From the Fenway News

Reporters keep asking me why I won’t resign since I have been convicted of the crime of extortion of $1000 and three crimes of lying to FBI officials. I appreciate the Fenway News giving me the space to explain in detail why I think it would be absurd for me to resign from the City Council.

The first reason is that my constituents elected me last year, after I was indicted, with a larger plurality in my district than the Mayor received in the City and despite my conviction they have continued to support me. While the Boston Globe and Mayor Menino have tried to coax people in my community to stand up and speak out against me, they find themselves virtually standing alone.

The second reason that I would never resign is that I was found guilty of a crime that was planned by US Attorney Sullivan and executed by his paid agent, Ron Wilburn.  Even though Sullivan tried to convince the public that there was a conspiracy between the Senator and me. At the trial, it became clear that the conspiracy was between Sullivan and Wilburn as they conspired to take me down.

Some may ask “Why”. That is, what was Sullivan’s purpose in using Wilburn to create the picture that I was a corrupt elected official? He knew there has never been even the hint of me being corrupt during my 33 years of activism and 11 years on the Council.  Obviously, he did it because he and others wanted to silence me in my advocacy for the working class and poor of Boston.

Ed. note: this is a stunning development. I dare say it represents the beginning of a changing tide from timidity regarding the Green Party to explicit investment of hope in its development. Korten’s courage here is noteworthy, moving from theoretical ideas of a sustainable and just economy to the practical work of designing its political roadmap and beginning road construction.

2010 Pacific Northwest Regional Green Gathering

David Korten, November 13, 2010

Read the original article.

I was delighted to be invited to address this gathering of Pacific Northwest Regional Green Party leaders. I had not realized at the time that would be an exclusive gathering of the party elders. We do have the benefit of bringing a depth of experience and connections to the significant work at hand.

I’ll be laying out my take on what is at stake at this point in America’s history and how I believe we need to rethink and reposition the Green Party to function as the political arm of a much larger social movement devoted to advancing the universal human values that frame the Green Party’s agenda. It requires, among other things, coming up with a much more concise statement of what we are about-our elevator speech.

{ Installment 4 of Ivan Illich’s Energy and Equity series }

Net transfer of life-time

Unchecked speed is expensive, and progressively fewer can afford it. Each increment in the velocity of a vehicle results in an increase in the cost of propulsion and track construction and-most dramatically-in the space the vehicle devours while it is on the move. Past a certain threshold of energy consumption for the fastest passenger, a world-wide class structure of speed capitalists is created. The exchange-value of time becomes dominant, and this is reflected in language: time is spent, saved, invested, wasted, and employed. As societies put price tags on time, equity and vehicular speed correlate inversely.

High speed capitalizes a few people’s time at an enormous rate but, paradoxically, it does this at a high cost in time for all. In Bombay, only a very few people own cars. They can reach a provincial capital in one morning and make the trip once a week. Two generations ago, this would have been a week-long trek once a year. They now spend more time on more trips. But these same few also disrupt, with their cars, the traffic flow of thousands of bicycles and pedicabs that move through downtown Bombay at a rate of effective locomotion that is still superior to that of downtown Paris, London, or New York. The compounded, transport-related time expenditure within a society grows much faster than the time economies made by a few people on their speedy excursions. Traffic grows indefinitely with the availability of high-speed transports. Beyond a critical threshold, the output of the industrial complex established to move people costs a society more time than it saves. The marginal utility of an increment in the speed of a small number of people has for its price the growing marginal disutility of this acceleration for the great majority.

From the Green-Rainbow Party

November 3, 2010

The Green Rainbow Party congratulates Deval Patrick and all of the winners in yesterday’s election. We thank all candidates for offering their public service, especially the independent candidates for various offices who faced an uphill fight against financial disadvantages and media bias. We wish the Patrick administration and the legislators the best of luck in dealing with the issues facing the Commonwealth.

“It’s clear that the Green-Rainbow Party has a vital role to play in being the voice for some urgently needed solutions that are not going to be put on the table without us” said Michael Horan, Green-Rainbow Party Co-chair.  

“The Green-Rainbow Party made some major advances in yesterday’s elections, and achieved most of its goals despite the fact that our long-shot campaigns fell short of dislodging the major party grip on elected offices.”

by Jason Pramas (Open Media Boston Staff), Oct-22-10 OMB Editorial

Whatever the outcome of Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner’s trial in federal court over the next several days, I can say as sure as poor DJ Henry was executed in upstate New York by the Mount Pleasant 5-0 a few days ago for DWB (Driving While Black) that Turner was targeted for political elimination for being – first and foremost – an outspoken progressive black politician by former US Attorney (and Republican) Michael Sullivan. These kinds of events are the “exceptions” that prove the rule that we are not living in a “post-racial” society yet. Far from it.

The government’s case against Turner is light on facts and heavy on weirdness. They had to pay their “star witness” Ron Wilburn $30,000 to attempt to entrap Turner – and also former State Senator Diane Wilkerson, who looks to really have done the deeds she’s accused of doing … having pleaded guilty to eight counts of attempted extortion in June. Both Turner and Wilkerson stood accused of malfeasance that still remains totally small potatoes next to the major league corruption that higher level (and significantly paler) politicians commit in here in the Commonwealth on a regular basis.

This video features Robert Reich discussing his new book “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future”, likening what we’re facing today with the Great Depression and holding out hope that we can reform our political economy before a more reactionary politics takes over.

In a new article called The Perfect Storm, he lays out the historic threat we are currently facing and warns that we are losing our democracy and slipping into plutocracy, or rule by the wealthy.

It’s a perfect storm. And I’m not talking about the impending dangers facing Democrats. I’m talking about the dangers facing our democracy.

First, income in America is now more concentrated in fewer hands than it’s been in 80 years. Almost a quarter of total income generated in the United States is going to the top 1 percent of Americans.

The top one-tenth of one percent of Americans now earn as much as the bottom 120 million of us.