Filed under: Obama
- Eric Miller, millerec@etown.edu
Last night the Republican candidates happily put aside their differences to criticize Hillary Clinton. They’ve found something to rally around. The Democrats can take it away.
– Eric Miller, millerec@etown.edu
“Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals… except the weasel.” – Homer Simpson
Stephen Johnson implies he’s not the President’s puppet, but he won’t go quite so far as to say so under oath. These must be strange times when the head of the Evironmental Protection Agency refuses states the right to clean up their own air.
This issue has nothing to do with any of the excuses Johnson presents. It’s all about influence – if the states demand more efficient cars, US automakers will have to comply, and Bush is dragging his feet on their behalf. I am sympathetic to the view that markets should make more decisions than governments when it comes to business, but the market has already spoken. Now it’s time for leadership to hop on board.
Watch the video. If you only see one youtube clip this year that exposes Stephen Johnson as a complete weasel, make it this one.
– Eric Miller, millerec@etown.edu
Filed under: Energy
Ted.com has a pair of talks by Amory Lovins, author of Winning the Oil Endgame, and co-author of Natural Capitalism with Paul Hawken (author of another important text, The Ecology of Commerce). When you read these guys, or hear them talk about their ideas, you wonder why they aren’t running things down at the Department of Energy – but then you remember, they aren’t oil lobbyists.
Our environmental problems and our oil dependency walk hand-in-hand. Some folks have practical solutions that don’t involve invading Iran.
Watch Lovins here.
– Eric Miller, millerec@etown.edu
Filed under: Media
Been hitting the documentaries pretty hard recently. Here are some notables:
1. Escape to Canada (2005). Far from a comprehensive portrait, Albert Nerenberg’s film focuses on Canada’s recent progressive developments on two fronts: in the summer of 2003 – dubbed the “Summer of Legalization” - Canada legalized same sex marriage and marijuana practically at the same moment, through two completely separate court cases. Though the Canadian legislature eventually re-thought its stance on cannabis – largely, Nerenberg suggests, because of pressure from the US – the film highlights this moment in history as an ideal of government-sponsored freedom, at a time when the mighty United States government was in the business of putting liberties on hold. It does not advocate a hedonist state, but simple a country in which government lets people live their lives on their own terms – let’s them pursue happiness. There is a lot of frustration in this film, but it comes with an equal measure of joy. Looking at what Canada is becoming, you are reminded of what the United States could still be.
2. The Yes Men (2003). This one comes from Dan Olman, Sarah Price, and Chris Smith, about a team of activist jokers who start their political work by making satirical websites that resemble their real-world counterparts, such as a mimicry of George W. Bush’s personal site, and a similar one for the World Trade Organization. Surprisingly, their sarcasm is lost on a number of important readers, and the WTO site begins to draw invitation to speak at various high-profile free-trade events. The Yes Men accept, and put on a number of ridiculous presentations, impersonating WTO officials and giving the speeches these men “would give, if they were honest.” Time and again, no matter how ludicrous the subject matter, audiences full of suits receive the imposters with smiles and applause. Whimsical, quirky, and finally frightening, The Yes Men reveal just how absurd our corporate cultural elites can be.
3. Lastly, a couple that sort of work together, and are extremely pressing. A Crude Awakening (2006) from Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack, and The End of Suburbia (2004), directed by Gregory Greene. Both films discuss the imminent threat of “peak oil,” when world oil supplies will begin to taper off. This point has already been reached in many parts of the world, such as North and South America, and may be on the horizon in the Middle East, if it has not been reached already. The growing scarcity of oil situates our ongoing resource war firmly in its appropriate context.
– Eric Miller, millerec@etown.edu
One of Sullivan’s readers sums it up:
The Clintons are like the arsonist firefighter in the movie Backdraft — using their political skills to create divisive and destructive fires in an attempt to dominate their opposition, and then immediately promoting themselves as the only firefighters that will put them out. They did it in the White House by making Bill’s indiscretions a partisan issue, and now they’re doing it with the gender and race issue. And it baffles me how willing Hillary supporters are to continue to participate in this cynical and destructive mechanism.
I’m a very politically interested Dem in a large family of moderate to conservative Republicans and Independants. I can, and have, made a good case with them for Obama, but there’s no way I can justify a Hillary nomination to myself, much less to them. If the Dems are short-sighted and suicidal enough to give a Hillary the nomination instead of seizing the opportunity with Obama to create a once-in-a-lifetime historical political realignment in this country, they can count me, my family, and many of my Dem friends out this Nov.
– Eric Miller, millerec@etown.edu
Filed under: Obama
This link was posted by a reader last week, but I didn’t get around to reading it until today. Everyone should.
– Eric Miller, millerec@etown.edu
Filed under: Polarize
One of the key reasons – perhaps the reason – why Obama needs to be our next president (and this is and will continue to be a recurring theme) is so we can start to get past our absurd national polarization. None of the Republicans can do it, and Hillary certainly can’t either. If it happens, maybe we can get past the era of ridiculous discourse – ridiscourse? – that we’ve wallowed in for the past decade, most recently championed by Jonah Goldberg. We’ll look back and giggle, like it was snap bracelets or pump-up sneakers.
This guy is in the New Era like 27 times a week…
Here’s a piece linked to on the DFA site, by Jim Wallis. His point is a valid one – democratic voters weren’t asked about their ties to the evangelical community, republicans were, and the implication is that democrats are never evangelicals, so why bother to ask. It’s an incorrect assumption. Pollsters, pundits, and network news are not strong on “nuance.”
There are tons of democratic evangelicals in Lancaster County, and all of them know a thing or two about being marginalized.
Filed under: Election
Just spent the afternoon with the DSC at the Lancaster Host, and I can say, with all the confidence of a professional pundit – I surveyed the parking lot bumper stickers – that the PA Dems will go strong for Barack Obama…
