack. Like Bush or Clinton, he has constituents, alright - but you and I are not on that particular list.
Here's what I don't get: He is radically tanking, at a moment when people no longer have patience for those kind of politics anymore.
Here's what I get: This president has his fingers in many pies, as he needs to, ranging from global warming to economic implosion to two wars abroad to massive federal debt.
Here's what I don't get: Why does he bother to do these things in a way that pleases no one, and only dramatically undercuts his own political standing? Why does he refuse to make anyone his enemy, thus making everyone his enemy?
Is he just massively deluded? I wouldn't have thought so, but watching the guy give himself a very good grade for 2009 - straight face and all - during the same year he's lost twenty points off his job approval rating, and at a moment when even blacks and gays are deserting him, you know, you have to wonder.
Is he happy just to be a one-term president - just to say he's been there and done that, and then sell some more books - even if he is reviled as one of the worst in history?
Maybe. But what about the rest of us?
The rest of us, indeed. It's been quite some time since anyone in the White House ever cared about that sorry pack of rabble.
Obama looked like he could've been something different. He ain't.
So this is it, folks.
Change you can believe in?
More like bullshit you can take a bath in, if you ask me.
No, as a matter of fact - I'm not talking about Tiger Woods.
You know, I've really been trying not to write an article every other week about all the things I don't like about Barack Obama.
But the little prick is making it very hard.
Like any good progressive, I've gone from admiration to hope to disappointment to anger when it comes to this president. Now I'm fast getting to rage.
How much rage? I find myself thinking that the thing I want most from the 2010 elections is for his party to get absolutely clobbered, even if that means a repeat of 1994. And that what I most want from 2012 is for him to be utterly humiliated, even if that means President Palin at the helm. That much rage.
Did this clown really say on national television that "I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of you know, fat cat bankers on Wall Street"?!?!
Really, Barack? So, like, my question is: Then why the hell did you help out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street?!?! Why the hell did you surround yourself with nothing but Robert Rubin proteges in all the key economic positions in your government? Why did you allow them to open a Washington branch of Goldman Sachs in the West Wing? Why have your policies been tailored to helping Wall Street bankers, rather than the other 300 million of us, who just happen to be suffering badly right now?
Are you freakin' kidding me??? What's up with the passive president routine, anyhow, Fool? You hold the most powerful position in the world. Or maybe Rahm forgot to mention that to you. Or maybe the fat cat bankers don't actually let do that whole decision-making thing often enough that it would actually matter...
But, really, are you going to spend the next three interminable years perfecting your whiney victim persona? I don't really think I could bear that. Hearing you complain about how rough it all is, when you have vastly more power than any of us to fix it? Please. Not that.
Are you going to tell us that "I did not run for office to be shovel-feeding the military-industrial complex"? But what - they're just so darned pushy?
"...I did not run for office to continue George Bush's valiant effort at shredding the Bill of Rights. It's just that those government-limiting rules are so darned pesky."
"...I did not run for office to dump a ton of taxpayer money into the coffers of health insurance companies. It's just that they asked so nicely."
"...I did not run for office to block equality for gay Americans. I just never got around to doing anything about it."
"...I did not run for office to turn Afghanistan into Vietnam. I just didn't want to say no to all the nice generals asking for more troops."
Here's a guy who was supposed to actually do something with his presidency, and he's turned into the skinny little geek on Cell Block D who gets passed around like a rag doll for the pleasure of all the fellas with the tattoos there. He's being punked by John Boehner, for chrisakes. He's being rolled by the likes of Joe Lieberman. He calls a come-to-Jesus meeting with Wall Street bank CEOs, and half of them literally phone it in. Everyone from Bibi Netanyahu to the Japanese prime minister to sundry Iranian mullahs is stomping all over Mr. Happy.
And he doesn't even seem to realize it.
Did you see him tell Oprah that he gave himself "a good solid B+" for his first year in office? And that it will be an A, if he gets his healthcare legislation passed?
Somebody please pick me up and set me back on my chair, wouldya?
I am seriously beginning to worry that this cat is delusional. He has lopped off twenty full points from his job approval rating in less than a year's time, falling now below fifty percent. His party, once dominant in generic congressional election poll questions, is today almost even with hated Republicans in the public mind. Last month, Obama's inverted coattails (don't even ask where those go) got two Democrats clobbered running for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. The otherwise obnoxious George F. Will (very) rightly points out that in Kentucky, "a Republican candidate succeeded in nationalizing a state Senate race. Hugely outspent in a district in which Democrats have a lopsided registration advantage, the Republican won by 12 points a seat in Frankfort by running against Washington". Wow. Obama is now wrecking state senate races! What's next? Will local Republican candidates for sheriff win office just by opposing the embarrassment in the White House who chooses abysmal policies and then refuses to fight for them, lest he should ruffle any feathers?
"For Democrats, the red flags are flying at full mast," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart in a recent AP article. "What we don't know for certain is: Have we reached a bottoming-out point?"
Au contraire, Peter. Au contraire. I think anyone more sentient than a newborn amoeba can answer that question. The first thing to note is that the economy is not coming back anytime soon, if it comes back at all. Unless, of course, you're a fat cat Wall Street banker. Then you're just fine, because the Bush-Obama administration took care of you quite nicely, thanks very much. The rest of us poor slobs out here in real-world land, on the other hand, got a "jobs summit".
I can't even begin to describe how insulting Obama conducting a "jobs summit" is to me, or what an unbelievably ham-fisted piece of public relations that was for the White House, which is increasingly showing itself not just to be sickeningly regressive, but also fully inept. I think I speak for a whole lot of Americans when I say that, one year into his stewardship over a destroyed economy that was actually atomizing for at least six months before inauguration day, I don't want my president sitting around a table, running a dog-and-pony show, pretending to kick around ideas on how to generate jobs. I wanted him to have those ideas, himself, before he was inaugurated. I wanted those to be real ideas, that produce real jobs for real Americans who are really hurting. I wanted that to be, and still be, the be-all and end-all of his presidency, not some distant fourth-place priority, behind healthcare and the White House dog selection process. And, especially not some fourth-place priority behind jive healthcare reform.
Which brings us to the second answer to Mr. Hart's question. If Democrats think they'll be screwed next November because of unemployment, wait till Congress passes this healthcare monstrosity. Or doesn't. At this point, either way they're gonna get slammed for it, and rightly so.
If they don't pass anything, they will be seen as unable to govern. This perception will be quite true because they will have failed to pass a major piece of legislation, despite having 60-40 majorities in both houses of Congress and control of the presidency. It doesn't get much better than that for a governing party in the American system. But it will be true in an even more profound sense, because the whole priority structure of the Democratic agenda is wrong. Sure, people want healthcare reform right now (especially if it were to miraculously also have the virtue of being authentic healthcare reform), but what they really want, overwhelmingly, is jobs. This choice of priorities is the equivalent of, say, invading Iraq when you've been attacked by people in Afghanistan. Surely no president would be that stupid, right? Surely any political party would realize the costs of having priorities so divorced from those of the voters, right?
On the other hand, the Democrats and their hapless president are probably in worse shape if they actually pass this legislation. Especially now that it's been stripped of nearly every real progressive reform imaginable, it has become an incredibly stupid bill, from the political perspective. It will force people who can't afford it to spend a giant amount of money on lousy insurance, without any real choice to hold down costs, and it will fund this by hacking away at the Medicare budget. No wonder an insurance industry lobbyist broadcast an email last week declaring: "We WIN. Administered by private insurance companies. No government funding. No government insurance competitor."
But here's a little riddle that any sixth-grader can easily figure out, although it seems to have eluded the brain trust at the White House: If insurance companies are winning big-time, then who is doing the losing? Something tells me that if Democrats are dumb enough to pass their own legislation, voters will provide them the answer to that puzzle in November of 2010, and then again two years later. What could be stupider than saddling thirty-five million Americans with a new monthly bill that will probably represent the second or third biggest item in their budget, in exchange for crappy private sector health insurance that is unlikely to pay out when needed, and wastes a third of the dollars paid in premiums on bureaucracy and profits anyhow? Slapping big fines on them if they don't pony up for the insurance, perhaps? Yep, that's in there too.
This bill alone could mobilize legions of people to go to the polls and vote for whichever party didn't do it, and I'm pretty sure the GOP won't be shy about reminding Americans who that is. I mean, if Democrats were searching for legislation less likely to win them votes, why didn't they just bring back slavery or the debtor's prison? Why not come out for pedophilia? It would have been so much more efficient. At least they wouldn't have spent the last year looking like idiotic bunglers who, in addition to sponsoring really unpopular ideas, also inadvertently left their testicles at the coat check and have spent the last thirty years trying to find their way back to the gala.
Ah, but wait! If you order now, there's more!
As I understand it, the bill doesn't even actually force insurance companies to cover people, at least in the sense that they can charge prohibitive amounts to those with whatever they define as pre-existing conditions. You know, like the young woman who had a policy but died when she was denied cancer treatment because she had a bad case of acne as a teenager.
This will be a total train wreck for the Democratic Party. Already, the public opposes the plan by a ratio of 47 to 32 percent. And they haven't even been handed the bill for it yet. And they haven't even had their premiums skyrocket yet. And they haven't even seen insurance corporation executives buy small countries for use as second homes with the increased compensation they will be floating in. And they haven't even found out what this does to their Medicare yet. And they haven't even seen the impact on the national debt yet. And they haven't even realized that the ‘good' parts of the bill don't go into effect until FOUR YEARS from now.
You know, elite Republicans may be sociopaths, and they may be lower on the moral totem pole than your basic cannibal, but they're not stupid. I bet they're salivating at the idea that this thing passes. I bet they'd even have Olympia Snowe vote for it if necessary, just to put it over the top. They must be laughing their asses off at this gift. All they have to do is oppose it right down the line, then say "Told ya so!" at the next election, squashing the pathetic Demognats, one after the next. Hey, even if worse comes to worse and the thing eventually becomes popular, they can always wait a decade or two and become champions of the new publically beloved healthcare system - just like they did for Medicare, Social Security, civil rights, etc.
This is President Nothingburger's great gift to America, along with doing nothing about jobs, doing nothing about the Middle East, nothing about civil liberties, nothing about civil rights, and now doing nothing at Copenhagen. Regarding the latter, the world is literally on fire, and he jets in, gives a speech haranguing the delegates that "Now is not the time for talk, now is the time for action", then splits even before the vote in order to beat the snowstorm headed to the east coast that might delay him getting home to his comfy bed. I'm not kidding. You can't make this shit up, man.
This guy is killing me, though at the same time I still can't quite figure him out.
Here's what I get: This president is a corporate hack. Like Bush or Clinton, he has constituents, alright - but you and I are not on that particular list.
Here's what I don't get: He is radically tanking, at a moment when people no longer have patience for those kind of politics anymore.
Here's what I get: This president has his fingers in many pies, as he needs to, ranging from global warming to economic implosion to two wars abroad to massive federal debt.
Here's what I don't get: Why does he bother to do these things in a way that pleases no one, and only dramatically undercuts his own political standing? Why does he refuse to make anyone his enemy, thus making everyone his enemy?
Is he just massively deluded? I wouldn't have thought so, but watching the guy give himself a very good grade for 2009 - straight face and all - during the same year he's lost twenty points off his job approval rating, and at a moment when even blacks and gays are deserting him, you know, you have to wonder.
Is he happy just to be a one-term president - just to say he's been there and done that, and then sell some more books - even if he is reviled as one of the worst in history?
Maybe. But what about the rest of us?
The rest of us, indeed. It's been quite some time since anyone in the White House ever cared about that sorry pack of rabble.
Obama looked like he could've been something different. He ain't.
So this is it, folks.
Change you can believe in?
More like bullshit you can take a bath in, if you ask me.
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (mailto:d...@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.
Lila Smith
Dec 21, 2009, 4:44:26 AM12/21/09
to monbiot...@googlegroups.com
Gee I wonder what he thinks of Pres
Bush right now?
Lila Smith
www.windwand.co.nz
Taranaki Tourism Website
www.windwand.co.nz/organickitchengarden.htm
Organic Kitchen Gardening
Mob 021230 7962
06 7512942
122 Ngamotu Road
New Plymouth
New Zealand
www.windwand.co.nz
Taranaki Tourism Website
www.windwand.co.nz/organickitchengarden.htm
Organic Kitchen Gardening
Mob 021230 7962
06 7512942
122 Ngamotu Road
New Plymouth
New Zealand
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Joan Sutherland
Dec 21, 2009, 9:02:57 AM12/21/09
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Thanks Lila for this view inside -chilling as it is, it's our reality and it's good to keep it in mind. I follow Avaaz too. I found myself asking something just now that I hadn't considered before-does anyone know if there is a predicted ceiling temperature in the future beyond which global warming won't go? I believe population levels are supposed to level and drop sometime in the near future, and that would slow the increasing use of fossil fuels. Is there a number somewhere for carbon and temperature?
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Joan
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Joan Sutherland
Allegra Strings
"classical music for classy events since 1992"
man...@allegrastrings.com
www.allegrastrings.com
Kingston, ON
613.329.1763
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Joan Sutherland
Allegra Strings
"classical music for classy events since 1992"
man...@allegrastrings.com
www.allegrastrings.com
Kingston, ON
613.329.1763
Joan Sutherland
Dec 21, 2009, 4:08:38 PM12/21/09
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....."Hearing you complain about how rough it all is, when you have vastly more power than any of us to fix it?"......
The North American world today is really really different from that of 100 even 50 years ago. I personally don't really believe that any President has the kind of power you seem to want them to have unless they were aligned before they took office with those that actually do wield power no matter who they are or what party they align themselves with. I can only imagine that power follows the big bucks as well as it follows distinctly fascist perspectives on the world and on the directions humanity should take going into the future. Any president, no matter how mightily the public adores them and nominates them, must be aligned with that power base to appear to be acting successfully as a leader. But the smaller circles of those who hold power are swifly moving every day away from a legitimate connection to their 'base' - the natural and social environements, and I would suspect that they will dig in as hard as they possibly can to resist the changes ordinary people already see and are already acting on.
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TM Printing Ltd
Dec 22, 2009, 5:04:46 AM12/22/09
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On 21 Noll 2009, at 21:08, Joan Sutherland wrote:
and I would suspect that they will dig in as hard as they possibly can to resist the changes ordinary people already see and are already acting on.
+1 Joan. This has been the patter for some time now. The concentration of wealth in the top couple of % is an awesome indication.
David
Karen Jemmett
Dec 31, 2009, 12:11:30 PM12/31/09
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Hi Victor, Lila and everyone.
Just wanted to wish you all a very Happy New Year. I haven't been on the site for months and am amazed that you are all still here, frankly!
I graduated well in the end, thank God. Not that it will make one blind bit of difference to the life of a confirmed anarchist like me. The workplace only criminalizes you, anyway - either that or it turns you into a killer nerd on behalf of a discredited nation state. Thankfully, sociology has saved me from that particular branch of hell. I'm learning blues guitar now...
Hope you are all keeping healthy and happy. I've become outrageously fit since completing my national service (degree) and can now run up hills for a sustained period of time. I have the heart rate of someone much younger than my years and will probably spend the next decade watching my contempories die like insects. There's a cheering thought, huh? I've also become ruthlessly independent and uncompromising in my relationships. In fact, I've never felt so strong... just as well, considering what's coming, I sup-pose?
Anyway, stay away from the doctors and you should survive another year, friends.
Warm regards,
Karen
2009/12/21 V Wood <victo...@hotmail.com>
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