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“Take care of your people and your people will take care of the business and its customers.”

Bill Marriott and his son are examples of very successful big businessmen.   I did not always agree with their politics, but I did observe the wisdom of the words above that were regularly imparted on their management team, of which I was a part for over twenty years.  My belief in the necessity of a strong public sector is grounded in a similar belief:  if society fairly funds and administers a quality social infrastructure for its people, then the businesses and other institutions that rely on a healthy and  enterprising people will be lifted and will thrive.

Continue reading A business-world case for a strong public sector

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Cross-posted at GreenChange.org, part of the Green Change Blog Action Day

From internal feuds and co-optation of the Tea Party movement to copycat “movements” like the Coffee Party, or Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s silly yearning for a “Tea Party of the radical center“, it is clear that the tax day teabags have made their mark on the United States.

Taking a good look at the pictures from the April 15, 2009 Tea “coming out” Party, I can’t help but think that many of the grievances are valid and even accurate criticisms of the US federal government today (e.g. “Stop Spending $$$ Our Grandkids’ Future” or “Obama’s Hockey Stick” showing exponentially rising federal debt). Of course, the pictures also make it clear that jumping into bed with the Tea Partiers could make for a nasty relationship. “Taxes Kill Freedom”, “Taxation Is Just Piracy With Paperwork”, “Taxes Destroy Ambition”, and lots of mistaking corporatist Obama as a socialist.

So what exactly is this political moment? And what is the role of the Greens?  

Continue reading Green Tea Party for People, Peace & the Planet
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VOWS TO CONTINUE THE FIGHT AS CRISIS ACCELERATES.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 23 March, 2010

Contact: Daryl Sprague, 617-459-0784

LEXINGTON, Massachusetts – Jill Stein, Green-Rainbow Party candidate for governor, described the health care bill passed by Congress Sunday as lobbyists’ legislation which offers few benefits at staggering cost. She warned Massachusetts residents to brace for skyrocketing prices and an accelerating health care meltdown, and vowed to renew her push for “real solutions.”

Here are her remarks, made in a speech to supporters during a teleconference Tuesday morning:

“The health reform passed on Sunday is not the solution the American people have been looking for, but rather a triumph of business-as-usual. It will bankrupt individuals and local governments by forcing them to buy the expensive policies in a health-care system designed to exploit instead of to serve. Starting today, we begin the real battle to move beyond this costly non-solution and replace it with the health care system America needs.

Continue reading Stein Says Insurance Industry the Real Winner in Health Reform Bill
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Weatherization Barnraising

Saturday, April 10th

12:30-5:00 p.m.

Cambridge YWCA Emergency Family Shelter

3 Bigelow Street, Cambridge

Pitch in to help 10 homeless families who live at the shelter

Lower vast energy bills for the shelter so it can help the families more

Learn skills that can save you $$ at home

Fight climate change

Share food & celebrate after a job well done

No skills necessary – training on the job!!

Work includes:

• An easy and cheap way to fix old vinyl replacement windows so they easily close again

• Air-sealing an incredibly leaky attic

• Using caulk and sprayfoam to stop air leaks

• Saving water and electricity

• Installing programmable thermostats

• Masonry, plastering, and more

Sign up today by web, email or phone!!

www.heetma.com

heet.cambridge@gmail.com

617-491-6761

Organized by HEET (Home Energy Efficiency Team), a Cambridge-based

co-op that brings neighbors together to weatherize our homes

and take the energy future into our own hands.

Co-sponsored by Cambridge Energy Alliance

Continue reading Weatherization Barnraising: Cambridge, MA on April 10, 2010
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IED  n. ;  1. acronym for “improvised explosive device”, a term of derision for the perceived backward and amateurish way that the Islamic army rabble engages in combat  2. (post 2009) acronym for “improvised election deception” – a term named for the desperate, undemocratic, most likely illegal way Scott Brown won the MA Senate race in 2009 by having Tea Party people and their money flood into MA from outside the state making it appear MA people supported him, which is reminiscent of the border ruffians who stormed into Kansas from Missouri to disrupt democratic conventions in Kansas just prior to the Civil War in an episode that has been termed “Bleeding Kansas.”

Continue reading IED gets a second definition – by Larry Ely
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Or so I’ve been hearing listening to “debate” on healthcare insurance reform for the last seven hours. And so the right would have ya believe. As the roll call for the health insurance reform bill approaches,there are actual Congresspeople standing on the floor ranting about stalinism. Never mind that the damn bill doesn’t even include a public option. Meanwhile, the far left would have you believe that this pretense of reform is nothing but a major handout to private insurance companies–and neglects to mention the dozens of actual benefits the bill provides.

It wasn’t what anybody wanted. But to my mind, the first element in any definition of democracy is that no one gets what they want. You go in with a swagger, you bluff and deal, and when the rubbers hits the road, you grit your teeth, make the deal, and you hope you’ve helped people just a little bit. You don’t get what ya want, ever, but if ya try sometimes, then, yeah, maybe ya get what ya need.  Here and there, anyway.

This isn’t a bad bill.

Continue reading A Spectre is Haunting America… the Spectre of Communism

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Coming from the Financial Times, this seems to be quite an important, well, admission. Jeremy Rifkin lays out an interesting case that our civilization is on its deathbed, on life support, and that revolutions in both technology and consciousness are necessary for our resuscitation.

I think he fails to recognize — or at least include in his analysis — the paradigm shift that will define our species’ salvation, which is, in my opinion, a shift away from economic growth and towards a steady-state ecologically-grounded economy. The biosphere consciousness that he talks about will necessitate this. This is fundamentally incompatible with capitalism, and I wonder if his new book dances with this and this Financial Times article simply side-steps it.

What’s YOUR take?


Jeremy Rifkin (Financial Times)

Towards The Empathic Civilization. We Are On the Verge of a Shift to Biosphere Consciousness

The global economy has shattered. The fossil fuels that propelled an industrial revolution are running out and the infrastructure built with these energies is barely clinging to life. Worse, more than two centuries of rising carbon emissions now threaten us with catastrophic climate change.

Continue reading Towards The Empathic Civilization

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Everyone seems to know that the tea party “movement” had a rally on the steps of the capitol yesterday.  They got in the face of a few Congressmen and now every Beltway media outlet from the Washington Post to Meet the Press is talking about it.  But there was another protest in town yesterday.  Thousands of people showed up in front of the White House to tell Obama (and Congress) to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to treat Palestinians fairly, and to generally end the US military empire.

MSNBC estimates that somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 tea party people showed up at the capitol building.  Yet the low end of the estimates for the number of people who showed up at the peace demonstration (including myself) is about 2,500, and the high end is about 10,000.  Where’s our moment on Meet the Press?  Where’s our article in the New York Times?

Continue reading 1000s march on capitol against healthcare, on White House for peace. Guess which is covered more…
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