To make “corn gas” or put another way “GMO gas” as it might be called, it takes from 3.5 to 5 gallons of water to make one gallon of GMO gas, but how much oil does it take to make the pesticides and the energy that is needed to create GMO gas? And of course we don’t need to mention how Vilsack cut the legs out from under local communities in Iowa who would have liked to take a stand on some of these issues by signing that bill that “outlawed” any local control regarding “seeds”.

In a way what Vilsack is proposing is replacing one form of pollution with another form of pollution. Corporate America is going to do - no is doing to promote more tech solutions for the tech-knowledge mayhem they (the corporate tech Mafia) have already created. They are campaigning for a new “greased grove road” that will only end in another dead end and a more weaken “Earth Community”.

How do we construct a response to all this madness? Where is the “Earth Jurisprudence” that would allow us to point out what Monsanto/Vilsack are up too? To objectify this and then turn it into more of the same tech crap that got us into the mess we are presently in, is just another from of insanity. We all know what the definition of insanity is, don’t we? “in·san·i·ty n 1. extreme foolishness or an act that demonstrates it 2. legal incompetence or irresponsibility because of a psychiatric disorder

Here’s The Article

What’s the connection to GMO corn, not to hard to figure out is it.

Here’s another angle via YouTube on our King Vilsack

- Posted by Frank Arundel

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Frank,

You have put your finger on it: the only candidates and the only “solutions” we are offered are ones that continue the charade, while destroying human and nature’s communities. Vilsack and “GMO gas” are the latest flavor combination being offered on a menu that serves only pre-packaged and shrink-wrapped “food” for non-thought. Allowing nature to be nature and people to make decisions for their own communities is beyond the imagining of a culture based on domination of all by a few. Those who refuse to choose from among the “alternative” forms of political and industrial “solutions” are labeled misfits, malcontents, eco-terrorists or worse.

Off-putting as are the labels, I don’t see how Earth Jurisprudence (or whatever term is used to indicate symbiotic sanity rather than parasitic insanity) can ascend to the status of a real alternative until people take seriously their individual responsibilities, and perhaps more to the point their competence to participate actively in changing the way decisions are made for their own communities. Many of us travel far and wide, attend conferences and lectures, post insightful papers and wise essays, and share a vision of sane justice for living systems that seldom becomes the basis for governing decisions. Thinking globally, we generally fail to act at all, often on the premise that without a few well-placed global “wins” we can’t save the planet. So we wait for the right candidate, the right policy, the best compromise and a lucky break.

Not one of us doesn’t live in a particular place. Not one of us doesn’t breath particular air, drink from a particular stream, make choices about where the particular food we eat comes from. Not many of us believe we have the right, the authority, the competence, the clout to make governing decisions about the particular stream, air, food source on which we depend for life. Or if we do believe it, we talk about it to like-minded out-of-towners. We create a tragic sub-culture of victims.

But what if people in the communities where we live did believe they have the right, the authority, the competence, and the clout, and then acted on that sense of authority, with confidence? What if majorities of people who depend on a particular stream, field, breeze, acted within the framework of that ecology, as stewards and participants, with rights and responsibilities in it and on its behalf? What if we, in the places where we live, refused to obey laws and policies that usurp those rights and responsibilities?

Though posed hypothetically, these “what ifs” are not meant hypothetically, and here and there some communities are beginning to take seriously their responsibilities, authority and competency to reject the technological “alternatives” offered as the only legal choices, and to assert the authority and right and competency to make decisions that escape the treadmill of “production above all else.” It is possible for communities to refuse the role of resource colony for the commodification of every thing, and it is more necessary than ever for communities to assert self-governance that rejects orthodox choices among the lesser of the proposed evils.

If we don’t exercise our responsibilities, our authority to self-govern, right where we live, do we imagine we can do it on the global scale? Do we really believe our best ideas, our most well articulated plans will or should be embraced and applied to all communities, when we can not implement them right where we live? Should we leave it to the national governing structure and continue to beg to be heard in the halls of power? Are we jealous to replace the status quo with our own vision, bypassing via some watershed election or stealth candidate the informed consent of everyone effected by the changes we think most appropriate? Do we distrust our judgement on these matters so much that we wouldn’t dream of trying out our ideas in our own community first, by educating our neighbors and joining with them in local self-governing decisions that implement the community’s best ideas as binding law? How indeed do we construct a response to the madness of false choices, if we refuse to act where we have power to act, and if we remain afraid to make a stand where we are and where we live? Are we going to wait for everyone to agree everywhere before we dare? Is it possible to lead by example? Who are we waiting for?

- Posted by BenGPrice@aol.com, CELDF

Some politispam making its way around the internet these days. At least the right wing is getting a little more creative these days and not just falling back on the old classic “Don’t vote for no n****r” routine from generations past.

By the way, do you think the person that wrote this has ever used the word “Muslim” without “radical” in front of it? (and we aren’t even beginning to touch on the discriminatory premise inherent in this whole thing, that simply being Muslim would in itself pose some kind of threat to American society).

Interesting…… Everyone needs to know this before going to the polls.

Subject: LET US REMAIN ALERT………………..

Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a Muslim from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, an atheist from Wichita, Kansas.
Obama’s parents met at the University of Hawaii.

When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced.
His father returned to Kenya.
His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a radical Muslim from Indonesia.
When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia.
Obama attended a Muslim school in Jakarta.
He also spent two years in a Catholic school.

Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim.
He is quick to point out that he was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school.

Obama’s political handlers are attempting to make it appear that Obama’s introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this influence was temporary at best.
In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son’s education.
Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obamas mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam.
Osama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta.
Wahabism is the radical teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world.

Since it is politically expedient to be a Christian when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background.

Let us all remain alert concerning Obamas expected presidential candidacy.

You can find a rebuttal to this here at snopes.com

You’re a decider, George? Come on, get real. You haven’t made a serious decision in your entire life about anything more vital than what brand of beer to guzzle or what grade of cocaine to snort. Strutting around the White House claiming to be ‘the Decider’ is a laugh and a half, George. You said it before and no one cared. You said it again today and it’s just as pathetic. So, just what is it you’ve actually decided?

Face, it George, for six years now, you’ve been unable to make a single decision about anything that made a difference to any of us. From day one, others made the decisions and you just followed along as best you could Karl (Houdini) Rove was the one who decided your public image, the Supreme Court decided your election, hackable Diebold machines decided your second term, the religious right decided your domestic policy and PNAC decided your war plans. So, when did you buy in to that nonsense about being a “Decider,” George?

But, okay, George, - we’ll play along with you. Let’s pretend for the moment that you actually have some historical background, some worldly knowledge, some international experience, or some intellectual curiosity – a few of the things that are really needed to make important decisions in this time of crisis. Let’s look at just a FEW of the less than impressive decisions that were made during your presidency and see if you will really take responsibility for making them:

Think on it, George, if you are truly the DECIDER, then it was YOU who decided:

TO KEEP CHENEY’S ENERGY MEETINGS SECRET FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO THIS DAY

TO THREATEN BOMBING THE TALIBAN - BEFORE 9/11 - UNLESS THEY ENTERED INTO AN OIL PIPELINE DEAL WHICH THEY ULTIMATELY REFUSED

TO HAVE THE PATRIOT ACT READY FOR APPROVAL BY CONGRESS BEFORE 9/11

TO BAR AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EVENTS OF 9/11 FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR

TO UNDERFUND THE 9/11 COMMISSION AND DENY THEM SUBPOENA POWERS AND STONEWALL THEIR ACCESS TO VITAL DATA

TO LIE OUR NATION INTO AN ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL WAR AGAINST IRAQ

TO REFUSE TO INVESTIGATE THE VALERIE PLAME LEAK WITHIN YOUR OWN WHITE HOUSE

TO SEND OUR TROOPS INTO A WAR WITHOUT ADEQUATE ARMOR AND SUPPLIES

TO GIVE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN NO BID CONTRACTS TO HALLIBURTON AND ITS SUBSIDIARIES, AND TO HAVE NO ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THE WAY THE MONEY WAS SPENT

TO BAR IMAGES OF FLAG-DRAPED COFFINS OF OUR DEAD SOLDIERS AND REGULAR ANNOUNCEMENTS OF CASUALTY NUMBERS.

TO DENY THAT HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF IRAQI CIVILIANS HAVE BEEN KILLED IN YOUR WAR

TO HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO PLAN FOR MAINTAINING PEACE IN A NATION YOU CHOSE TO OCCUPY OR REBUILDING THE DAMAGE YOU INFLICTED

TO HAVE NO UNDERSTANDING OF THE CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN IRAQ AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF INSTALLING A FUNDAMENTALIST CONTROLLED GOVERNMENT IN A FORMERLY SECULAR NATION

TO DENY THAT IRAQ HAS BECOME EMBROILED IN A DEVASTATING CIVIL WAR AND TO CONTINUALLY LIE THAT PROGRESS WAS BEING MADE

TO IGNORE THE ADVICE OF FAR WISER AND MORE EXPERIENCED STATESMEN AND MILITARY LEADERS WHO HAVE WARNED YOU ABOUT YOUR RECKLESS HUBRIS

TO SPY ON AMERICANS WITHOUT SECURING A COURT WARRANT

TO PERMIT TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB, GUANTANAMO AND OTHER PRISONS, AND TO RENDITION PRISONERS FOR TORTURE IN OTHER COUNTRIES

TO SUSPEND HABEAS CORPUS FOR DETAINEES ARBITRARILY DETERMINED TO BE ENEMY COMBATANTS

TO BE TOTALLY UNPREPARED FOR HURRICANE KATRINA AND TO ABANDON THE VICTIMS OF THAT DISASTER TO THIS DAY

TO SEND THIS NATION INTO A SPIRAL OF DEBT AND DISRESPECT AS NEVER BEFORE IN OUR HISTORY

Had enough, George? I could go on, but this will have to do for now. Read the list slowly and deliberately if you can focus long enough to deal with it. Then, if you have the guts, stand in front of the American people and declare yourself the DECIDER! Tell them that it was YOU, not your handlers or your puppeteers or your advisors or your caretakers who made these decisions. Tell them how proud you are of your decisions, and how much the nation and the world have benefited from your leadership.

Oh yes, George, just one more thing. Give us some idea of the credentials you claim to have that allow you the right to make a single military decision about the war you lied us into. Tell us why YOU, and not the American people, the generals, the Congress, the Baker-Hamilton Group, or anyone else can be ignored while YOU parade around as the sole DECIDER of the fate of the nation and the world.

And then, George, - for kicks - read the US Constitution, and discover that YOU WORK FOR US, the people. You are a public servant, George, not the Emperor or Dictator of this nation, and you are beholden to us all for every move you make.

Until then, Mr. Decider, it’s you and Barney and Laura against the rest of humanity. This “Decider” nonsense really would be a laugh and a half, George, if the consequences were not so terrible. Perhaps it’s time for you to go back to making decisions about beer and coke, - and leaving the really important stuff to those who are equipped to handle it.

- Posted by Reg, TVNewsLies,org

An excellent and timely perspective on the current state of our nation’s state of justice and equality, or lack of it, and their causes. It is especially poignant to me as I have just returned from Memphis actually, including a visit to the National Civil Rights Museum, located at the Lorraine Motel, site of the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. I don’t think I was prepared for the effect that being there would actually have on me. The awareness of the depth of commitment and level of sacrifice to the struggle for basic rights is something I’m afraid is foreign to too many Americans these days. Of course, the fact that majorities of people were often opposed to the civil rights struggle from before the end of slavery up to the murder of MLK, Jr., is a fact that should give us pause about our own self-awareness of the conditions of our society today.

One of the disturbing aspects of the museum, however, was the fancy display wall of high level financial donors to the facility, and the monikers they would give to them by category. When a company like ExxonMobil is labeled as a “Liberator”, you know we are truly colonized by the Corporate State and that ‘The Dream’ is in some serious jeopardy.

Martin Luther King Jr. is held in precious memory because he made an alternative world seem possible. He spoke of a dream, but he mobilized a pragmatic program for change. Idealism, in his terms, was the height of realism. Thus, healing between races, the lifting up of the socially downtrodden, and the amelioration of all that made for violence were not three items on King’s agenda, but one human project.

We honor King today not as a way of recalling the past, but as a way of resuming his campaign in the present. A dream, yes. But equally a three-sided political movement. No racial justice without economic justice! No justice, period, without peace!

Now if we can only work to manifest a similar organized action on behalf of asserting people’s rights over the usurpation of those same rights by ruling elites hiding behind the fictional veil of ‘corporate personhood.’ This represents another use of the law by the modern Corporatocracy to sublimate people’s rights, egregious as was the use of law to keep people slaves during the time of the Slaveocracy,

Read James Carroll’s complete essay Here

Looks like we have a well-placed hammer doing a number on obliterating the whole Ford memorial mythos nail. This is definitely a recommended read for our fellow citizens who are taking in too much of the history soma in the United States of Amnesia.

But is that what Ford really did? Let’s recall the context. The burglary and cover-up we call “Watergate” gave the American people a rare glimpse at raw government power. The break-in at the Democratic
National Committee was not the only criminal activity that Nixon administration operatives had committed. They had also broken into the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, who had leaked to the New York Times the Pentagon Papers, which disclosed former President Lyndon Johnson’s determination to fight the war in Vietnam even though his advisors knew it couldn’t be won. Nixon’s infamous “plumbers” unit had wiretapped people thought to be undermining the war effort. He also had used the IRS to harass people on his notorious enemies list.

For once Americans could see the truth about unrestrained government: its subservience to privileged interests, its disregard for freedom, its pettiness. The wizard’s curtain had been pulled aside momentarily, and the people were disgusted. Respect for government and the presidency plummeted. This terrified the bipartisan power elite. The broad revulsion threatened to undermine the tacit consensus that had supported the Democratic-Republican power structure for years. Who knows what might have happened if the public’s outrage had not been contained? Maybe a third party would have flourished. Power and lucre were at stake.

————————

Thus, what Ford accomplished was to stanch a growing public cynicism about government and to restore complacency. This is universally heralded as a good thing. Observe how nearly every political figure and establishment pundit thinks Ford’s pardon of Nixon was wise. But why is it good that we were “spared” a full accounting of Nixon’s offenses? Could it be that the American people might have learned too much and drawn more-general conclusions about the morality of this government than the power elite would have preferred?

Read The Full Article Here

This guy is just laugh-out-loud funny. Amongst the highlights are the bits about GOP fiscal responsibility and the GOP having changed the way the government interacts with the people.

Enough is enough. Jonathan Tasini nails it dead on in regards to the current state of politics in America, and our complicity in tolerating it.

Here are a few excerpts from this exceptional piece…

Mind-boggling. Cowardly. Tone deaf. When I read what passes for the economic agenda for “liberal” Democrats and even progressives, I can’t help but think that they have lost their minds, their imagination or their spines. And I have judiciously left out the expletives that come to mind so my editor will let this piece run.

Let me remind the quivering political leaders and think-tank, inside-the-Beltway experts about the economic insecurity most people face in their daily lives. The divide between rich and poor has never been greater; wages are barely keeping up with peoples’ bills, driven down in part by the corporate global pursuit of the lowest wage possible; personal debt is at an all-time high; 48 million Americans lack health care and millions more pay for inadequate coverage. As for the government, it’s a fiscal disaster mainly because this administration, aided and abetted by some Democrats, has blessed a wholesale raid on the public till by those for whom avarice knows no limits.

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Trade - It’s a no-brainer to stop anymore so-called “free trade” agreements, which have utterly failed to promote the welfare of the globe’s citizens. But, future trade deals will not be fixed with the band-aid of “enforceable labor and environmental provisions,” as some folks want, or tinkering along the edges on issues such as layoffs. We have to start with an entirely new vision of what trade means. The first page of every trade agreement should state that trade should take place for the benefit of the people, not corporations. It should spell out the specific goals in advancing prosperity and a decent standard of living-and, then, outline how corporations can serve that purpose. We need to replace the World Trade Organization, which is run by un-elected lobbyists and shills for global corporations, with a body we might call Global Prosperity-an open, democratic, transparent organization which figures out how to best manage an equitable allocation of work on an exhausted, depleted planet.

Corporate Rights - Take them on. In the past 100-plus years, corporations have accumulated rights never envisioned by the founders (which makes you wonder about the intellectual integrity of the conservative jurists on the federal bench who view themselves as “strict constructionists” but behave as shills for the expansion of corporate rights). Corporations now have Constitutional rights that were supposed to be just for individuals: for example, corporations have a 1st Amendment right to free speech (for more on this, check out the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy). And, if you can believe this, just the other day, the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation recommended that it be made more difficult to indict or sue companies accused of wrong-doing-as if Enron had never happened.

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From my vantage point, fighting for the minimum wage is a cop-out aimed at avoiding the debate that corporate power is the central threat to a decent standard of living. Look at it this way: People elected Democrats so they can earn $7.25 an hour? You’re kidding? For full-time work, my calculator shows that comes out to a whopping $15,000. How inspiring.

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We may not win some of these battles. But, we need people who don’t stick their finger up to see which way the wind is blowing but work to change the way the wind is blowing. They are the people who stand up and refuse to be silent because they know what is right and what is wrong. They are not swayed by how the wind blows because they know they have the power to change its direction.

Read The Complete Article

Good historical overview and synopsis from Eric Foner, one of the better historians around…

Ever since 1948, when Harvard professor Arthur Schlesinger Sr. asked 55 historians to rank U.S. presidents on a scale from “great” to “failure,” such polls have been a favorite pastime for those of us who study the American past.

Changes in presidential rankings reflect shifts in how we view history. When the first poll was taken, the Reconstruction era that followed the Civil War was regarded as a time of corruption and misgovernment caused by granting black men the right to vote. As a result, President Andrew Johnson, a fervent white supremacist who opposed efforts to extend basic rights to former slaves, was rated “near great.” Today, by contrast, scholars consider Reconstruction a flawed but noble attempt to build an interracial democracy from the ashes of slavery — and Johnson a flat failure.

More often, however, the rankings display a remarkable year-to-year uniformity. Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt always figure in the “great” category. Most presidents are ranked “average” or, to put it less charitably, mediocre. Johnson, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Richard M. Nixon occupy the bottom rung, and now President Bush is a leading contender to join them. A look at history, as well as Bush’s policies, explains why.

Read The Full Article

Robert Borosage nails it pretty well here…

Rubinomics is also bad politics. It favors the Wall Street wing of the party at the expense of the main street voters. Democrats were propelled to victory in this election in part because of growing public dismay over an economy that doesn’t work for them. Democrats ran the most populist elections in memory - railing against the drug and oil lobbies, indicting failed trade policies that are shipping jobs abroad and undermining wages at home. Voters - including independent voters of the supposed “center” - are overwhelmingly in favor of aggressive trade policies, and are looking for help on wages, health care, pensions, and holding Wall Street moguls and corporate CEOs accountable.

With Bush in the White House, Democrats won’t be deciding national economic policy in the next two years. But they will be laying the groundwork for a Democratic economic strategy. They will be offering their indictment of Bush’s course. They should be holding hearings and developing policies to start meeting some of the pressing demands of the voters who put them in office. To do that, they would be well advised to reach out to a far broader range of advisors than the leading strategist for Citibank.

His suggestion of bringing in someone like Paul Krugman is a good one. Until the grassroots of the Democratic party say enough to the Corporatistas (who own the GOP and rent the Dems when needed), they will simply continue to be a mere shadow of their needed potential, an ersatz and diversionary representation of anything resembling democratic political action. Thanks to politicos such as the Clintons and their global capital wonderboy Rubin, the Democrats have become simply a watered down doppelganger of the GOP, effectively serving as part of Republicrat, Inc., the governing arm of the corporate state that the USA is.

Read The Complete Post

The Fox is in the Hen House. The Hill reports….

K Street Democrats are popular not just with companies trying to make inroads with the new majority - but with the new majority itself as well.

Lobbyists are expected to help fill the additional staff slots Democrats now have, and the migration has already begun.

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), who will be the chairman of the House Commerce Committee, announced that two former aides are rejoining his staff.

Dennis Fitzgibbons, now the top lobbyist at DaimlerChrysler, will be chief of staff to the committee. He was minority deputy staff director when he left in 2000 to join the automaker.

Gregg Rothschild, now a vice president and policy counsel at Verizon, will be the new chief counsel to Commerce. He had previously been the minority counsel.

Same as it ever was.

Read The Original Article