My inbox is flooded every day with emails that go like this: “I saw Red Gold… It made me cry [men, women, children all write this]…What’s going on with Pebble right now and can I help?”
Of course the answer is Yes! Yes! Yes!
On November 14, 2008, Ben and I stood before 500 people at the National Geographic Headquarters in Washington, D.C. to show Red Gold [what an honor]. On the very same day, just a block away from the theater in the Bureau of Land Management building, President’s Bush’s staff put out a Record of Decision for the Bristol Bay Area Management Plan. It opened nearly 2 million acres of federal land surrounding the Pebble Site to mining exploration. 2 million acres. So while citizens continue to battle development of the Pebble mine on Alaskan State land, we now face the worst – Pebble amidst a mining district in the heart of the world’s largest remaining sockeye salmon fishery. When the Obama administration comes into office, our leaders of change will have 30 days to reverse this decision.
State Land. Federal Land. To me, the land classifications are borders drawn for management purposes. But in reality Bristol Bay and its pristine waters, the abundant wild salmon runs, the life this watershed sustains are global resources we cannot replace. We need more people standing up saying “No – not here, not this place. Wrong location. A risk not worth taking.”
Support for gaining permanent legislative protection for the Bristol Bay watershed continues to grow. The Trout Unlimited Alaska program is currently engaged in a number of projects to stop development of the Pebble Mine. We are placing emphasis on necessary science research so we can understand more of the critical water and habitat issues. We are also working with state and federal policymakers to support legislative protection, and we are leading a nationwide campaign to educate and engage salmon consumers on the values of wild salmon conservation and cuisine (www.whywild.org).
We continue to raise state, national, and international support for protecting this world-renowned watershed, a mosaic of unconfined rivers supporting nearly a 1/3 of our wild salmon supply.
Yes! You can help.
Write members of congress today and express you support for protecting the watershed from mining development. Ask the new administration to keep BLM lands in Bristol Bay closed to mining.
Donate. To do more good work to protect Bristol Bay, we need more financial support. www.savebristolbay.org
Host a Red Gold screening. Contact Emily Long: emily@feltsoulmedia.com.
When you’re at the grocery, or at your favorite restaurant… please request wild salmon. You’ll be supporting sustainable, well-managed fisheries and increasing the demand for what Bristol Bay is famous for. Avoid the farmed stuff unless you have a thing for artificially colored dinner.
And then lastly I’d like just like to thank the people who believed in this project, Ben and Travis for asking questions and listening, and then all those who understand there are still some places left on this planet we must protect.
Please go flood the email boxes of your congressman and tell them they have a chance to save one of our last great salmon runs.
-- Lauren Oaks, Co-Producer, Red Gold (Ironweed Films: June 2009: Volume 43)
Showing posts with label club. Show all posts
Showing posts with label club. Show all posts
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
Filmmaker Jeremy Kaller on "The Recyclergy"
Thanks to Ironweed Films for giving me this amazing opportunity to share my first documentary, The Recyclergy, with you. I hope you find it both enjoyable and inspiring.
The film was made under the assumption that you, the audience, had already heard several times in your life that “you should recycle.” For that reason, I tried my best to eliminate that direct message from the film. I’m hoping that I am correct, and you have been recycling for years, but have never met a professional recycler, nor heard about the porn found in recycling bins.
If you devote the 33 minutes to watch The Recyclergy, you will meet some real characters who have devoted their lives to diverting goods from landfills and hear their entertaining stories. I hope that their devotion is contagious.
I took on this challenge because I met these inspiring and hilarious individuals and recognized that they are leaders in the recycling movement. Berkeley was the first city to collect recycling at the curb. San Francisco was the first city in the nation to collect food scraps along with recycling and trash. Two local organizations, Building Resources and Urban Ore, both salvage tons of building materials that would otherwise get landfilled, making the materials available for the community to utilize. The list goes on.
Not until midway through conducting this series of interviews, did I learn about the history of scavengers, who were pre-World War II garbage collectors. I was shocked by my ignorance because I had worked in recycling for several years. Without giving too much away, recycling was a normal, behind the scenes, everyday occurrence before the United States’ post-WWII affluence. Recycling all but disappeared until the first Earth Day in 1970. Even in early 2006, when completing the film, I felt that recycling was still considered another component of tree-hugging. I’m relieved that again, recycling is getting the mainstream attention that it deserves.
The film’s website, www.recyclergy.com, contains links to most of the organizations in the film. If you live in the Bay Area, visit them! If you do not, please contact them for guidance in bringing more recycling into your community.
-- by Jeremy Kaller, Director, The Recyclergy (Ironweed Films: Volume 41: April 2009)
For more information, visit www.ironweedfilms.com/films
The film was made under the assumption that you, the audience, had already heard several times in your life that “you should recycle.” For that reason, I tried my best to eliminate that direct message from the film. I’m hoping that I am correct, and you have been recycling for years, but have never met a professional recycler, nor heard about the porn found in recycling bins.
If you devote the 33 minutes to watch The Recyclergy, you will meet some real characters who have devoted their lives to diverting goods from landfills and hear their entertaining stories. I hope that their devotion is contagious.
I took on this challenge because I met these inspiring and hilarious individuals and recognized that they are leaders in the recycling movement. Berkeley was the first city to collect recycling at the curb. San Francisco was the first city in the nation to collect food scraps along with recycling and trash. Two local organizations, Building Resources and Urban Ore, both salvage tons of building materials that would otherwise get landfilled, making the materials available for the community to utilize. The list goes on.
Not until midway through conducting this series of interviews, did I learn about the history of scavengers, who were pre-World War II garbage collectors. I was shocked by my ignorance because I had worked in recycling for several years. Without giving too much away, recycling was a normal, behind the scenes, everyday occurrence before the United States’ post-WWII affluence. Recycling all but disappeared until the first Earth Day in 1970. Even in early 2006, when completing the film, I felt that recycling was still considered another component of tree-hugging. I’m relieved that again, recycling is getting the mainstream attention that it deserves.
The film’s website, www.recyclergy.com, contains links to most of the organizations in the film. If you live in the Bay Area, visit them! If you do not, please contact them for guidance in bringing more recycling into your community.
-- by Jeremy Kaller, Director, The Recyclergy (Ironweed Films: Volume 41: April 2009)
For more information, visit www.ironweedfilms.com/films
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Water Crisis Hits Iraq
This article has been re-posted from our friends at Huffington Post.
by Inter Press Service
BAGHDAD, Feb 12 (IPS) - There is less water now in the Tigris, and it is less clean. The river has fewer fish, and rising fuel and other costs mean they are more costly to catch. It's not, as Hamza Majit finds, a good time to be a fisher.
"It's getting worse everyday," Majit told IPS on board his fishing boat.
"You see the low water level," Majit said, touching the bottom of the river, just two metres down, with a wooden pole. "We need higher water to hold our nets up. And this is the deepest point in the Tigris in this area. With the water this low, it makes it difficult to catch any fish."
Plastic bottles, grocery bags and other garbage are now more commonly seen floating down the once clear river. "Fish are a treasure from God, but now so much is preventing us from reaping our treasure," said Majit.
Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Majit says, it was common to catch several dozen fish daily. Now, "we are lucky to catch ten." Now the government too is alarmed.
"The Tigris remains extremely polluted, and this situation continues to worsen," Minister for the Environment Narmin Othman told IPS. "So many Iraqis are suffering from this. We realise it is a crisis, and we are looking for more ways the government can actively begin to solve the problem."
The matter is being considered urgently, she said. "We have to do this, because if we don't, nobody else will, and the suffering will continue. The Tigris is one of Iraq's treasures, and we must safeguard our treasures."
The government has been before. "The situation is critical," Prof. Ratib Mufid, environment expert at Baghdad University, said back in 2007. "The river is gradually being destroyed, and there are no projects to prevent its destruction."
Since then it has only become worse. The new difficulties begin at the source, and multiply along the way.
"The problem of decreasing water flow starts in Turkey's Taurus mountains," Seif Barakah, media officer at the Ministry of Environment had warned, about the same time in 2007.
"Between there and Kurdistan, many dams have been built which reduce the water flow. The idea was to prevent floods which over the years affected northern communities, but the consequence can now be seen with nearly half the previous water flow."
The Tigris flows from the mountains of south-eastern Turkey through Iraq, where it ends up in the Persian Gulf.
Majit has been a fisher since he was 10, and like most fishers on the Tigris, inherited the family business of generations. Two of his children work with him.
Fishing is not just difficult now, but also unpleasant and hazardous. The smell of burning plastic, or at places of raw sewage, is overpowering. And, Majit says, he has been shot at by U.S. soldiers from the Green Zone, whose concrete walls line the banks along one stretch.
Iraqi environmentalists report that the river is contaminated with war waste, oil derivatives, industrial waste, and toxins. "Sometimes I find crude oil on my nets when I pull them up," Majit said. "The fish also sometimes taste like crude oil."
Big rubbish heaps have come up on the banks. Dumping garbage in the river was punishable during the days of former dictator Saddam Hussein. Today there is nothing to stop people.
The ripple effect of fish scarcity has inevitably hit the markets. The average cost of a fish has risen from two dollars to eight dollars (8,000 Iraqi Dinars).
"That is too expensive, so fewer people are buying," says Amar Hamsa, a 25- year-old fish seller. "Business is bad, it's not a good situation for us nowadays."
Roast fish was considered a treat once, says Ali Sabri, still in the business though with many empty fire pits around him of vendors who had to abandon business. "Few people in Baghdad can afford this now as they used to."
Read more from Inter Press Service
by Inter Press Service
BAGHDAD, Feb 12 (IPS) - There is less water now in the Tigris, and it is less clean. The river has fewer fish, and rising fuel and other costs mean they are more costly to catch. It's not, as Hamza Majit finds, a good time to be a fisher.
"It's getting worse everyday," Majit told IPS on board his fishing boat.
"You see the low water level," Majit said, touching the bottom of the river, just two metres down, with a wooden pole. "We need higher water to hold our nets up. And this is the deepest point in the Tigris in this area. With the water this low, it makes it difficult to catch any fish."
Plastic bottles, grocery bags and other garbage are now more commonly seen floating down the once clear river. "Fish are a treasure from God, but now so much is preventing us from reaping our treasure," said Majit.
Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Majit says, it was common to catch several dozen fish daily. Now, "we are lucky to catch ten." Now the government too is alarmed.
"The Tigris remains extremely polluted, and this situation continues to worsen," Minister for the Environment Narmin Othman told IPS. "So many Iraqis are suffering from this. We realise it is a crisis, and we are looking for more ways the government can actively begin to solve the problem."
The matter is being considered urgently, she said. "We have to do this, because if we don't, nobody else will, and the suffering will continue. The Tigris is one of Iraq's treasures, and we must safeguard our treasures."
The government has been before. "The situation is critical," Prof. Ratib Mufid, environment expert at Baghdad University, said back in 2007. "The river is gradually being destroyed, and there are no projects to prevent its destruction."
Since then it has only become worse. The new difficulties begin at the source, and multiply along the way.
"The problem of decreasing water flow starts in Turkey's Taurus mountains," Seif Barakah, media officer at the Ministry of Environment had warned, about the same time in 2007.
"Between there and Kurdistan, many dams have been built which reduce the water flow. The idea was to prevent floods which over the years affected northern communities, but the consequence can now be seen with nearly half the previous water flow."
The Tigris flows from the mountains of south-eastern Turkey through Iraq, where it ends up in the Persian Gulf.
Majit has been a fisher since he was 10, and like most fishers on the Tigris, inherited the family business of generations. Two of his children work with him.
Fishing is not just difficult now, but also unpleasant and hazardous. The smell of burning plastic, or at places of raw sewage, is overpowering. And, Majit says, he has been shot at by U.S. soldiers from the Green Zone, whose concrete walls line the banks along one stretch.
Iraqi environmentalists report that the river is contaminated with war waste, oil derivatives, industrial waste, and toxins. "Sometimes I find crude oil on my nets when I pull them up," Majit said. "The fish also sometimes taste like crude oil."
Big rubbish heaps have come up on the banks. Dumping garbage in the river was punishable during the days of former dictator Saddam Hussein. Today there is nothing to stop people.
The ripple effect of fish scarcity has inevitably hit the markets. The average cost of a fish has risen from two dollars to eight dollars (8,000 Iraqi Dinars).
"That is too expensive, so fewer people are buying," says Amar Hamsa, a 25- year-old fish seller. "Business is bad, it's not a good situation for us nowadays."
Roast fish was considered a treat once, says Ali Sabri, still in the business though with many empty fire pits around him of vendors who had to abandon business. "Few people in Baghdad can afford this now as they used to."
Read more from Inter Press Service
Is a 100% AIG Bonus Tax Legal?
This article has been re-posted from our friends at Mother Jones.
Ex Post Punitive by Kevin Drum
Would it be legal to pass a law that retroactively taxed away the bonuses of all those AIG traders who destroyed the planet? The main constitutional objections are that such a law might be construed as either ex post facto or a bill of attainder. So what about that?
Well, Conor Clarke talked to certified expert Laurence Tribe, and he says not to worry about bill of attainder issues: "It would not be terribly difficult to structure a tax, even one that approached a rate of 100%, levied on some or all of the bonuses already handed out (or to be handed out in the future) by AIG and other recipients of federal bailout funds so that the tax would survive bill of attainder clause challenge."
Great! So what about the problem with it being retroactive? The Supreme Court has upheld retroactive taxes against ex post facto arguments before, and over at Interfluidity Steve Waldman quotes Daniel Troy, author of Retroactive Legislation, on a similar objection to the Superfund legislation: "Because the ex post facto clauses do not apply to civil laws, Superfund therefore would have to be characterized as punitive in nature to be classified as an ex post facto law. The current Court, though, has suggested that unless a law is exclusively punitive, it will not come within the scope of the ex post facto clauses."
Italics mine. So it looks like the answer here is simple: even though the purpose of this tax would pretty clearly be punitive with extreme prejudice, we need to carefully pretend that it's not. And we need to make sure the legislative history shows that it's not (it should be "manifestly regulatory and fiscal" Tribe says). Then everything is kosher! We can tax their socks off!
So there you have it. Now we just have to figure out if most of these guys are actually U.S. citizens in the first place. I hear that New York state AG Andrew Cuomo is working on that.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/03/ex-post-punitive
Ex Post Punitive by Kevin Drum
Would it be legal to pass a law that retroactively taxed away the bonuses of all those AIG traders who destroyed the planet? The main constitutional objections are that such a law might be construed as either ex post facto or a bill of attainder. So what about that?
Well, Conor Clarke talked to certified expert Laurence Tribe, and he says not to worry about bill of attainder issues: "It would not be terribly difficult to structure a tax, even one that approached a rate of 100%, levied on some or all of the bonuses already handed out (or to be handed out in the future) by AIG and other recipients of federal bailout funds so that the tax would survive bill of attainder clause challenge."
Great! So what about the problem with it being retroactive? The Supreme Court has upheld retroactive taxes against ex post facto arguments before, and over at Interfluidity Steve Waldman quotes Daniel Troy, author of Retroactive Legislation, on a similar objection to the Superfund legislation: "Because the ex post facto clauses do not apply to civil laws, Superfund therefore would have to be characterized as punitive in nature to be classified as an ex post facto law. The current Court, though, has suggested that unless a law is exclusively punitive, it will not come within the scope of the ex post facto clauses."
Italics mine. So it looks like the answer here is simple: even though the purpose of this tax would pretty clearly be punitive with extreme prejudice, we need to carefully pretend that it's not. And we need to make sure the legislative history shows that it's not (it should be "manifestly regulatory and fiscal" Tribe says). Then everything is kosher! We can tax their socks off!
So there you have it. Now we just have to figure out if most of these guys are actually U.S. citizens in the first place. I hear that New York state AG Andrew Cuomo is working on that.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/03/ex-post-punitive
UN Experts to Probe Secret CIA Detention Centers
This article has been re-posted from our friends at Common Dreams.
by Agence France Presse
GENEVA - Two United Nations special rapporteurs said Tuesday they would investigate secret detention centres used by the CIA in counter-terrorism efforts.
Nowak and Martin Scheinin, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism will study locations alleged to have hosted such secret detention centres, including US military bases.
Besides secret jails run by the CIA, the study would also probe alleged prisons run by other governments.
Scheinin said such prisons were "one of the most horrendous practices" that emerged after the September 11 attacks in the US, while Nowak hoped that this "will stop, and perhaps is in the process of being stopped."
The results of the probe should be ready in a year.
The two independent experts mandated by the UN Human Rights Council hailed US President Barack Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo prison and all CIA prisons operating abroad.
Nowak said he was also "very encouraged" by the fact that Warsaw is probing allegations of a secret CIA jail near Szymany in northeast Poland.
Besides alleged detention centres in Poland and Romania, the two experts will look into the role played by over 10 American military bases in the world, which have been alleged to have also sheltered secret jails.
"We are fully aware" of the problem, said Nowak, citing the military base of Tuzla in Bosnia, which was suspected of having served as a temporary holding centre for detainees before their transfer to Guantanamo.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/03/10-8
by Agence France Presse
GENEVA - Two United Nations special rapporteurs said Tuesday they would investigate secret detention centres used by the CIA in counter-terrorism efforts.
Nowak and Martin Scheinin, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism will study locations alleged to have hosted such secret detention centres, including US military bases.
Besides secret jails run by the CIA, the study would also probe alleged prisons run by other governments.
Scheinin said such prisons were "one of the most horrendous practices" that emerged after the September 11 attacks in the US, while Nowak hoped that this "will stop, and perhaps is in the process of being stopped."
The results of the probe should be ready in a year.
The two independent experts mandated by the UN Human Rights Council hailed US President Barack Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo prison and all CIA prisons operating abroad.
Nowak said he was also "very encouraged" by the fact that Warsaw is probing allegations of a secret CIA jail near Szymany in northeast Poland.
Besides alleged detention centres in Poland and Romania, the two experts will look into the role played by over 10 American military bases in the world, which have been alleged to have also sheltered secret jails.
"We are fully aware" of the problem, said Nowak, citing the military base of Tuzla in Bosnia, which was suspected of having served as a temporary holding centre for detainees before their transfer to Guantanamo.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/03/10-8
Call for Mass Civil Disobedience Against Coal
Our friends at Common Dreams have reposted this article from Yes! Magazine:
by Bill McKibben & Wendell Berry
Dear Friends,
There are moments in a nation's-and a planet's-history when it may be necessary for some to break the law in order to bear witness to an evil, bring it to wider attention, and push for its correction. We think such a time has arrived, and we are writing to say that we hope some of you will join us in Washington D.C. on Monday March 2 in order to take part in a civil act of civil disobedience outside a coal-fired power plant near Capitol Hill.
We will be there to make several points:
Coal-fired power is driving climate change. Our foremost climatologist, NASA's James Hansen, has demonstrated that our only hope of getting our atmosphere back to a safe level-below 350 parts per million co2-lies in stopping the use of coal to generate electricity.
Even if climate change were not the urgent crisis that it is, we would still be burning our fossil fuels too fast, wasting too much energy and releasing too much poison into the air and water. We would still need to slow down, and to restore thrift to its old place as an economic virtue.
Coal is filthy at its source. Much of the coal used in this country comes from West Virginia and Kentucky, where companies engage in "mountaintop removal" to get at the stuff; they leave behind a leveled wasteland, and impoverished human communities. No technology better exemplifies the out-of-control relationship between humans and the rest of creation.
Coal smoke makes children sick. Asthma rates in urban areas near coal-fired power plants are high. Air pollution from burning coal is harmful to the health of grown-ups too, and to the health of everything that breathes, including forests.
The industry claim that there is something called "clean coal" is, put simply, a lie. But it's a lie told with tens of millions of dollars, which we do not have. We have our bodies, and we are willing to use them to make our point. We don't come to such a step lightly. We have written and testified and organized politically to make this point for many years, and while in recent months there has been real progress against new coal-fired power plants, the daily business of providing half our electricity from coal continues unabated. It's time to make clear that we can't safely run this planet on coal at all. So we feel the time has come to do more--we hear President Barack Obama's call for a movement for change that continues past election day, and we hear Nobel Laureate Al Gore's call for creative non-violence outside coal plants. As part of the international negotiations now underway on global warming, our nation will be asking China, India, and others to limit their use of coal in the future to help save the planet's atmosphere. This is a hard thing to ask, because it's their cheapest fuel. Part of our witness in March will be to say that we're willing to make some sacrifices ourselves, even if it's only a trip to the jail.
With any luck, this will be the largest such protest yet, large enough that it may provide a real spark. If you want to participate with us, you need to go through a short course of non-violence training. This will be, to the extent it depends on us, an entirely peaceful demonstration, carried out in a spirit of hope and not rancor. We will be there in our dress clothes, and ask the same of you. There will be young people, people from faith communities, people from the coal fields of Appalachia, and from the neighborhoods in Washington that get to breathe the smoke from the plant.
We will cross the legal boundary of the power plant, and we expect to be arrested. After that we have no certainty what will happen, but lawyers and such will be on hand. Our goal is not to shut the plant down for the day-it is but one of many, and anyway its operation for a day is not the point. The worldwide daily reliance on coal is the danger; this is one small step to raise awareness of that ruinous habit and hence help to break it.
Needless to say, we're not handling the logistics of this day. All the credit goes to a variety of groups, especially EnergyAction (which is bringing thousands of young people to Washington that weekend), Greenpeace, the Ruckus Society, and Rainforest Action Network. For more information: http://www.capitolclimateaction.org/
Thank you,
Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/27-10
by Bill McKibben & Wendell Berry
Dear Friends,
There are moments in a nation's-and a planet's-history when it may be necessary for some to break the law in order to bear witness to an evil, bring it to wider attention, and push for its correction. We think such a time has arrived, and we are writing to say that we hope some of you will join us in Washington D.C. on Monday March 2 in order to take part in a civil act of civil disobedience outside a coal-fired power plant near Capitol Hill.
We will be there to make several points:
Coal-fired power is driving climate change. Our foremost climatologist, NASA's James Hansen, has demonstrated that our only hope of getting our atmosphere back to a safe level-below 350 parts per million co2-lies in stopping the use of coal to generate electricity.
Even if climate change were not the urgent crisis that it is, we would still be burning our fossil fuels too fast, wasting too much energy and releasing too much poison into the air and water. We would still need to slow down, and to restore thrift to its old place as an economic virtue.
Coal is filthy at its source. Much of the coal used in this country comes from West Virginia and Kentucky, where companies engage in "mountaintop removal" to get at the stuff; they leave behind a leveled wasteland, and impoverished human communities. No technology better exemplifies the out-of-control relationship between humans and the rest of creation.
Coal smoke makes children sick. Asthma rates in urban areas near coal-fired power plants are high. Air pollution from burning coal is harmful to the health of grown-ups too, and to the health of everything that breathes, including forests.
The industry claim that there is something called "clean coal" is, put simply, a lie. But it's a lie told with tens of millions of dollars, which we do not have. We have our bodies, and we are willing to use them to make our point. We don't come to such a step lightly. We have written and testified and organized politically to make this point for many years, and while in recent months there has been real progress against new coal-fired power plants, the daily business of providing half our electricity from coal continues unabated. It's time to make clear that we can't safely run this planet on coal at all. So we feel the time has come to do more--we hear President Barack Obama's call for a movement for change that continues past election day, and we hear Nobel Laureate Al Gore's call for creative non-violence outside coal plants. As part of the international negotiations now underway on global warming, our nation will be asking China, India, and others to limit their use of coal in the future to help save the planet's atmosphere. This is a hard thing to ask, because it's their cheapest fuel. Part of our witness in March will be to say that we're willing to make some sacrifices ourselves, even if it's only a trip to the jail.
With any luck, this will be the largest such protest yet, large enough that it may provide a real spark. If you want to participate with us, you need to go through a short course of non-violence training. This will be, to the extent it depends on us, an entirely peaceful demonstration, carried out in a spirit of hope and not rancor. We will be there in our dress clothes, and ask the same of you. There will be young people, people from faith communities, people from the coal fields of Appalachia, and from the neighborhoods in Washington that get to breathe the smoke from the plant.
We will cross the legal boundary of the power plant, and we expect to be arrested. After that we have no certainty what will happen, but lawyers and such will be on hand. Our goal is not to shut the plant down for the day-it is but one of many, and anyway its operation for a day is not the point. The worldwide daily reliance on coal is the danger; this is one small step to raise awareness of that ruinous habit and hence help to break it.
Needless to say, we're not handling the logistics of this day. All the credit goes to a variety of groups, especially EnergyAction (which is bringing thousands of young people to Washington that weekend), Greenpeace, the Ruckus Society, and Rainforest Action Network. For more information: http://www.capitolclimateaction.org/
Thank you,
Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/27-10
Friday, February 13, 2009
Non-profit Organization Common Cause Expounds Upon Pay-to-Play
Pay-to-play is a term used to describe an all too common occurrence in our political system: when money is exchanged directly for political favors, such as generous campaign donations for a lucrative government contract, or Superbowl tickets in exchange for a legislative favor.
The phrase began dominating headlines in late 2008, when former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on corruption charges that included trying to sell the Senate seat of then President-elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder.
Ironically, in the closing arguments of his impeachment trial on Jan. 29, Blagojevich stumbled on a kernel of truth about politics today, when he defended his actions by saying, "Those are conversations relating to the things all of us in politics do in order to run campaigns and try to win elections."
“You guys are in politics,” Blagojevich added to the senators. “You know what we have to do to go out and run elections.”
Blagojevich, who also tried to withhold funds for a local children's hospital as ransom for campaign contributions, deserves no defense. But he demonstrates how deep the pay-to-play problems go.
“The American people know too, and they want it stopped,” said Bob Edgar, president and CEO of Common Cause. “It’s time to end pay-to-play politics in America and give people the government they deserve.”
There is no question that our system is broken. Blagojevich is just one story and yet, through his actions, he has shined a spotlight on a much deeper rot in our politics that needs to be fixed.
Common Cause is proposing a major reform package that, if enacted, will strike at the heart of this corrupt system and culture. Our “Clean Government for Change” package would:
· Ban lobbyist contributions, bundling and fundraising for members of Congress and the President
· Adopt pay-to-play laws at the state level modeled after a successful Connecticut law that bans campaign contributions and fundraising by lobbyists and government contractors
· Create a new campaign finance system that enables candidates who swear off special interest money to run vigorous campaigns on a blend of small private contributions and public funds.
Please join Common Cause in its work. Visit www.commoncause.org to learn more.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Past Film Update: Economist Gordon Tullock's Ideas on Political Corruption Explained
Ironweed's Volume No. 35 from October 2008 contains a short film entitled LONG DIVISION: The Next Big Threat to Democracy.
The film focuses on famed economist Gordon Tullock, a scholar who abstains from voting because he considers his vote to be statistically insignificant.
Now, a new article in 2009 from NorthJersey.com explains some of Tullock's economic priciples, including why the actions of crooked politicians like disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich are so harmful to the rest of us.
To read the full article, visit http://www.northjersey.com/news/nationalpolitics/36965694.html
--The Ironweed Team
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Health, Money and Fear & Government Intervention by Dr. Paul Hochfeld
It was a great honor to have "Health, Money and Fear" included in the July edition of Ironweed Films. In the few months since I completed the film, I have been spending untold hours trying to distribute it with the goal of contributing to the debate.
Along the way, I have found a large number of sympathetic people. In my attempts to reach those who might not already be part of the choir, I have found a small but very vocal subset of apparently very bright people who have a violent reaction to any sense that our health care system calls for more government involvement which threatens "the magic of the marketplace."
To them I say that we have a health care non-system in which major business decisions are driven by the desire to maximize the profits gained from treating disease. There is relatively little money to be made from keeping people healthy. Accordingly, our current system will absolutely ensure that we have the most amount of disease from which we can profit. That's some kind of magic, eh?
As for more government involvement, that scares me too, but I don't think we have any choice. We are accelerating to the financial cliff and people are suffering because they don't have access to affordable health care. We need to develop a system in which somebody is leading the dialog about what medical services we can afford to provide to all our citizens.
I can almost guarantee that we will have a single payer system eventually... just like all our industrial competitors. It's the only way to control costs. Yes, "We are different", but what we have now isn't working.
-- Dr. Paul Hochfeld, Director, Health, Money and Fear (Ironweed Films Volume 32: July 2008)
For more information, visit http://www.ironweedfilms.com/films
Along the way, I have found a large number of sympathetic people. In my attempts to reach those who might not already be part of the choir, I have found a small but very vocal subset of apparently very bright people who have a violent reaction to any sense that our health care system calls for more government involvement which threatens "the magic of the marketplace."
To them I say that we have a health care non-system in which major business decisions are driven by the desire to maximize the profits gained from treating disease. There is relatively little money to be made from keeping people healthy. Accordingly, our current system will absolutely ensure that we have the most amount of disease from which we can profit. That's some kind of magic, eh?
As for more government involvement, that scares me too, but I don't think we have any choice. We are accelerating to the financial cliff and people are suffering because they don't have access to affordable health care. We need to develop a system in which somebody is leading the dialog about what medical services we can afford to provide to all our citizens.
I can almost guarantee that we will have a single payer system eventually... just like all our industrial competitors. It's the only way to control costs. Yes, "We are different", but what we have now isn't working.
-- Dr. Paul Hochfeld, Director, Health, Money and Fear (Ironweed Films Volume 32: July 2008)
For more information, visit http://www.ironweedfilms.com/films
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