Permafrost is being lost
Glaciers are all dyin’
Oil comes at greater cost
and coral reefs are fryin’
So please support a clean transition
Don’t rely on bad tradition
Oil and Gas – Zero’s the goal
Your planet needs your buy-in

We Americans rarely pull together; we are a diverse and independent
sort. The only time we seem to pull together is when we are faced by
an enemy that threatens our survival. Then, finally, we go to war to
defeat the threat.

I am calling on all of us to join the war on the worst threat we and
our children will ever face; we need to go to war against climate
change.

We need to see every tree, wind turbine, solar array as soldiers
fighting this scourge. We need to see every coal and gas power plant
as a traitor aiding an enemy that will bring destruction to our
beautiful planet.

We need to tell the fossil fuel companies to pack their bags and
leave; they are using our dependence on their polluting fuels to stall
our war plans, to stay stuck in an unsustainable status quo, a status
quo that will deny all living things (including us) a sustainable
future.

The word Carbon comes from the ancient Hebrew word karban or
sacrifice. It refers to the blackened remains of animals ritually
sacrificed as a burnt offering to G-d.

We are in danger today of sacrificing the world as we know it to our
Carbon-based easy-energy addiction.

If we keep burning the bodies of long-dead creatures (that’s why they
call it fossil fuel) then we will be condemning animals alive today to
a cruel and tragic climate-driven extinction, sacrificed to our love
of convenience and our extravagant lifestyles.

Unless we keep fossil fuels in the ground and rapidly transition to
renewable and sustainable economies and energy systems all that
will be left are the baked and blackened bones of a dying civilization.

The Trap

Silently sucking air
in from where the fruit flys float
Down via a circumodious vicus of recirculation
to where a disk sticks and flys die.

So too does capitalism suck us down to where we stick
Where money is all that matters
where money is the metric
Let go of the money and return to the air
where nature and love live and you can float and fly and finally breathe free

The Shame of it all

Tendrils of technology bind us together
better or worse?
Blessing or curse?
We share the news but use our tools to mislead fools
Why should we sink or care what others think?
Let the tendrils wither and stop the pain
We need to move to a place where the sharing is over a warm camp fire
and
not where the posts all come from liars.

Extinction is death on steroids. When an individual dies, its
offspring or the offspring of others like it carry on the line.

When a species goes extinct it means that the line is ended, forever.

Earth has seen at least five mass extinctions. In the past, these were
due to natural forces: volcanoes; tectonic shifts of giant plates; or
huge asteroids exploding with the force of a billion H-bombs.

But now we are in the throes of a sixth mass extinction. It is one
that we have caused with our relentless destruction of the many
beautiful habitats that have evolved; destroyed so Scrooge McDuck’s
money pile could grow a few feet higher.

We are at a terrible turning point; experts say that we have mere
months to engineer a recovery strategy that does not involve returning
to pre-pandemic levels of fossil fuel pollution.

We must change or die. And if we we don’t then we will be bringing
down the rest of Earth with us.

See https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/18/world-has-six-months-to-avert-climate-crisis-says-energy-expert

1/2/2021

Driving back from Morgan Hill yesterday we drove under an overpass on
101 defaced by signs like “Stop The Steal” and “Fraud”. It enraged me
that these demonstrators were casting shade on election workers who
had risked their lives in order to assure a free and fair election.

To unite as a nation we must not let propaganda delude us. That serves
only those who seek power at all costs including the destruction of
our priceless democracy.

I understand that we are all suffering and frustrated, pummeled by an
unceasing pandemic and economic downturn. We must nonetheless maintain
our independence, not by shirking our duties to protect our fellow
citizens by wearing masks and avoiding large gatherings but instead by
respecting the will of the majority, and working to make sure that
their voices are not drowned out by the megaphones of wealth or the evil voices of blind bigotry and hatred of others.

1/3

The evidence is now so clear that Mr. Trump is engaging in election
tampering that Congress has no choice but to impeach and convict him
this time.

Besides removing him from office, the Senate can further bar him from
holding any future office of trust and thereby eliminate his poisonous
persona from ever achieving high office again.

Our democracy needs our urgent support and this is the best way to achieve that end.

1/10 SF Chron

“I had a dream about a burning house” is the opening line of a song by
country music star Cam.

Today all Americans are living in a burning house. The only way to put
out this fire is to have those who started it (soon to be ex-President
Trump and his many enablers in Congress and the far-right media) all
have a “come-to-Jesus” moment and recant their lies about a deep-state
conspiracy and a stolen election that never happened.

If that repentance and recantation is too much for them then their
seats in Congress need to be taken from them and a fairness doctrine
reimposed on the media to counter the lies they promulgate which endanger our democracy in the vain hunt for clicks and cash.

1/16

I am asking myself this: what has made the QAnon bulls*** so sticky?
Why has it been so successful at capturing mindshare and inspiring
such intense loyalty towards a misguided anti-government crusade?

There are multiple answers, including right-wing media echo chambers
and existing antipathy towards Government among segments of the
population. But key to the insidious spread of these myths is the
compelling feeling that it explains the misery many people are
suffering throough these days.

In order for DSA to counter these myths we need to have a story that
explains misery in terms of the basic nature of capitalism. The
shocking increases in medical costs and the lack of universal health
care can be explained not by America’s aversion to socialism but by an
addiction to extracting the maximum amount of capital from sick peple
and adding it to corporations bottom line. Example: Insulin costs $5 a
bottle to produce but corporations are charging $540 per vial to
patients in deperate need of this life-saving drug.

Similar explanations can both enrage people (in a good way) and help
us expose the real villains in the piece, not satanic pedophiles at all but greedy self-serving and destructive capitalist corporations.

1/18
The movie Greyhoound is a deeply accurate portrayal of the courageous
men who crossed the Atlantic in convoys during WWII while facing fiery
death from Nazi U-boats in order to support the British war effort.

It is a tragedy that many of these brave men lost their lives fighting
fascism. But what is an even worse tragedy is that today we have an
America where some would rather live under authoritarian rule, and
destroy our democracy just to satisfy the hunger for power of lying
con men.

I believe that we can restore our place as a champion of democracy but
only if we reject the lies coming from the right-wing propaganda
machine and instead follow those who respect truth, facts, reason and science.

1/23
Peter Coyote wrote an excellent op-ed recently which recounted the sad
history of anti-worker bias by generations of Federal policymakers,
Democratic and Republican over the last sixty years.

He correctly identified the ongoing harsh treatment of the working
class as a threat to American democracy.

Unless the Biden administration takes concrete action to help working
people, and overcomes persistent Republican efforts to sabotage all
progress in the name of regaining Republican power, then all that was
won in the recent election will be lost to a regressive 2022
Republican-majority Congress and then in 2024 to the return of a
faux-populist Trump-like figure who may indeed finish off our
democracy

Democrats must prevent the frustration of their critical goals by
eliminating the filibuster or Republicans will continue to endanger our nation in their blind pursuit of power.

1/25 SJ Merc
Disgraced ex-president Trump was rightly excoriated for his
transactional focus. Transactional in that he would only do things for
those he believed had or could do something for him.

Sadly that is now the nature of the entire political system in our
country.

Rather than focusing on maximizing the common good through laws
benefiting all, our legislators focus their efforts on passing laws to
benefit the wealthy donors who supply the massive amounts of campaign
cash needed to keep those same legislators in their cushy offices.

The only way to fix this is via public financing of campaigns. That
will restore the focus of legislators on satisfying the needs of
actual voters rather than wealthy corporations and arrogant billionaires.

1/27 SF Chron published 1/31
In ancient times would-be rulers gathered armies around them and those
armies fought to the death for their leader. The victors would then
rule their tribe/nation until a bigger badder ruler killed and replaced
them.

In this country we chose a different path; let the people themselves
decide who would rule them.

Unfortunately the most recent (and disgraced) ex-president decided to
take a leaf from those ancient practices by directing his “army” of
loyal followers to take violent action against the place and people
who were certifying the people’s will.

Unless we want to go back to those dark ages of violent overthrow the
Senate must try and then convict our faithless former leader for
departing from the path our nation must follow to remain a government of the people.

1/30 SJ Merc
Republicans are masters of deception and deceit.

Their MO is to enrich Corporations and billionaires with tax
breaks and subsidies while destroying any countervailing powers like
unions that might actually help workers get an even break.

The desperation of the workers is then exploited by the Republicans,
using lies to blame Democrats, immigrants and minorities for the sorry
state of the vast majority of the population. These lies mask the true
reasons for the economic precarity of the workers; the conscious
destruction by Republicans of worker’s abilities to organize to
protect their own interests.

Until workers can recognize their real class enemies, the nation will
continue to spiral downward into a third-world oligarchy enabled by a power-crazed GOP.

1/31 SJ Merc
We recently heard the cry “MAGA”, make America great again. But what
was the main reason for our past greatness? Two things; a strong labor
movement that ensured economic gains were actually distributed to
working people and second a government (funded by progressive taxes)
that had the will to assist poor and rural folks with a strong social
safety net and laws requiring utilities and corporations to serve the
interests of the people, not just the wealthy.

Federal programs like FDR’s rural electrification act (REA) gave
farmers entree to the labor-saving devices of the twentieth century,
despite utilities resisting based on pure profit projections.

That is what really made America great, not just relying on “free” markets or demonizing powerless minorities.

2/13 SJ Merc

While much of the blame for the January 6th insurrection is rightfully
placed on our disgraced ex-president, a large portion must also be
reserved for the right-wing media echo chamber that promoted his lies
for months on multiple outlets like Fox and NewsMax, thereby
effectively brainwashing millions of people using propaganda worthy of
a Goebbels or a Lord Haw-Haw (Google it).

We need to renew the Fairness Doctrine to dilute the toxic vitriol
being poured into the nation’s political bloodstream.

Otherwise (especially if/when our Ex-Pres. is acquitted) this may all
happen again, and worse, it may succeed in destroying our precious democracy for good.

3/27

Thomas Friedman in his op-ed of March 27 rightly notes that China can
still do big things while the U.S. “not so much”.

He further notes that gerrymandered seats leave politicians
comfortable doing pure performative theatrics rather than anything of
real value to the bulk of their constituents.

What he leaves off the table is that politicians actually do real work
for one class of “people”; their wealthy donors and corporations. When
Amazon makes tens of billions in profits but pays zero income tax that
is the work of the solicitous politicians on the Amazon donor gravy
train. When the $15 minimum wage is dropped from the 1.9 trillion
dollar relief package that too represents the will of the donor class.

The only way that can change is if we outlaw massive political donations and go all-in on public funding of campaigns.

3/27 Sacramento bee

The wonderful salmon runs of yesteryear are at their lowest ebb due to
drought and excessive consumption of Delta water by greedy farmers who
receive their water at a fraction of its value due to overly generous
government subsidies.

Since 80% of California’s water is consumed by agriculture, that is
the logical place to staunch the bleeding we experience during our
frequent dry spells.

A couple of suggestions:

First, cap overall ag water usage at the average ag consumption over
the last ten years (to include wet and dry periods).

Second, identify how much water could be saved if farmers used the
latest water-saving technologies.

Third, reduce the water allocation cap annually over the next ten
years to that calculated “best practices” level.

Farmers would then have to either install better irrigation/drip
systems or drop their least profitable crops to stay under the

Voila; problem solved.

4/3 SJ Merc

The 3 April SJ Mercury op-ed article on the vicious domestic battle
between autocracy and democracy highlighted the threats to our
precious democracy in the face of concentrated and growing attacks
from the right.

The key reason that autocracy has a chance at success is the gridlock
that has gripped our government due to scorched-earth Senate
Republicans.

They refuse to grant any legitimacy to the Democratic majority and
instead plan to use every (undemocratic) maneuver to thwart Democratic
initiatives.

Meanwhile, working people are suffering and need solutions: economic,
social, and medical.

That is why the Democrats in the U.S. Senate must neuter the
filibuster (and any other obstructionist Senate rules), that impede
new infrastructure, environmental and voter-rights solutions,
solutions that are key to preserving our democracy and to actually
improving the lives of millions of Americans, and not just the
Uber-Rich.

We recently heard the cry “MAGA”, make America great again. But what
was the main reason for our past greatness? Two things; a strong labor
movement that ensured economic gains were actually distributed to
working people and second a government (funded by progressive taxes)
that had the will to assist poor and rural folks with a strong social
safety net and laws requiring utilities and corporations to serve the
interests of the people, not just the wealthy.

Federal programs like FDR’s rural electrification act (REA) gave
farmers entree to the labor-saving devices of the twentieth century,
despite utilities resisting based on pure profit projections.

That is what really made America great, not just relying on “free”
markets or demonizing powerless minorities.

Thoughts Thought While Munching a Soy-Burger in Nature’s Oven, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. (1979)

Bearded or bouncy-breasted beautiful (but not both)
they stand with numbers held in eager hand.
To claim their burgers, good if soy,
to feed and watch the show.

They’ll sit and spend a little time, relaxing over tea or wine
I stand in awe of all these bodies fine.
Reared on soy and bared to show
where sun has burnished skin to copper glow

Sequel to Nature’s Oven (1989)

Bearded they were, clean-shaven they’re now
and instead of soy burgers it’s “mesquite-broiled cow”
They’ve all had ten years of “human potential”
they’ve become possessive and quite residential.
They care about health as an adjunct to wealth
but values have shifted; it’s all for one’s self
I miss older times when ideals were much higher
Oh, I’m selling my house can you think of a buyer?

The Nineties

The nineties are done
bull markets still run
and if you’ve sold options
you’re still having fun.

Millennium’s eve is approaching at last
will Y2K kill us or just simply pass?

We wait for the answers
and go on with our lives
who knows where it’s headed
we’re along for the ride.

To Fly (2007)

I asked the hawk if he remembered
his first flight, the crags below
flying up to meet him, until instinct unleashed
his wings, and let him run
on air’s highway.

So too with you I feared to fall
but loving let me risk it all
now having you to fly with makes me strong
and keeps me soaring
far and fast and long.

The End of the Innocence (2008)

The soft susurrus of the gas meters
mine and my neighbor’s
hissing in unison
Remind me that on this cold still morning
We burn. Carbon rises.
And our civilization slips
Ever closer to the abyss

Terror rains (2008)

It’s good sometimes to walk in rain
The air refreshed and streets washed clean
But now the fear that seared our souls
just sticks around and clouds our goals.

We were a brave and fearless folk
Al-Qaeda broke us with one stroke
Evil leaders used this fact
to blind us to their evil acts

Please God let love and kindness rule
and rid us of these rigid fools
before they crush us ‘neath their heels
a nation betrayed for oil deals

Looking Backwards (2008)

When you finally come to see the threads that bind us to the past
Brave Cicero resisting overthrow of the Republic
Even to the death.
Noble Washington declining offers to become the King he overthrew
Then only do you realize how fragile, precious and rare
Are our freedoms and how dire the fact
That now when they are in full retreat
Only bloggers care.

Ode to Jameson’s (~1970)

O’Casey, Joyce and B. Behan
In goblets measureless to man
Their bruised livers overflowed
Wi’ nectar choice to prompt the ode.
Though dead their poetry remains
Sweet verse from liquor in an Irish vein.

The Times We’re In (2010)

We’ve been through boom.
We’ve been through bust.
We need to know: who can we trust?
The congressmen have sold their souls
to Bankers with their big bankrolls
Tea-baggers rant, spew Republican cant
To block all change they shriek and chant.
If the people can’t win this influence battle
We’re up the creek without a paddle.

The Wall Street Elites
Think they have us beat
That they have crushed the workingman
and left him in defeat

If we believe that’s so to Hell we all will go.
Now is the time to tell them all Hell No.

We’ve got to join with others
Sisters, Brothers, Mothers
To end the raids on jobs and pay
and get our rights and keep our say.
So tell them all this ain’t the way
and make them pay for our betrayal.
Now.

Ode to Monte (2010)

Monte is my trusty steed
He satisfies my travel needs
Montero Sport is one great car
Both looks and space he’s just a star
He rolled 100k last week
without a pop, without a squeak
To part with him would cause some tears
I’ve been with him for many years

Leshaynay afar

News item: bones discovered in Ethiopia displaying 3 million year old
Australopithecus afarensis stone tool marks

3 million years ago our forebears were chipping and now we learn the
Earth is tipping
into a new and dangerous age
where oil and such fossil fuels defeat the ice and end the cool
and damp that life needs to survive
while billionaires appear to thrive
Let’s stop the game and fix our planet
or we’ll be fossils soon chipping bones with tools of stone.

Evil is as Evil Does

Only the vilest wicked heartless plunderers
Steal from their fathers and their mothers
The father’s factory was closed
by greedy NAFTA alchemists
Who spun his hard won gold into clay
While taking his livelihood away
The mother’s social security
is attacked by a cat food commission’s deficit purity
I scream enough to stealing all our riches
Let’s get rid of all these sons of **tches

End of the Beginning/Beginning of the end
Our dreams have been die-verted
At-will has been asserted
Our self-esteem’s been hurted
Now they say just move on

get a job and get your groove on
but it’s not so easy-peasey
this lemon’s hard to squeeze-y

So let’s reform the system
and fix the broken pistons
that used to power engines
of jobs and growth and pensions

No more insane outsourcing
with lower pay a forcing
let’s restore our former glory
or that’s the end of story

From a popular old-timey Kid’s song, modified for today’s issues:

O Dunderbeck O Dunderbeck how could you be so mean
to ever have invented the climate-change machine
Now all the rats and long-tailed cats (and millions of other species)
will never more be seen.

they’ve all been crushed by flood and drought from Dunderbeck
(actually Exxon Mobil’s) climate change machine.

The New Order

Baby boomers having busted
find that leaders can’t be trusted
joined by others down on their luck
Trump’ed up charges get them unstuck
votes are counted and they say
Trump is in and night is day
Pundits quail and nations tremble
as his nasty troops assemble
We are going God knows where
Led by a fool with orange hair

Going Off The Cliff

The fool now rules and Senators drool
at opportunities to be cruel
To satisfy their lords and masters
we the people face disasters
Let’s vote these pigs out of their sties
and bring back justice, rout their lies.

It’s Over

I’ve written urgent letters to the papers and my friends
that dark and evil forces have taken over the land.
To undo the damage will prove a daunting quest
As oligarchs just dance and sing and shit upon the rest.

The Pack

Sydney loves to lick the rug
where Trixie ate her biscuit
Poppy loves to snap at bugs
A bee bite? She will risk it
The three are tight
they rarely fight
So now we need to hug them
So many fuzzy faces seen
We simply have to love them.

Time To Recover

We did our time and Trump is done
pandemic’s course is barely run
Biden’s in and Harris too
Can’t come too soon we’re overdue
for truth and science to return
While floods occur and forests burn
Will democracy endure or fall?
The outcome rests upon us all.

Various species have attained great reproductive success by aligning
themselves with human needs.

Tobacco, corn, wheat, cattle all have grown spectacularly numerous as
they provide for human use and thus receive special support for their
propagation and growth.

But the most successful species of all is … cash money. Money is
perceived by humans as the sole source of value. Disregard the fact
that (for example) a tropical rainforest has provided a safe and stable
home for millions of species for millions of years. Disregard the fact
that it is among the most productive and diverse entities nature has
ever devised.

Instead, just burn it down to create a palm oil monoculture that
supports nothing but the bank accounts of Cargill shareholders.

The love of money has been said to be the root of all evil. Until we
end our worship of money for money’s sake we will continue to destroy
the natural world that in reality sustains us all.

A river of wealth runs through this country. But a carefully
cultivated set of dams, aqueducts, pumps and sluices has been
constructed to channel that wealth uphill to the 1% who have taken the
reins of what used to be our democracy.

Think tanks funded by billionaires have fostered this ideology of
greed. Politicians have happily colluded with their wealthy donors
while failing to understand the consequences of starving the masses of
the benefits of their own productivity and labor.

Desperate people responded to these outrages badly. They voted in a
racist incompetent who spoke to their troubles but then worsened
them.

Unless the incoming administration takes down the pumps and sluices
(by raising the minimum wage and guaranteeing a decent life for all)
we will see a return to rabid nationalism and faux populism; this time
by someone sharp and determined enough to take us all the way to the
authoritaranism we have just narrowly avoided.