Viz... Magazine (1st Issue)

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Issue 1, Jan–Feb 2009 www.evizmagazine.com

What is Permaculture? My Bolivian Commute

Surreal Incident

Paige Doughty

http://www.paigedoughty.com

Why We Print and Why We Web

Contents: Wastebasket (AKA Opinion)

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Permaculture: What Exactly Is It?

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Democracy Now! Headlines

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Donʼt Rush It. Dig In…

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Republican IT Specialist Dies in Plane Crash Democracy Now! Transcript 7

Small Planet E Vehicles Has Moved

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Surreal Incident

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Beyond Voting: Guerrilla Gardeners, Outlaw Bicyclists & Pirate Programmers 14 Informed Public Leads…

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My Bolivian Commute

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The reasons are many. What are we supposed to do, sit home and watch TeeVee while the world turns? The world needs independent media. The corporate media only tells us what they want us to know. We need independent voices, the more the better. We plan on printing and webbing information that is not readily available, and hope to make you smile every now and then. Hope and good humor are essential. We face the future with a can-do-attitude and we laugh in the face of the giants. The problems of the world are many, and we have spent a long time ignoring them. It is time to take the future in hand. We can shape it like a potter shapes the clay. That will take skill, patience and insight. We hope to supply some of each. We expect you to supply the rest. We need each other. The best ideas come about when people communicate. Some of us had a hand in the Main Street Free Press, which went out of print December 2006. There is good news and bad news since then. The bad news is that the environment has been neglected and further degraded, the economy has flung itself into chaos, the energy supply is questionable, and the wars are still going on. The good news is that more people are catching on and forming movements to correct those problems. That one bit of good news is (or can be) more powerful than anything else. But we need to get moving. For more on that read the book review on Nowtopia and take a look at the twelve steps at the bottom of page twenty. Corporations control the economy and many of our politicians. They are rich, powerful, and few have any scruples about manipulating our thoughts and our actions. We need to figure out how to balance their power with something else. I have a hunch this balance will come from us, the people who care enough and have the grit for the long haul. That’s enough for now- yah bastante. We print therefore we are. Oh, the future is now. Jim Kenworthy Contact Information: VizMag, LLC 858 4th Ave, Ste 2 Longmont, CO 80501-5418 “mail to: [email protected]” VIZ “Peeps”: General and Ad Sales Manager: Print Design and Production: Copy Editor: Financial Manager: Contributing Writers: Contributing Photographers: Graphic Design: Technical Consultant: Contributing Editors: Operations Manager: Circulation Manager: Webmaster:

Jim Kenworthy Greg Robles Jack Slavin Clive Clussin Benjamin Dangl, Jim Schulz, Aref Nammari, Philip Skergan, Paige Doughty, Sandy Cruz, Jim Kenworthy Charles Hanson and Nate Kenworthy Cyndie Hardey Nate Kenworthy Ernie Greenly, Jack Slavin, Paige Doughty, Cyndie Hardey, Greg Robles, Jim Kenworthy Greg Robles Jim Kenworthy Philip Skergan

Front Cover Artist/Author Profile: Paige Doughty is an environmental educator and freelance writer. Her written work has been published in a variety of places; her essay “The Patience of the Wild” will be published in the 2009 Green Living Guide by Llewellyn. She currently works in Boulder, Colorado, teaching the Community Adventure Program at New Vista High School. She seeks to combine her passions for writing and art with transition towards a sustainable and joyful world. Learn more at www.paigedoughty.com.

Wastebasket

Senate to Middle Class: Drop Dead Friday, December 12th, 2008

(AKA Opinion)

Submit your letters to the VIZ… Wastebasket at [email protected].

Friends, They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers start building only cars and mass transit that reduce our dependency on oil. They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers build cars that reduce global warming. They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers withdraw their many lawsuits against state governments in their attempts to not comply with our environmental laws. They could have given the loan on the condition that the management team which drove these once-great manufacturers into the ground resign and be replaced with a team who understands the transportation needs of the 21st century. Yes, they could have given the loan for any of these reasons because, in the end, to lose our manufacturing infrastructure and throw 3 million people out of work would be a catastrophe. But instead, the Senate said, we’ll give you the loan only if the factory workers take a $20 an hour cut in wages, pension and health care. That’s right. After giving BILLIONS to Wall Street hucksters and criminal investment bankers -- billions with no strings attached and, as we have since learned, no oversight whatsoever -- the Senate decided it is more important to break a union, more important to throw middle class wage earners into the ranks of the working poor than to prevent the total collapse of industrial America. We have a little more than a month to go of this madness. As I sit here in Michigan today, tens of thousands of hard working, honest, decent Americans do not believe they can make it to January 20th. The malaise here is astounding. Why must they suffer because of the mistakes of every CEO from Roger Smith to Rick Wagoner? Make management and the boards of directors and the shareholders pay for this. Of course that is heresy to the 31 Republicans who decided to blame the poor, miserable autoworkers for this mess. And our wonderful media complied with their spin on the morning news shows: “UAW Refuses to Give Concessions Killing Auto Bailout Bill.” In fact the UAW has given concession after concession, reduced their benefits, agreed to get rid of the Jobs Bank and agreed to make it harder for their retirees to live from week to week. Yes! That’s what we need to do! It’s the Jobs Bank and the old people who have led the nation to economic ruin! But even doing all that wasn’t enough to satisfy the bastard Republicans. These Senate vampires wanted blood. Blue collar blood. You see, they weren’t opposed to the bailout because they believed in the free market or capitalism. No, they were opposed to the bailout because they’re opposed to workers making a decent wage. In their rage, they were driven to destroy the backbone of this country, not because the UAW hadn’t given back enough, but because the UAW hadn’t given up. It appears that the sitting President has been looking for a way to end his reign by one magnanimous act, just like a warlord on his feast day. He will put his finger in the dyke, and the fragile mess of an auto industry will eke through the next few months. That will give the Senate enough time to demand that the bankers and investment sharks who’ve already swiped nearly half of the $700 billion gift a chance to make the offer of cutting their pay. Fat chance. Yours, Michael Moore [email protected] MichaelMoore.com

“Politics is the art of shifting trouble from the living to the unborn.” George Monbiot, The Guardian

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Permaculture: What Exactly Is It? By Sandy Cruz Illustrations by Carol Jenkins

What great drama! Will humanity wake up to its follies in time to avoid global environmental catastrophe? Is it already too late? It seems to me that the outcome is still up for grabs — a real cliffhanger! And we have our role to play in it. Now more than ever, our actions are crucial. So . . . how can humans live on this planet far into the future in harmony, abundance, grace and ease? What models are available to guide us in creating new relationships with Nature and each other. One possibility is to look to Nature itself as a model. Natural systems tend to be stable, adaptable, non-polluting and increasingly abundant over time. Just what we need! Permaculture is a method of observing and understanding natural systems, and then imitating what we see in Nature to provide ourselves with food, shelter and clothing. Once basic human needs are satisfied, we can leave the rest of the planet in a wild state. Creating Ecosystems Nature organizes itself into ecosystems of varying scales. A single cell in your body is an ecosystem, as is your entire body, as is the watershed in which you live, as is the entire Earth. Ecosystems have a certain resilience and integrity — a life of their own — while at the same time being part of larger ecosystem. The basic idea of Permaculture is to create ecosystems tailored to provide what humans need. These may vary in size from an indoor windowsill garden to a large farm, to a city or entire region. The strategy is to design and implement a system that takes on a life of its own, thereby maximizing natural productivity and enhancing the environment, while minimizing 2

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pollution, human intervention and labor. In every project, as much area as possible is set aside to remain wild. Relative Placement Permaculture translates the characteristics of natural systems

into about a dozen guiding design principles. Microbes, fungi, plants and animals, for example, tend to feed on and nurture one another in a complex web of relationship and interaction. What can we learn from this? By placing plants, animals, and other elements that nourish and support each another together, we can foster a dynamic web of life. The classic southwestern triculture of corn, beans and squash is a wonderful example of humans imitating this natural principle. Quickgrowing squash provide shade and protection for young corn seedlings. Beans fix nitrogen that fertilizes the corn and squash. Corn stalks provide a trellis for the beans. Shade-loving ground beetles under the squash may eat the eggs of corn-borers. Relative Placement is the principle of placing things near each other that can help one another. In a dry climate, for example, we can locate a compost pile under the eaves, so that the roof automatically sheds rain and snow onto the pile. (Do not rest the pile against the siding,

however, unless you also want to compost the building!) Nature added another element to one compost pile I saw, where volunteer squash plants used the building as a trellis, climbing up the wall and onto the roof. Energy and Nutrient Recycling Another common trait of natural ecosystems is that elements cycle through them over and over until eventually leaving the system. A drop of water, for example, may fall from the sky into a puddle, where it is drunk by a squirrel, who urinates it onto a plant, that pumps it up into its leaves, which are eaten by a deer, who exhales the water through its breath, where it is carried away by the wind. Beaver enhance this dynamic by damming streams, thereby increasing the time a drop of water remains in the system and raising the water table. This creates habitat for many other creatures and protects the forest from severe wildfires. In contrast, the same drop of water tends to wash away quickly in an eroding landscape, having done nothing to support life in the ecosystem. How can we learn from this? We can set up ecosystems where energy and nutrients tend to cycle through the system for a while before leaving. For example, we can capture the energy of the winter sun in a solar greenhouse, converting it into heat by piping it through the growing beds. Warm roots will help the plants to thrive. A home attached to the greenhouse will benefit from the extra layer of warmth emanating from the growing beds. After creating these useful effects, the heat will leave the greenhouse long after the sun has set. Using Biological Resources Most human endeavors, at this point

in time, rely on dead materials such as metals, minerals, lumber and toxic chemicals. Natural ecosystems consist largely of biologically alive elements. What can we learn from this? We can imitate Nature and apply biological resources whenever possible. Mycologist Paul Stamets has shown, for example, that in cleaning up toxic oil spills, oyster mushroom cultures are far more effective than chemical remediation methods. Rather than fertilizing plants with petroleum-based chemicals, organic gardeners use biological resources to nourish the soil by encouraging worms to propagate, and by creating rich compost from biologicallyactive “waste” materials. Gardeners can also use predatory insects rather than toxic insecticides to control garden pests. In some situations, they can create dense biological fences by planting quick-growing plants, shrubs, trees and vines, rather than cutting trees for fenceposts which will eventually rot. Permaculture is Unique Permaculture has some unusual characteristics among gardening systems: • Permaculture is based on the ethics of caring for the earth, caring for people, and limiting growth. • Permaculture is primarily a system of design. When a site is well understood and the ecosystem well designed, the results are likely to be more productive and resilient,

thereby needing less maintenance and remodeling over time. In contrast to the typical cookie-cutter approach, Permaculture regards each site as unique. • Permaculture recommends that people observe a site for at least a year before doing anything. This concept is not too popular in our current hurry-up world! By observing diverse factors through every season and every extreme, a viable design can grow out of the site, rather than being imposed on it. In Permaculture, we say “Thoughtful and protracted observation, rather than thoughtless and protracted labor.” • Permaculture — based on an integration of microbes, insects, plants, fungi, animals, people, structures and technologies — considers all possible connections among all elements. In applying integration to human activities, what connections can we forge, for example, among organic gardeners, holistic healers, solar architects and “waste” collectors? The “waste” people can create compost for the gardeners, who use solar structures to grow medicinal herbs for the healers. The healers can give massages to the hardworking gardeners, composters and architects in solar spas, followed by an organic lunch from the garden. Etcetera. Culture and Agriculture There are people all around the planet working towards creating new models for human culture on earth — models that value and create cooperation among all beings. With Nature as its model, Permaculture can serve as a great unifying umbrella, integrating many diverse elements of our emerging

culture into the vast planetary ecosystem. Working in harmony with Nature is largely uncharted territory. There’s plenty of room for creativity and new discoveries in Permaculture.

Welcome aboard! Sandy Cruz has been gardening at 9,200 feet for thirty years, experimenting with plants and refining strategies for living in extremely harsh conditions. She holds a Diploma of Permaculture Design from the International Permaculture Institute, and has published a variety of articles on sustainable living. Sandy founded High Altitude Permaculture in 1992 and currently assists people with site planning and design. She can be reached at (303) 4593494. This article first appeared in Colorado Gardener, April 2006.

Points to Ponder: A recent CNN program asked viewers, if the State of California is going to issue IOUs to reimburse tax refunds, can residents submit IOUs for taxes owed?

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Army Unit to Deploy in October for Domestic Operations 09/22/08 Beginning in October, the Army plans to station an active unit inside the United States for the first time to serve as an on-call federal response in times of emergency. The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent thirty-five of the last sixty months in Iraq, but now the unit is training for domestic operations. The unit will soon be under the day-to-day control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The Army Times reports this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to Northern Command. The paper says the Army unit may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. The soldiers are learning to use so-called nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals and crowds. Scientists: Arctic Warming at Unforeseen Rate 12/17/08 In environmental news, scientists say they’ve found new evidence the Arctic is warming far faster than previously anticipated. The US National Snow and Ice Center says temperatures recorded today weren’t expected for another ten to fifteen years. Researchers say autumn temperatures were higher because of the heat accumulation from increased melting in the summer. The process, known as Arctic amplification, could signify Arctic melting has hit a point of no return. Climate Talks End Without New Goals to Cut Emissions 12/15/08 The twelve-day international climate conference in Poland has ended after nations failed to set ambitious new goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions. WWF Director Kim Carstensen criticized many industrialized nations of blocking progress at the summit. Kim Carstensen: “We’ve seen a lack of leadership among the developed countries, lack of leadership from the US, because they can’t lead at the moment because they’re waiting for a new president. We’ve seen a 4

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lack of leadership from the European Union, who are not leading at the moment, because they’re completely inward-focused, completely looking at themselves and the EU package that they agreed today.” At the end of the climate talks, wealthier nations were also accused of failing to provide enough money to help poorer countries cope with droughts, floods and rising seas. Former US Vice President Al Gore urged climate delegates to approve a new climate treaty next year. Al Gore: “To those who are fearful that it is too difficult to conclude this process with a new treaty by the deadline that has been established for one year from now in Copenhagen, I say it can be done, it must be done. Let’s finish this process at Copenhagen. Don’t take the pressure off. Let’s make sure that we succeed.”

Bailed-Out Banks Canʼt Account for Govʼt Funds 12/23/08 The Associated Press has revealed that many of the nation’s largest banks are claiming they can’t track how they’re using the billions of dollars they have received in aid from US taxpayers. The Associated Press contacted twenty-one banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings? And what’s the plan for the rest? None of the banks provided specific answers. When Congress approved the massive bailout, it attached nearly no strings to the money, and the Treasury Department never asked the banks how it would be spent. No Charges Yet Against Student Who Disrupted Gas & Oil Auction in Utah 12/23/08 In Utah, the US attorney’s office in Salt Lake City said Monday it has not decided yet whether to prosecute a University of Utah student who disrupted a controversial federal oil- and gas-lease auction Friday by posing as a bidder and buying nearly 22,000 acres of public land near Arches and

Canyonlands national parks. The student, Tim DeChristopher, appeared in court on Monday, but no charges were filed. A spokeswoman for the US attorney’s office said, “It will take time to evaluate evidence and make a determination whether we will prosecute.” On Monday, Tim DeChristopher told Democracy Now! he is ready to go to jail. Tim DeChristopher: “I’ve seen the need for more serious action by the environmental movement and to protect a livable future for all of us. I’ve seen that need for a long time. And frankly, I’ve been hoping that someone would step up and someone would come out and be the leader and someone would put themselves on the line and make the sacrifices necessary to get us on a path to a more livable future. And I guess I just couldn’t wait any longer for that someone to come out there and had to accept the fact that that someone might be me.”

“I think that men living in aristocracies may, strictly speaking, do without the liberty of the press: but such is not the case with those who live in democratic countries...servitude cannot be complete if the press is free: the press is the chief democratic instrument of freedom.” Alexis de Tocqueville, 1805-1859, from Thom Hartmann’s Unequal Protection

Donʼt Rush It. Dig In: Defining Advice for the Possibilities Ahead by Paige Doughty

www.paigedoughty.com

Let’s face it things aren’t going well “out there.” The Midwest is flooded, the Southeast is in drought and the title of the Common Dreams e-mail that I got on Sunday June 22nd was “Everything is Spinning Out of Control.” “Holy shit!” I thought, not for the first time that day, “the end is near! What should I do?” My stomach sank and my heart raced. Then I looked around me to find I was still sitting in front of a computer, my stray kitten purring on my lap. I noticed that the ocean was not yet lapping at my door, and that the leaves outside my window were beautiful. This is not the first time I have grappled with the end of the world. Usually the images that flash through my mind, involve drowning, fire, or thirst; it always ends the same way: I calm down and go back to the work I was doing before the news flash told me the world was ending. In short, this is how I spend most of my crazy “environmental” life. Everyday I work, in my own small ways, to create a more sustainable world; but I oscillate constantly between the practicality of these small daily actions, and the need for large-scale change with the greatest urgency. On the one hand I wake up everyday with pressing urgency. “Go, go, go, there is not much time.” And there isn’t. There is not much time in a day, or in a life, or in ten years, which is the amount of time we have to “stop increasing carbon and start decreasing it,” according to Bill McKibben in an October 19th speech at the Great Turning Conference.

McKibben stressed that we are at a unique moment in history, racing against a global deadline. That’s heavy stuff. And it’s a heavy feeling that presses on my chest when I live all day racing against an invisible clock, hanging above us, ticking away seconds like a time bomb from a bad action film. It’s also information we’ve been hearing for years, so I can’t help but wonder, what the hell are you panicking for, you knew this was coming? I met a man last fall on the street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He approached me with a CD about Global Warming. He wanted me to make copies and distribute it amongst my friends. I told him about my own work, with a grassroots organization in the same city. Then he smiled and said, “That sounds nice, but I don’t have time right now, I am working at 200 percent on the global climate crisis.” We must be kindred spirits, both full of our own importance. I think we both need to take a step back from the edge. On the other hand, we cannot act hastily. Large scale hasty responses to climate change thus far, include nuclear energy and ethanol. Both of these “solutions” add to the unsustainable use of dwindling water supplies (we have anywhere between 10-50 years depending on who you ask, although if you live in Atlanta right now you might be saying something different), both are already

happening. In another speech at the Great Turning Conference, Winona La Duke, celebrated Anishinaabekwe, environmental activist and wise woman asked: “If nuclear power is the answer, then what the hell was the question? Was it the further contamination of groundwater? Was it how can we be bigger jerks and consume more resources? 70% of available uranium is in indigenous communities.” She has a stunning way with words. As for ethanol, I’m just going to give you a few statistics drawn from Gerry Rising’s July 15th, 2007 article in the Buffalo News. According to Rising’s calculations, which are based on the work of Ted Patzek and Gerald Cecil, for one gallon of ethanol the equivalent of more than a gallon of oil must be expended. If every acre of this nation’s corn were assigned to ethanol production, it would only provide 7 percent of what the nation’s cars use today. One element of ethanol production that Rising doesn’t mention is the fact that corn, as currently grown in most of the United States, is one of the most land intensive plants in the world. Planting it continuously causes soil erosion, unsustainable water use, and loss of diversity. Lastly, counting the growing of the corn, the processing of the corn, and production of the fuel, it will take millions of gallons of water on a daily basis to create ethanol. I draw again from Winona LaDuke: If ethanol is the answer, then what the hell was the question? So this is the point in the article

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when I am supposed to give you alternative solutions. Excitingly I have many. They are not original, most have nothing to do with large-scale national solutions to environmental problems, and they require an active imagination:

• Trust that what is happening will unfold well if we keep working on it. • Do not try to do this all at once. I did, and it wasn’t pretty.

Shamed! Corporate Accountability Internationl’s (CAI’s) Hall of Shame ‘08 lists Blackwater as the most shameful corporation of 2008. Over 10,000 votes were cast. Here’s the complete list:

Finally, I end with two of 1. Blackwater wisest pieces of advice I have ever 2. ADM (Archer Daniels Midland) • Turn your lawn into a garden. received about how to change the 3. Wal-Mart 4. Countrywide • Quit your job if you hate it world. 5. Nestle and start doing what you’ve The first is from a man named 6. Mattel always wanted (after all if John Francis, also known as the 7. Toyota McKibben is right you’ve only Planetwalker. He spent 22 years 8. Other 9. Wendy’s got about a decade). walking all over the country, 17 of 10. Monsanto (write-in) • Look at what you do on a daily them in silence. His advice, also 11. Exxon-Mobil (write-in) basis and ask yourself is this at the Great Turning Conference, 12. Hallibuton/KBR (write-in) harmful to me, to others, to the was this: “Ask yourself: what is Visit CAI’s website for more detals about planet? Act accordingly. your dream, say it out loud, and all their corporate misdeeds at: • Learn how to can and preserve then begin taking steps towards it. http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/cms/ to eat locally year round. Don’t rush it.” page1651.cfm • Turn off your T.V., Computer, The second is from Winona And to nominate corporations for the cell phone. LaDuke: “Get some place. Stay Corporate Hall of Shame 2009 visit: • Read a book, play a game, there. Live in a way that is http://www.stopcorporateabusen dance around a bonfire. peaceful to that place. Dig in.” ow.org/campaign/hall_of_shame_ • Install a grey water system to This is what, each time that I nominations_2009 create a closed loop for your panic, draws me back from the water use. edge. It is trust in the universe, the • Be dirty more often. will to follow my dreams, and the • Use rain barrels. knowledge that I am not alone, • Find a place you love outside; far from it. There are millions of visit it often. people out there making the world • Learn the names of trees, better everyday; my guess is that shrubs, birds, say hello. you are one of them. So Don’t • Stop blaming: We are they, they Rush it but Dig In. are us. See Paige’s bio on inside front cover. • Start a conversation with someone who intimidates you. • Cross neighborhood boundaries, be uncomfortable. Clean coal is now only a dream. For more information visit: • Never ever drink out of a plastic straw again. http://www.thisisreality.org/#/?p=facility • Carry a mug, a re-usable bag, a water bottle, plate, and fork http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/ with you at all times. 29/AR2008022903390.html • Unplug, unplug, unplug. • Make a leaf collage. http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/10/17/what-is• Compost (1/3 of the household clean-coal-anyway/ waste in landfills could have been composted and is the biggest human contribution of methane).

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Republican IT Specialist Dies in Plane Crash

Democracy Now! Transcript 12/22/08

AMY GOODMAN: A top Republican internet strategist who was set to testify in a case alleging election tampering in 2004 in Ohio has died in a plane crash. Mike Connell was the chief IT consultant to Karl Rove and created websites for the Bush and McCain electoral campaigns. He also set up the official Ohio state election website reporting the 2004 presidential election returns. Connell was reportedly an experienced pilot. He died instantly Friday night when his private plane crashed in a residential neighborhood near Akron, Ohio. Michael Connell was deposed one day before the election this year by attorneys Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis about his actions during the 2004 vote count and his access to Karl Rove’s email files and how they went missing. Velvet Revolution, a non-profit investigating Connell’s activities, revealed this weekend that Connell had recently said he was afraid George Bush and Dick Cheney would “throw [him] under the bus.” Cliff Arnebeck had also previously alerted Attorney General Michael Mukasey to alleged threats from Karl Rove to Connell if he refused to “take the fall.”

when the plane went down, there was an explosion, a fireball that actually charred and pocked some of the house fronts in the neighborhood. People can go online and see the footage that news crews took. But beyond the, you know, dubiousness of the official story, we have to take a close look at—and a serious look at all the charges that Connell was set to make. AMY GOODMAN: Now, he had asked the Attorney General Mukasey for protective custody, because of threats to him and his wife? MARK CRISPIN MILLER: He reported threats to his lawyer, Cliff Arnebeck, and Arnebeck—also, Velvet Revolution heard from tipsters, as well, tipsters who also claimed that Connell’s life was at risk. Stephen Spoonamore, the whistleblower who was the first—who was the one to name Connell in the first place, also had an ear to the inside. He’s also very connected. And all these people were saying Rove is making threats, the White House is very worried about this case. Having heard all this, Arnebeck contacted Mukasey, he contacted Nancy Rogers, who is the Ohio Attorney General, and he wrote a letter to the court, telling all of them that “This man should be in protective custody. He is an important witness in a RICO case. Please do something to look after him.” And they didn’t respond to this.

Well, Mark Crispin Miller joins us now, a professor of media culture and communication at New York University, the author of several books, including Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008 and Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too. Mark Crispin Miller us now in our firehouse AMY GOODMAN: So, explain what this case is all about and exactly what Mike Connell has been doing over these last years. studio. What does it mean to be Karl Rove’s IT guru? Welcome to Democracy Now! MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Well, the lawyers in the case MARK CRISPIN MILLER: It’s good to be here, Amy. Thank refer to him as a high-IQ Forrest Gump, by which they mean you. that he seems to have been present at the scene of every dubious AMY GOODMAN: Alright, well, we had you on right before election of the last eight years. We’re talking about Florida in the election, because that’s when Mike Connell was being 2000. We’re talking about Ohio in 2004. We’re talking about deposed. This news that came out of his death in a plane crash on Alabama in 2002. He seems to have been involved in the theft of Don Siegelman’s re-election for governor. There’s some Friday night, talk about what you understand has happened. evidence that links him with the Saxby Chambliss-Max Cleland MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Well, I cannot assert with Senate race in Georgia in 2002. To be Karl Rove’s IT guru perfect confidence that this was no accident, but I will say seems to have meant basically setting it up so that votes could that the circumstances are so suspicious and so convenient be electronically shaved to the disadvantage of the Democrats for Rove and the White House that I think we’re obliged to and the advantage of Republicans. investigate this thing very, very thoroughly. And that means, first of all, taking a close look at some of the stories that AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, “electronically were immediately circulated to account for what happened, shaved”? I mean, you’ve got all these precincts all over Ohio. that it was bad weather. That was the line they used when They’re counting up their votes. What does he have to do with Wellstone’s plane went down. There had been bad weather, this? but it had passed two hours before. And this comes from MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Well, specifically, there’s a woman at the airport information desk in Akron. We’re told a computer architecture setup called “Man in the Middle," that his plane was running out of gas, which is a little bit odd which involves shunting the election returns from, you know, for a highly experienced pilot like Connell, but apparently, the state in question—in this case, Ohio—shunting them to

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a separate computer elsewhere. All of the election returns in Ohio in 2004 went from the Secretary of State’s website—this is Ken Blackwell—to a separate computer in a basement in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which was under the control of another private company called SMARTech.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain again who he was. Why was he in a position to whistleblow?

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, “Christianist”?

And I have seen his notes of a conversation in which Connell asked Spoonamore how one would go about destroying White House emails. To this, Spoonamore said, “This conversation is over. You’re asking me to do something illegal.” But clearly, clearly—this is the important point—Mike Connell was up past his eyeballs in the most sensitive and explosive aspects of this crime family that, you know, has been masquerading as a political party.

MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Stephen Spoonamore is a conservative Republican, a former McCain supporter and a very prominent expert at the detection of computer fraud. He’s So we have now two private companies: GovTech Solutions, the star witness in the Ohio lawsuit, right, in which Connell was which is Connell’s company, SMARTech, which is run by a guy involved. He has done extensive work of this kind, involving named [Jeff] Averbeck. And the company—the third private computer security, and had therefore worked with Connell, company that managed the voting tabulators in Ohio was called knew Connell personally and knew a lot of the people who Triad. All three of these companies worked closely together on were involved in the sort of cyber-security end of the Bush election night in Ohio in 2004. It turns out that the state’s own operation. IT person was sent home at 9:00 p.m. They said, “Go ahead. Despite his conservatism—or I suppose some would say Go home. We’ll take care of this.” So that this trio of highly because of it—he’s a man of principle—I mean, believes in the partisan and, let me add, Christianist companies basically took Constitution. He believes elections should be honest. He’s the over the whole— one who came forward and named Connell. MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Well, they’re radical theocratic activists, particularly—particularly Triad and SMARTech. You know, they are fervently anti-choice. AMY GOODMAN: Well, Mike Connell was, in fact—many said that’s what motivated him through all of this, his fierce anti-abortion stance.

MARK CRISPIN MILLER: He told—Connell told Spoonamore that one of the primary reasons why he helped AMY GOODMAN: And what did Fitrakis, the attorney who Bush-Cheney steal elections was to save the babies. I do think, has brought the suit with Harvey Wasserman, the Ohio lawsuit, though, that we have to draw a distinction between Connell, learn in the deposition of Mike Connell in the day before the on the one hand, and the Averbeck and the Rapp family, on election, which hardly got attention, considering it was the day the other hand, because Connell was far less ferocious in his before this historic election? political views. He was an ardent anti-abortionist, it’s true, but MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Yeah. Harvey wasn’t part of he wasn’t quite as hardcore as the others. And in fact, you know, it. Harvey writes articles with Bob. It’s Bob Fitrakis and Cliff he was a little bit alienated from the others, and that’s one of the Arnebeck are the attorneys. They learned very little. What they learned was that Bush-Cheney lawyer who accompanied reasons why he was inclined to talk, and so on. Connell to the deposition was watching the whole thing But the fact is, to answer your question, that on election night in 2004, it had been Connell, with these other two companies like a hawk, repeatedly objected to questions. Connell was working with him, who had managed the computer setup, stonewalling like crazy at this deposition. enabling Ken Blackwell to study the maps of precincts and voter turnout very carefully and figure out how many votes they need. By shunting the data to Chattanooga, they kind of slowed down the data stream. AMY GOODMAN: Wasn’t Karl Rove’s email also there in Chattanooga on some of these servers? MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Yes, yes. The same servers were used to host a whole bunch of highly partisan websites. And also, indeed, Karl Rove’s emails were on that server, too.

They only learned one thing. And that was, they got confirmation that it was Connell who brought these other private companies into the arrangement, in addition to his own GovTech Solutions. Again, there was Triad and SMARTech. It was Connell who brought those three companies into one unit, so that the three of them were, in effect, handling Ohio’s election returns on election night under Connell’s supervision. That’s what we learned.

We also know, Amy, that since the deposition—I want to make this clear; we said it before, I want to repeat it—that Connell AMY GOODMAN: That have gone missing. has indicated very clearly a desire to talk further, to tell more, MARK CRISPIN MILLER: That have gone missing. whether it’s his conscience bothering him or whether it’s fear Incidentally, Stephen Spoonamore, again, the whistleblower of some kind of a perjury charge because of how vigorously he who’s the one who named Connell, has told us—and I’ve seen stonewalled at the deposition. He made it known to the lawyers, he made it known to reporter Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story, his own contemporary notes— 8

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that he wanted to talk. He was scared. He wanted to talk. And I say that he had pretty good reason to be scared. AMY GOODMAN: So why did he fly in—why did he pilot his own plane when he was so afraid? MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Well, that’s a good question. We can’t ask him, unfortunately. I mean, this is kind of a grisly thought, but, I mean, I think we should be asking where the body is? We’re told that a trooper on the scene immediately identified Connell. But then we read elsewhere that there was nothing left but debris and that the fireball was enormous. So maybe he wasn’t on the plane. I mean, who knows, when you’re dealing with people as deep as these? But the point is—I can’t stress this strongly enough—we’re dealing not just with a shocking accident, if that’s what it was, and a convenient one. We’re dealing not even just with a particular lawsuit that, you know, really requires vigorous promotion. The important point here is that this is all about our elections. That’s what this is about. This is about democratic self-government. The fact that Obama won so handily has caused a lot of us to sit back and relax. There’s been a lot of popping of champagne corks and people drawing the conclusion that the system must work, because our guy won. Well, this is not a sports event. This is self-government. In fact, the evidence strongly suggests—and we haven’t had a chance to talk about this since Election Day—that Obama probably won by twice as many votes as we think. Probably a good seven million votes for Obama were undone through vote suppression and fraud, because the stuff was extensive and pervasive, in places where you wouldn’t expect it. The Illinois Ballot Integrity Project was monitoring the vote

in DuPage County, right next door to Obama’s, you know, backyard, Cook County. And two of them, in only two precincts on Election Day, saw with their own eyes 350 voters show up, only to be turned away, told, “You’re not registered,” people who were registered, who voted in the primary. All but one of these people was black. That’s in Illinois. People at the Election Defense Alliance have discovered, from sifting through the numbers, an eleven-point red shift in New Hampshire. That means that there’s a discrepancy in Obama’s disfavor, primarily through use of the optical scan machines, an eleven-point discrepancy in the Republicans’ favor, OK? You start to combine this with all the vote suppression, all the disenfranchisement, all the vote machine flipping that went on in this election, you realize, OK, Obama won, but millions of Americans, most of them African American and students, you know, were not able to participate in any civic sense, ironically, a lot of the same people, you know, who would have been disenfranchised and were disenfranchised before the civil rights movement. So the fact that a black president was elected, while cause for jubilation, see, ought not to take place at the expense of a whole lot of our fellow citizens who seem to have been disenfranchised on racial grounds. My point is very simply this: We’ve got to get past the victory of Obama and look seriously at what our election system is like, or else, I promise you, see, the setup that was put in place in this last election, in 2004 and in 2000, OK, will still be there in 2010, still be there in 2012. So we’ve got to take steps to do something about it now. AMY GOODMAN: Mark Crispin Miller, I want to thank you very much for being with us, professor of media culture and communication at New York University, most recent book Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008.

“The collapse of the global marketplace would be a traumatic event with unimaginable consequences. Yet I find it easier to imagine than the continuation of the present regime.” George Soros, Soros on Soros, 1995

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Small Planet E Vehicles Has Moved by Philip Skergan and Jim Kenworthy

The main technological hurdles concern battery development. Gasoline is so energy dense, that large trucks and SUVs travel 500 miles on a tank of gas that is small relative to the vehicle. Even though lightweight, short-range electric vehicles fill many useful roles, until advanced batteries can hold enough charge to cover long distances and occupy a small enough portion of a vehicle, conventional vehicles must continue to be produced. In the past ten years, dozens of innovations have brought battery development to a new level. Current Photographed by Charles Hanson discoveries promise to combine into a power plant that Tom Wilson has moved his Small Planet Electric will hold as much as five times the energy as the best Vehicles business to 724 N. Main Street in Longmont, existing batteries. Full-sized electric vehicles fulfilling Colorado. You will find a selection of electric bikes, an most drivers’ expectations should be possible within electric scooter, electric cars and trucks, and C.A.R.B. five years. approved gasoline scooters. Check out the web site at The U.S. auto fleet is enormous, but we replace http://www.smallplanetearth.com. The future is now. it every sixteen years. If we begin to purchase such The future cost and availability of oil ought to electric vehicles five years from now, we might have trouble us. Should we grow as expected and continue a completely electric fleet of cars and trucks by 2030, to rely on fossil fuels, we will soon face supply powered by domestic wind, sun, coal and natural gas. shortfalls that will have a crippling effect on our economy. Perhaps we have already encountered the opening pages of that chapter in our history. When looking at the available choices for a next generation of vehicles that drastically reduce or eliminate the use of oil, electric vehicles rise to the top. Electric vehicles join an electric motor, controlling electronics and a battery. Lightweight and powerful, electric motors have efficiencies approaching 90 percent, compared to the 20 percent energy efficiency of combustion engines. The Photographed by Charles Hanson cheapest, most productive domestic energy resources: wind and solar among them, all produce electricity with high efficiency. We already have most of the needed infrastructure to fill up on electricity.

“The military don’t start wars. Politicians start wars.” General William Westmoreland

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Surreal Incident By Aref Nammari

Surrealism is a cultural movement best known for producing visual and written works juxtaposing unexpected elements and non sequitur sometimes bordering on the absurd. Often surrealism taps into the subconscious and the world of dreams and of the imagination. This story was published in a report by the B’Tselem—The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. The reporters were the field observers of Machsom Watch—an Israeli organization that monitors the checkpoints. “What can I do with all this cheese in the sun? Come on soldier, let me pass the cheese. Look it’s getting ruined.” “You can’t take your car into Nablus [a town in the West Bank]” said the soldier. “You don’t have a permit for the car.” “I don’t have a permit for the car? But, you can see for yourself, I have a permit from the…ministry of agriculture…I am allowed to pass my cheese, I have sheep, I make cheese from them and sell it in Ramallah [another town in the West Bank] where they use it for knafeh [a pastry filled with cheese]. Every week I transfer the cheese in my car to Nablus, from Nablus I go to Huwara checkpoint and then I head to Ramallah. And now you, a bunch of new soldiers, tell me that I need a permit to enter with my car into Nablus. If you would let me I would bypass it, I don’t even want to enter Nablus, I just want to get to Ramallah. How do you want me to pass all this cheese, on my back?” said the cheese man and pointed at the buckets that were full of hard salty cheese. “I don’t care how you pass it, get into your car and drive away, I don’t want to see you here again without a permit for your car.” The cheese man sighed in

desperation and turned around to look for a car that had a permit to enter Nablus. After half an hour the cheese man found a car with a permit to enter Nablus. It took another thirty minutes to transfer the buckets from one car to the other, and another thirty minutes waiting in line. The soldier inspected the car for five minutes and sent them back to Beit Furik [a small town in the West Bank]. “What’s the matter,” we asked the soldier, “This [sic] car has a permit to enter Nablus.” “Yes it does,” the soldier said, “but the permit allows the car to enter empty, it hasn’t got a permit to transfer merchandise.” After twenty minutes he [the cheese man] found a car with a permit to enter Nablus and to transfer merchandise. It took twenty minutes to move the buckets from one car to the other (by then they have become experts in this) and thank god the car passed the checkpoint and entered Nablus. After an hour we left to Huwara checkpoint. We parked at the faraway parking lot and walked to the checkpoint. From afar we saw buckets of cheese being moved from one car to the other. …We came close. It was the same

man that was at Beit Furik. He passed the checkpoint into Nablus, but the car he was in didn’t have a permit to exit from Nablus, he started moving the cheese to another car that had a permit to transfer merchandise from Nablus through Huwara and head to Ramallah, so at the exit from Nablus, he started moving the cheese to another car that had a permit to transfer merchandise from Nablus through Huwara. He got out of Nablus and then had to move the cheese again from one car to the other. “What’s the matter,” we asked, “doesn’t this car have a permit to transfer merchandise?” “Yes it has,” said the cheese man, “it has a permit to transfer merchandise.” “So why are you moving the cheese from one car to the other all over again?” we asked. “It doesn’t have a permit to pass through Za’atara. I’m swapping it with a car that has a permit to pass through Za’atara in the direction of Ramallah.

Although this story has some elements of surrealism, it is not a work of fiction. It is not the fruit of a vivid and creative imagination, and it is not a dream lodged deep in the subconscious. It is a typical story of the daily experience of millions of people throughout the West Bank. A trip that normally should take thirty or forty five minutes can take up to two or three hours. Sometimes people have to turn around and go home without completing the trip, only to try again the next day.

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One has to wonder about the purpose of this seemingly bizarre and arbitrary situation which makes an otherwise surreal and perhaps even comical episode to become a common, sad and humiliating experience. We are constantly told by the apologists of the occupation that the checkpoints are for security reasons. We are told that Israel has an obligation to protect its citizens against “terrorists” bent on destroying lives as well as the state of Israel. Never mind the fact that Israel boasts of the fourth strongest military in the world. Is the cheese a security threat? Is the only way this threat can be eliminated is by finding the right car with the right permit to transport it? Obviously, the concern is not about security. It is clear that the purpose of these checkpoints, located deep inside the West Bank, is to harass and humiliate the Palestinians and to disrupt any semblance of a normal life. The checkpoints are there to demonstrate who is in control: that the Israeli authorities and military can do anything they please whenever they please. In the West Bank and Gaza, surrealism has become a way of life, but the result is not meant to be a work of artistic expression but rather a means of doling out misery, poverty, anger and violence. Aref Nammari is an American Palestinian born in Jerusalem and has lived in Longmont, Colorado since 1987. He is an advocate for a single democratic state in historic Palestine where Israelis and Palestinians live as equal citizens. He works as an electronics engineer at the University of Colorado, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.

Dear Taxpayer, Your Contributions this fiscal year was put toward the maintenance of an F-15 fighter jet, which on October 16 dropped a bomb on the town of Ramaldi, in Iraq, killing, among others, Muhammed Salih Ali (age six) and Haifa Ahmed Fuad (age eight) and Saad Ahmed Fuad (age four). Little Haifa and Saad were sister and brother; you helped accomplish their deaths by a jet very similar to, if not exactly the same as, those that fly over the stadium just after the American Idol winner sings “ and the home of the brave” at the Super Bowl. From Harperʼs Magazine “Why I Pay My Taxes” By Ben Metcalf

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BEYOND VOTING: GUERRILLA GARDENERS, OUTLAW BICYCLISTS & PIRATE PROGRAMMERS By Benjamin Dangl

Editors note: This article was written before the election, but, except for that, it is up to date and worth reading.

http//www.towardfreedom.com/home/

This US election year an unprecedented number of voters will likely head to the polls to cast their ballots in an exercise that should take just a few minutes to complete. But what about the rest of the minutes left in the year? Author and activist Chris Carlsson has some suggestions for social change beyond voting in Nowtopia, a new book about modern day rebels who, in his words, “aren’t waiting for an institutional change from on-high but are getting on with building the new world in the shell of the old.” Chris Carlsson is a long-time community organizer, writer and radical historian based in San Fransisco. He helped launch the Critical Mass monthly bike-ins, which now take place in five continents and over 300 cities, and was a founder of the dissident magazine, Processed World, a publication reporting on the “underside of the Information Age.” These experiences enrich his enjoyable and fascinating new book, Nowtopia: How Pirate Programmers, Outlaw Bicyclists, and Vacant–Lot Gardeners Are Inventing the Future Today (AK Press, 2008). A driving argument throughout the book is that nowtopians are more than their jobs or class, and are working outside of the capitalist economy to

Plant for freedom; hoe for liberty. Globally, there are approximately 200 million urban gardeners producing food and income for around 700 million people. 14

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create “A social revolt against being reduced to ‘mere workers,’ to being trapped in the objectified and commodified status of labor power.” It is this movement that the dynamic book focuses on, telling stories from across the garden plots, bicycle parties and kitchen tables that play essential roles in creating utopia now. Though there are many more examples of community organizing and activist work that could ever fit into the pages of one book, Nowtopia presents compelling stories of activism that anyone can learn from. In a chapter on vacant-lot gardeners Carlsson digs into the roots and legacies of community gardening. Readers are informed that during World War I, a campaign was launched to “plant for freedom” and “hoe for liberty” in which five million gardeners produced $520 million in food in just two growing seasons. By 1944, in World War II, 18-20 million families had “Victory Gardens” which produced 40% of the nation’s vegetables. More recently, in 2004, 37 gardens in NYC produced more than 30,000 pounds of food. Globally, there are approximately 200 million urban gardeners producing food and income for around 700 million people. Yet as this book illustrates, these gardens grow more than food, they grow community. Neighbors come together around gardens, experiences and knowledge are shared across generations, and empty city lots once full of fear and street violence are replaced by gardeners with flowers, vegetables and families. New York City gardener Sarah Ferguson describes the community gardens she’s been involved with, “Like the antic shrines and alters

they construct in their flower beds, these eclectic havens are in a very real sense churches, where people find faith—both in themselves and in their neighbors.” But NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani waged a war on gardens, working to sell the lots off to real estate developers. In 2000, he told the New York Times, “If you live in an unrealistic world then you can say everything should be a community garden.” Yet many NYC neighbors banded together and resisted, preserving their garden lots and strengthening their community in the process. Community gardening also offers a down to earth alternative to buying in to the corporate food world. Environmental justice activist Jessica Hayes, for example, who worked at The Food Project in Boston, said, “I can fight that [industrial agricultural system] until I die, but at the same time build an alternative so that at some point we can just cut the global system off.” Another nowtopian activity understandably outlined in this book is bicycling. This mode of transport has long been applauded by activists against oil wars, oil dependency and cars. Like gardening, working together to fix and ride bikes can also build community. In Nowtopia, Ted White talks of his experience at the Center for Appropriate Transport in Eugene, Oregon, where he worked with young kids to fix and put bikes together. White says the work was empowering and confidence-building: “They took metal and rubber and plastic parts, put them together, fine tuned them, and then–voila!–they had literally made themselves a vehicle for both external exploration and self-discovery.” Similarly, Eric Welp, who teaches

people how to fix their own bikes at “Chain Reaction” in Washington, DC, said “we’re not going to solve the world with bikes, but we can change it by changing a kid’s outlook” and mode of transportation. Carlsson also guides readers through the rich history of bicycle zines, providing the example of the early 1990s zine called Mudflap by Greta Snider, where the author wrote a cartoon called Equipment Fetish, which goes, “you know how it feels… there’s something so good about MACHINE PARTS…knurled wheels, dials, level meters; the KACHUNK of a shutter, the clicks of indexed things falling into place…” In her zine, Snider also tells stories of “haunts for bike-punks in Toronto,” “rants against buying stolen bikes” and develops different city–specific games for bicyclists. Other zines and publications cited by Carlsson critique the car culture of the US. An issue of Resist proclaims, “…all you habitual motorists are suckers. You’ve been hoodwinked. Your automobile is expensive, annoying, and anti-social. My bicycle is cheap, fun and at times, a traveling party.” Critical Mass bike rides—when bicyclists converge to take back the streets from cars—are another inspirational example of renegade bike culture redefining streets and protest. Carlsson says of these gatherings, “The bike ride is the premise, but the deeper transformation of imaginations and social connections is hard to measure.” Nowtopia also moves off the streets and into cyberspace in another chapter called “The Virtual Spine of the Commons” which includes a brief people’s history of the internet, and a celebration of the rise of open and free software. This software movement, Carlsson writes, has “helped

to radically reduce the price of softyond simply voting, and the examples ware, providing access to thousands he outlines in his book can be a good of new programmers and technically place to start, or expand, your own skilled people.” However, with local revolutions. They are not necesprograms like Blogger, MySpace, sarily end-all solutions, but can be YouTube, Carlsson laments the fact catalysts toward broader social change that “A profitable business model and movements. As Carlsson writes, arose by placing things people have a nowtopia might be right around the been making privately for a long time corner: “An unfolding potential can (personal diaries, novels, photos, ram- and does erupt in the most surprising blings, poetry, school gazettes, etc.) places, seemingly simple and limited in a public context of advertising and but also embodying deeper aspirations ecommerce, and then working to make for a more profound transformation.” those public, commercial platforms as Benjamin Dangl is the editor of the Vermontmonopolistic as possible.” based TowardFreedom.com, a progressive The author also shows many experspective on world events. He is teaching a amples of how the internet has been class on globalization and pirates at Burlington an incredible organizing and fundrais- College this fall. ing tool for social movements and activists all over the world. From the Zapatistas getting their messages out via the internet, to non–profits and Hot Local Book social organizations networking in ways that were unimaginable in preinternet days, Carlsson analyzes the highs and lows of this powerful tool. He writes, “Typically, online communities are criticized for promoting disembodied and immaterial connections. Too often political campaigns that may once have mobilized a street action or something directly physical have instead turned into a cascade of emails and online petitions. But as the remarkable participation in the February 2003 global anti-war demonstrations revealed, the same electronic communities can network themselves to produce an unprecedented public demonstration.” At the end of election day, many of the nowtopians we encounter in this book will likely still be teaching Order your copy at: kids how to fix bikes instead of take www.ebookstand.com/book_details/ standardized tests, crunching their STUFF_NONSUCH shovels into new soil and democratizing cyberspace. Carlsson’s Nowtopia reminds us that there is much to do be-

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Photographed by Nate Kenworthy

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Informed Public Leads To Energy Solutions by Philip Skergan Mr. Skergan has a Master of Science degree in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering and has researched energy for over 25 years. He writes and speaks along the Front Range.

As

an avid follower of energy initiatives, I take interest in the Congressional dog and pony show that passes for debate on energy policy. One representative or senator after another takes the floor to push whatever form of energy or related technology derives from their district or state. There is no recognizable deliberative attempt to prioritize among competing options, just bald sales efforts to translate the public’s desire for an energy solution into dollars for constituencies. It comes as no surprise that industries that stand to profit from subsidies and grants pull congressional strings. Increasingly, these interests extend their campaigns by creating nonprofit organizations that pretend to promote genuine solutions. Most renewable energy organizations in Colorado, for instance, have either been completely dominated by ethanol and agricultural interests or at least significantly infiltrated by them. Corporations also spend millions of dollars to influence and misinform the public directly. They attempt to convince us that hydrogen cars are commercially ready, that ethanol can provide independence from oil, that flexfuel cars save energy, that the United States has an abundance of oil and gas or that clean coal technology exists. In virtually every case, a key piece of legislation hangs in the balance for them. Elected officials face the carrot of corporate campaign financing and the stick of corporate capabilities to turn public opinion toward fallacies. Politicians may not know of the especially limited potentials of such solutions, but if they do, they face the difficult quandary that to honorably educate the public 18

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may lose their elections. It’s no great surprise then that both 2008 presidential contenders had energy plans with few specifics other than the interests important to their home states. Barack Obama specified targets for cellulosic ethanol, while John McCain laid plans for up to a hundred nuclear power plants. Neither ethanol nor nuclear power has such significant potential to impact our energy needs that it deserves front billing. It cannot be taken as coincidental that Obama’s Illinois has unsurpassed agricultural interests and McCain’s Arizona has the nation’s second largest uranium resource and thousands of new mine claims. The political realm may not offer enough latitude for well-intentioned politicians to play the game of misinformation and wasted money and still focus on authentic solutions. Political necessity and the nation’s interests might not coexist in the blend of corruption and principle that passes for policymaking. It seems like too great a risk for we citizens to watch from the sidelines. We must inform ourselves despite the complexities of energy. An informed public can use knowledge about energy to speak truth to power, Barack Obama just as much as anyone else. We have never had a more pressing issue confronting

It comes as no surprise that industries that stand to profit from subsidies and grants pull congressional strings.

us. We face the rapidly approaching dilemma of mounting population at home and globally, an emergent global industrial base and falling supplies of mineral energy sources. Oil, natural gas, coal and uranium provide the preponderance of energy, and each will soon become more difficult and more costly of money, time and energy to find and produce. Finding energy goals is not always intuitive. Consider that we import 65 percent of our oil and that 42 percent of the total goes to highway transportation. If we were able to eliminate the need for oil to power cars and trucks today, then we would use less oil but still import 40 percent of our needs. As we add an expected 100 million to our population by 2030, our imports would grow to 65 percent again, and we would import 80 percent of what we now import. Eliminating this use of oil would seem to be monumentally impressive, yet it would only improve our situation slightly. Much more would need to be done to move significantly toward energy independence. Most people could not easily reproduce the math for this observation. Becoming informed on this technical issue can be difficult. We used to rely on elected officials and government employees to solve complicated issues. With such an important crisis facing us at a time when corporations and special interests dominate politics, we have no choice but to learn all we can

about our energy options and hold politicians accountable to our knowledge.

My Bolivian Commute by Jim Schulz

http://democracyctr.org/index.php

My trip from home to work this of kids at the entrance that we are morning began as it usually does, very late. I don’t mind all that much. leaving the front door of my house Punctuality, I think, is overrated as an hand-in-hand with my 5-year-old organizing principle for the universe, daughter for the walk through the especially if it comes at the expense of countryside to her school. If I walked observing cows and picking morning it alone I could do it in just over 5 glories. I think this belief may make minutes. With my daughter it takes me Bolivian. almost 20. There is a lot to see. When we arrive the gate is locked. “The cows aren’t there today,” she “I know, how about I throw you says to me as soon as we reach the dirt over and then you flap your arms road in front of our house. The cows really, really fast like a bird and just who eat in the open field next door to float down on the other side?” us have been a subject of speculation “NOOO!” between us of late. For a week they “Okay, maybe we can just open the have been there every morning, two gate and let you in.” of them, chomping on wild plants and She disappears into a tiny sea of grass. We wondered if they actually small children, who are kind enough slept there, or just got dropped off to greet me by name as I wave really early. Last night, at least, they goodbye. I spent yesterday morning, slept somewhere else. Father’s Day in Bolivia, in their class Along the way we watch a small reading them (in poor translation) The bird bathing itself with tiny splashes Lorax by Dr. Seuss, teaching them to in a small puddle that remains from make paper airplanes, and engaging the rains. I tell my daughter that I bet in finger puppet warfare in which the bird’s Mom made her take a bath. Superman is challenged by a pig She agrees that is probably the case. – “Chancho-man!” With small children, Then she suggests that we try to walk I find it best to make things up as you by only stepping on the big rocks. go along. Then we pass the purple morning Now I am alone, walking up glories growing along the side of a a narrow dirt road that eventually field where one of our neighbors – a takes me to the Tiquipaya-Apote woman in a wide dark skirt and white Super Highway. Okay, it isn’t a super straw hat – is harvesting the spinach highway, but it is paved. It is also and alfalfa. The flower my daughter where I catch the Taxi Trufi #106 that picks for me gets planted into my shirt takes me into the city. pocket, just peeking out. A minute or so goes by and along Then we spend 5 minutes assessing comes a white 1980s vintage Toyota a very big dump truck full of dirt that Corolla station wagon, that shows its is parked by the side of the road. Then age along with a plastic sign “106” we debate if the ancient and beat-up fastened to its roof. It pulls over to Chevy pick-up parked across the road pick me up and I squeeze my body ever actually goes anywhere. carefully into the front seat next to the “At night I think it moves,” she tells driver and an enormous Bolivian man me, “and then they put it back early in sitting in between us. the morning in the same place.” “Que bien que es flaco!” booms a “Maybe so.” voice from the back seat. “That’s great, By the time we turn the next corner he’s thin!” to her school, I can tell by the absence I look back and three more

enormous Bolivian men, looking like large sardines, are squeezed into the Toyota’s back seat. Soon the largest of them, the man in the middle, is engaged in a full-on conversation with the driver. “It’s the Japanese, they are all skinny. So there cars are made for skinny people.” “Of course they are skinny, they eat nothing but fish and rice, fish and rice.” Images of Sumo wrestlers come to mind, but I decide I am better off just listening. “So that’s what you need to do, starting tomorrow, fish and rice, fish and rice,” says the driver. The large man in the back seat laughs. By this time we are making our way south down what is called Avenida Ecologica. My friend Ismael pointed out to me the absurdity of the name a few months ago. “Look what there is all along ‘Avenida Ecologica’ – field after field of cut logs. ‘Avenida Ecologica is a cemetery for trees!” During the taxi-trufi ride into town my seatmates in front change three times. The round man next to me leaves and is replaced by a welldressed young woman in remarkably pointy shoes. A few blocks later she leaves and a father and young son pile in next to me, each wearing baseball caps. The boy’s is on backwards. They are headed to the bus terminal to travel for Easter. On the radio two voices discuss the steep recent rise in inflation, a topic on everyone’s lips here. They announce the good news that Piromani brand milk remains priced at three liters for 11 Bolivianos. Entering the center of the city we pass the statue erected in the middle of a large fountain at the edge of El Prado. It is an abstract pair of faces looking upward, but I agree with the

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local reviewer who said it looks more like a big concrete salteña [a meat dumpling served for breakfast here]. I think a statue of an actual salteña would have been even cooler. But what do I know about art? I get off along El Prado to walk the last few blocks to my office. In Plaza Colon Doña Elsa sits, like clockwork, with her trademark wide-brimmed bright red hat, changing dollars into Bolivianos and visa-versa. Through rain, civil uprising and falling currency rates, Doña Elsa is always there. On Calle 25 de Mayo I pass the young mothers from Potosi, who sit with their children asking for change, and give some coins to the one I know by name. I stop at a newspaper stand where all the local papers are pinned up, unfolded, letting anyone who wants, to read the front-page stories. Both Los Tiempos and Opinion lead with the latest criticisms of the Morales government. Setting politics and news aside I wander into a store where I go to buy my morning bananas. I walk past some new graffiti (translated): Neither God, nor love, nor country – Liberty! On the corner I stop at the nut cart operated by a short man named Gusto and buy some almonds. From there I walk up the stairs to my office, where one of our youthful staff is practicing her Quechua homework on a blackboard. I fight open a balcony door that has been swelled shut by the recent rains. In the distance I hear the sound of exploding fireworks, the telltale signal that a protest is underway somewhere in Cochabamba’s center. I push the “on” switch on my computer and sit down. “You know,” I think to myself, “All of that wouldn’t make a bad thing to write about.” And I start to type.

Jim Shultz (Founder and Executive Director): A graduate of UC Berkeley and Harvard University, Jim is the author of a variety of major reports and two books, most recently the award-winning Democracy Owners’ Manual (Rutgers University Press, 2002). His writings on Bolivia have been published in books, magazines and newspapers across the US, Canada and the UK. His on-the-ground reporting on the 2000 Cochabamba water revolt won top honors from Project Censored. He has lived in Bolivia for nine years.

Transition to the Future Review the following twelve steps, from the Transition Initiatives Primer, to adapt to the looming challeges brought on by Peak Oil and Global Warming. 1. Set up a steering group and design its demise from the outset.

7. Develop visible practicle manifestations of the project.

2. Awareness raising.

8. Facilitate the Great Reskilling.

3. Lay the foundations.

9. Build a Bridge to Local Government.

4. Organize a Great Unleashing.

10. Honor the elders.

5.Form working groups.

11. Let it go where it wants to go.

6. Use open space.

12. Create an Energy Descent Plan.

If these twelve steps pique your interest, vist the Transition Towns website at www.transitiontowns.org.

“Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.” – H.G. Wells 20

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