All three of last week’s posts are worthy of review for different reasons, but the Sunrise Movement’s call for a national General Strike most warrants your attention and should be shared. We need to begin to understand that climate change is not something our leaders are poised to address. We must make them do it. The post also poses a question about Valerie Plame’s candidacy.
Question of the day: Should having a career in the CIA be viewed as serving your country or using all your tools to undermine the sovereignty of other nations if they seek justice over US interests. See Saudi Arabia, Guatemala, Honduras, Cuba, Palestine, El Salvador, Nicaragua and the list is literally endless? Intelligence is a necessary evil, I suppose, but is a candidate who serves in the CIA responsible for the ways in which our country has historically used that intelligence? Is a CIA career an asset for a candidate or would it preclude you from voting for such a candidate? This question was posed and answered by activist and artist Arlene Goldbard in a recent blog post: To find out how Goldberg weighed in, click here. But please comment below as to how you feel.
Action of the Day. The hubris of the DNC knows no end. It isn’t enough that they threaten to ban any campaign manager working for a candidate challenging a Democratic incumbent. Now this. For months, people across the country and leading Presidential candidates have been calling for a debate focused on climate change. The DNC responded by refusing to host a climate debate and threatening to ban any candidate who participates in a climate debate from any future debates. Click the link to sign a petition to tell the DNC to change their tune: Hold a 2020 presidential primary debate focused n climate action. In 2016, there were ZERO questions about climate change in the general election and only 1.5% percent of all questions in the primary were about the climate crisis. Climate change threatens to end civilization as we know within our lives, and a big part of why we have not done more as a nation to combat it is because of behavior like this from the media and political establishment. Our survival is at stake. It’s time for them to act like it.
A Look Back At Last Week’s Posts: Unnatural gas, WIPP/Holtec, General Strike & Rev Barber
Retake Our Democracy’s primary purpose is to engage, educate and motivate. The premise is that if more people understand how badly they are being undermined, they will become motivated to take some form of action. And by incorporating action alerts into our educational pieces, we offer opportunities for action. But “action” should not be viewed only as participation in a hearing, a march, or a protest. Given the scope of the climate and justice crisis in the world, Action almost must include your serving as a community organizer, being someone who actively and regularly circulates information throughout your sphere of influence. While this may force many of you to get out of your comfort zone, efforts to counter economic injustice and looming climate catastrophe will only succeed when a vast army of people begins to insist that their friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors become engaged in the work.
It isn’t up to leaders; it isn’t up to others; it is up to you. So, please review last week’s posts. Any of them would be a good conversation starter with a group of friends. And if you make a habit, of every Monday sending this post by email to a group of friends and offer a specific question to stimulate conversation, you will be doing precisely what needs to be done by all of us: challenging the people we know to help save our future. Start an ongoing conversation and see it as your purpose to expand those active in the struggle by 5 or 10 people.
Debunking the Holy Grail of Natural Gas. It Is No Bridge to Renewables It Is a Bridge to Extinction
Wednesday, June 5. Speaker Egolf wrote a commentary on how SB 489 allows natural gas in Four Corners. Look for PNM, the Governor, and possibly some enviro grasstop allies to begin cultivating the field, readying us with myths about the need for natural gas as a needed bridge to the future. This post obliterates that assertion proving that natural gas is not clear, not cheap and not necessary. Click here to review this post.
Sunrise Movement Calls for General Strike Sept. 20. It Is About Time We Got Serious
Friday, June 7. Petitions, marches, phone calls and emails all fall on deaf ears when it comes to the power brokers of our economy. A tipping point must be reached with a movement to save us that generates sustained actions, shifts the calculus and tips the scales towards meaningful efforts to address climate change. Could this be it? Time to unify around this and so, I ask you share this post with others and encourage your friends and family to be part of this international effort. Click here to read the full post.
The Sept 20 General Strike is an opportunity to launch a sustained and impactful movement. And we have four months to build momentum and every single one of us needs to take personal responsibility by engaging all you know. Sept 20 General Strike needs to dwarf anything we’ve tried before. And then it needs to continue. There is momentum happening, but what needs to change is that this can’t be leader-led, it must be YOU-led. It is not our time. It is YOURS. SHARE SHARE SHARE and talk about this over dinners, at coffee, in the market. Click here to read the full post. And please share this around. The only way this strike will achieve its potential impact is by people who think others will spread the word, get on board and talk this up. So please share this link.
What IS WIPP? Who Are Holtec? What Do They Propose? And Why Should You Care?
Saturday, June 8. NM”s history of involvement in the nuclear industry stretches to its birth, with our finger prints are on Hiroshima, our Down Winders, unknowingly and unwillingly, bearing the consequences of testing for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Our legacy for absorbing the impact of poorly thought out nuclear power decisions spans decades: Church Rock, WIPP and now Holtec. There is a quote from MLG in the blog, that at first blush looks positive, as she strongly opposes Holtec. But one of our readers, Devin Bent, pointed out that her full quote gave her reasoning for opposing Holtec: its potential impact on the gas and oil and ranching industries. Her full quote includes her unwavering her support for gas and oil industry. The post has been updated with commentary on Devin’s observation. We need to become informed as it is coming. Click here to read the full post.
And if you missed the Reverend yesterday, check out his inspiring words.
In solidarity,
Paul & Roxanne
Sunday at the Movies, Week Two: Revenue William Barber Takes off Where Winona LaDuke Left Off
Categories: Climate Change, Agriculture, Land Use & Wildlife
Thanks so much for linking my blogpost. Another one is coming this week about the surprising response to the same question you asked. I’d be grateful if you corrected my name, though. It’s Goldbard, not Goldberg.
Hi Paul and Roxanne. MLG’s comments are mystical, if not a mystery. I happen to know a little something about this stuff, having worked on WIPP during its formative years. I heavily researched all types of nuclear waste storage for the major WIPP contractor. The Gov’s comments are dazzlingly banal. The complexity of safely storing TRU waste in WIPP, except for the massive longevity of toxic TRUs, is child’s play compared to storing beta and gamma nuclear waste ANYWHERE, let alone in a shallow pit of dry Permian soil on the windswept high plains of our southeastern border.
Chernobyl was and is beta and gamma radiation. Spent fuel rods come from nuclear reactors, not unlike Chernobyl. To store these rods now takes incredible engineering, on site near their reactors, and outrageously massive amounts of water to keep them cool enough to avoid calamity. I looked at the map. No big rivers anywhere close to Hobbs. These rods would have to be sooooooooo spent of nuclear radiation as to be virtually innocuous to be dry stored in shallow burial, of any kind. If they are that spent, they can and should stay right where they are, next to the soon-to-be decommissioned reactor they came from.
We need massive amounts of further information about the types of rods, their age, their current level of radioactivity, their physical integrity, their proposed containment and transportation engineering, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
To say that beta and gamma radiation is not in the best interests of NM ag and/or O and G is like comparing the threat to a T-Rex from a Cruise missile. All four are really nasty when they get out of hand, and, you guessed it, they are all out of hand right now.
Mick Nickel
Re Ms Plame: I find I also question her qualifications for a seat in the US House but for somewhat different reasons. Her laps with Twitter looms large especially with her disclaimer of not paying attention and going through a rough patch. We all go through bad patches but it is how we comport ourselves at that time that displays our character. She is likely to go through more bad patches and as our House Representative is not a time when we can allow “not paying attention” or lashing out on social media. I hold nothing against a mentally ill person who sometimes fails to take his meds and walks the streets mumbling to himself, but I wouldn’t elect him to National office. I can predict the pressure would get too much for him. Many people with mental illness can overcome and become more than the sum of their parts but that brings me to my second point.
What public service has she given since she left the agency? The woman Ms Goldbarb recommends has already demonstrated her dedication to her community. Has Ms Plame been a constant fixture at the School Board meetings, or City Counsel? What community issues has she already fought for? As I recall the “explanation” at the time was that she was a relatively low level agent providing information which later proved false or misused and that after being outed her career was ended, although my memory is unclear. Yet on her list of qualifications she is said to have been responsible for “decision making at senior levels” and “managing multi-million dollar budgets,” but unlike the job applicant at WalMart we can’t check on these statements. The only measure we could have of her abilities would be seeing her in action working for the community she actually lives in. Let her serve a tenure on any of the myriad of public Boards and Commissions before she seeks the high paying job representing us far out of our sight. I ask the same of every candidate seeking high office.
Well said. And Teresa Leger de Fernandez is tremendous, and as you note, has been working in the community for decades.
Like many who arrive in Santa Fe, Ms. Plame thinks she has something to offer, without taking the time to know New Mexico. Despite her celebrity she is a carpet bagger. Don’t be fooled by yet another media darling — vote for the real deal— those who have earned the right to represent us by their commitment to local issues. No where does Plame address progressive politics. She may be one of those DINOs, a centrist small “d” dem who simply wants to continue the D.C. game while most of us understand how flawed and failed it is — we want change, not the status quo of the ruling class. Thank Plame for her prior ‘service’ and move on.
Teresa is much more qualified to represent the needs of our state.
Agree on all counts