A Thanksgiving invitation sent today to my nephew, who is studying in Washington DC away from his Seattle home, got me thinking of my own student days at Georgetown University in the mid 1970’s. Some historical recollections and zig zags to the present ‘bi-partisan commission on fiscal responsibility.’
Continue reading Not Blithe to the Bi-Partisan CommissionThere are many theories out there about how we ended up in the economic situation that we are in. This is a very bad situation and it has affected many people and it is looking like it is going to get worse before it gets better. Now I am not an economist but I too have a theory of how we got into this mess and I can sum it up with one word, GREED!
Americans have been living beyond their means for a long time now and I will call it what it is, sinful. We need to be good stewards of the gifts that God has given us and that does not include getting into more debt then we can handle. Yes the mortgage crisis lead to part of this but no one forced your hand to sign the loan application. As I wrote yesterday we need to start taking personal responsibility for our actions and that would include getting into debt. Americans today have more personal debt than any other time in history. By the way I am including myself in this as well.
During this past election cycle here in Massachusetts there was a statewide question on the ballot to roll back the state sales tax from 6.25% to 3%. Thankfully the question did not pass. If it had it was estimated that the Town of Southbridge would loose approximately $9.5 million in state aid. Okay my question is this, why is the Town of Southbridge, or any Town for that matter, relying on aid from the state? It was reported in today’s Boston Globe that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts stands to loose money in Federal aid in the coming years as well. I ask the same question, why are we relying on Federal Aid? We are living beyond our means.
Continue reading Living beyond our MeansRelocalization to the Rescue
By Larry Ely, Rob Crowner, and Steve Randall
“Civilized man was nearly always able to become master of his environment temporarily. His chief troubles came from his delusions that his temporary mastership was permanent. He thought of himself as ‘master of the world,’ while failing to understand fully the laws of nature.”
– Tom Dale and Vernon Carter, Topsoil and Civilization, 1955.
Our delusional sense of permanent mastership over the environment accelerated dramatically with the creation of the first American oil company, the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, in 1854. Melville had just been on a whaling ship hunting for another kind of oil and writing Moby Dick in 1851 – whale oil and wood having fueled American society until commercial oil extraction began in Titusville, PA. In 1854, ironically the very year we entered “sub-nature” by extracting subterranean oil, came a warning from another American savant on the folly of the pell-mell rush to industrialization “Ahab style.” Thoreau summarized his manifold pronouncements on the human being’s relationship to nature by saying in Walden, “We can never have enough of nature.”
Oil was cheap, involving opening a spigot instead of hunting for whales on the high seas. With the car’s advent we’ve been driven increasingly to be profligate oil users – out of touch with our bodies and each other. Cars have that passivity-inducing, separative effect. A ballooning, overweight body on the personal level now mirrors on the societal level the corpulent spread of the built environment (exurban sprawl).
Continue reading Relocalization to the RescueI stand in awe of your courage and commitment. You are, without question, the most honorable citizens of our country.
Continue reading To our brave soldiers{ 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.
Continue reading Energy and Equity: Net transfer of life-timeEarly next year the Green-Rainbow Party will be notified that it is a party (in offialdom’s eyes). This is due to Nat Fortune’s statewide tally in his recent State Auditor’s race.
I intend to celebrate this while at the GRP convention in Worcester on Sunday Nov 14.
The Vermont Progressive Party is also a party. It is the most successful party in the US outside the Democratic and Republican parties, as measured by the number of candidates elected in partisan elections. The Vermont Progressive Party is having its convention in Burlington on Saturday Nov 20.
I’ll be there to get ideas from them on how we can build the Green-Rainbow Party.
Join me at both conventions, and join me in joining the party. How else do we grow? Read on for more background, observations, and for the Vermont Progressive Party’s post election report.
Continue reading We’re a Party They’re a PartyThe town of Lenox has quickly learned that the lodging tax that it imposed last year and the meals tax it is proposing to add next year are not enough. My fellow residents are being asked to fill out a survey by December 6 to tell the Selectmen “which services are the highest priority.” The town “faces the prospect of either needing to reduce services to keep in line with the financial resources available to us OR seeking voter approval for a Proposition 2-1/2 override in order to increase our property tax revenues to pay for the services you want.”
As I witnessed on the campaign trail, the long-term effects of regressive taxation are regressive service cuts. Translation: lower and middle income residents are asked to shoulder more of the tax burden, as a percentage of their income and assets, while the services they most depend upon are disproportionately cut.
The legislature does not provide towns with many tools to deal with the problem. Local aid has been cut by over 45% in the last decade. The lodging tax and meals tax are simply band-aids that don’t change the underlying trends. Even regionalization of services, often described as ‘transformational’ is simply a more difficult band-aid to administer. I’m not against regionalization where it makes sense, but it is not transformational. There will be a one or two year blip to slow the trends somewhat, but the benefits will not be sustainable. These band-aids have no effect on slowing down health care costs or of reversing the regressive burden of taxation.
Many towns in the area are further down the regressive tax and benefits spiral than Lenox is, but the legislature’s inaction is pulling many communities further down the drain every year, especially in the western part of the Commonwealth.
My answers to the three survey questions follow.
Continue reading Services RegressionA local media personage recently slammed a newspaper that had endorsed my 2010 candidacy for State Representative in the 4th Berkshire District. Election results were cited as explanation for why the endorsement was unwarranted.
Huh? Endorsements are not validated or invalidated by election results. They will be validated or invalidated by the actions of public figures like me and my opponent down the road. In the case of my campaign we worked hard. We answered all questionnaires that were sent to us and reported our answers on our web site. We knocked on doors; we stood out; we attended public meetings. I’m sure there were those who were dismissive of the campaign right up to election day, but as we made contact with people and with editorial boards and with other community groups, our support grew. It’s a long road; it was never about one election cycle. It is about being persistent, clear and positive, and setting an example that, in the future, voters will demand more of. The work continues to demonstrate that the endorsements and praise which our campaign earned is deserving.
Continue reading Ego MediaOnce again Jason Pramas from the Open Media Group has written a wonderful piece. This one in support of Chuck Turner. mikeheichman :: article in support of Chuck Turner Keep Chuck Turner Out of Jail and Let Him Serve Out His Full Council Term
Originally I held up this week’s edition until today to cover yesterday’s rally in support of Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner. The event was announced on understandably short notice after Turner was found guilty on charges that he took a $1000 bribe in 2007 and later lied about it to federal agents. He faces up to 35 years in prison at his sentencing hearing on January 25th. My plan was that I’d write a straight news piece about the rally, and then a short editorial about Turner’s verdict. So I went and covered the rally as planned. And then I sat in front of my computer for a while. And then I thought, “what’s the point of doing a news piece on the rally?” Right? What can one say at this point that hasn’t already been said? Turner lost the trial. His supporters called a rally. A multiracial crowd of over 100 attended. Turner spoke. Said a lot of political and some spiritual stuff. Said he was going to fight to keep his council seat. Said he is going to fight for probation instead of jail time. Councilor Charles Yancey showed up in his support, and said some nice stuff. And that was basically it. The rest of the Boston press corps has already weighed in on the rally. I can’t say much different in a news story. So why bother?
Continue reading article in support of Chuck TurnerFrom 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.”
Continue reading GREEN-RAINBOW PARTY NOTES PROGRESS IN 2010 ELECTION SEES OPPORTUNITIES IN COMING YEARS