closing the revolving door on corporate influence

Things have sunk pretty low in Imperial America. And, surprisingly, a majority of Americans know it.

According to a CBS News/New York Times Poll last year, "59% of the American people trust the federal government to do what is right only some of the time," even as 64% responded that "government is pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themselves."

Worse yet, President Bush has brought "the business special interests into politics so they can take over the regulatory bodies of government and regulate themselves." (former senior White House official in the year 2000)

Revolving door works in three ways:

1) Industry-to-Government "Reverse" Revolving Door

2) Government-to-Industry Revolving Door

3) Government-to-Lobbyist Revolving Door

The net result is advancement of corporate influence, power, and complicity in enacting self-serving policies. In other words, subversion of democracy.

A coalition of groups called the Revolving Door Working Group and spearheaded by Peter O'Driscoll of the Center of Concern is not content to watch democratic rule go down the drain. They are educating and organizing to improve and enforce government conflict-of-interest and ethics rules.

Ethical corporations? Some actually are. Stricter rules and enforcement would encourage the myriad bad apples to behave, since jail terms in cushy apartments doesn't seem to be providing adequate deterrence.

Read more about this critically important work at www.revolvingdoor.info

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gas guzzling food or local food?

It takes about 10 fossil fuel calories to produce each food calorie in the average American diet. So if your daily food intake is 2,000 calories, then it took 10,000 calories to grow that food and get it to you. In more familiar units, this means that growing, porcessing and delivering the food consumed by a family of four each year requires the equivalent of almost 34,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy, or more than 930 gallons of gasocline (for comparison, the average U.S. household annually consumes about 10,800 kWh of electricity, or about 1,070 gallons of gasoline). In other words, we use about as much energy to grow and transport our food as to power our homes or fuel our cars."

The moral of the story: buy locally grown foods.

More on this from the Organic Consumers Assocation!

You can also download my article called Energy, Food and You: On the Path to Reconciliation at http://www.pcusa.org/hunger/downloads/ff_energy.pdf

nor is racism metta

Number of black U.S. senators during the entire 1800s, the entire 1900s, and today, respectively : 2, 2, 1

upper blue lake, sierra nevada

death and life

Immigration.
Baggage claim.
Customs.
"Nihongo wakarimasu ka?"
"Hai, wakarimasu." I assured the thin customs official that I understood Japanese.
"Shinkoku suru mono arimasu ka?"
"Eh, shinkoku?"
"Declare."
"Oh. No, no."
"Daddy is dumb." My three-year-old, Julian, summed up the exchange with this comment in Japanese.
The customs official laughed nervously.

That was the scene as I entered Japan with sons Julian and Elias to go to the funeral of my wife's father. Surreal was how it started and continued... If you want to read a journal account of a Korean-in-Japan's funeral, download away.

fascism then. fascism now?

Abolishing the inheritance tax. Massive subsidies to the largest businesses. Wage reductions. The poor subsidizing the rich.


Sound like Bush-Cheney's America? These were the economic policies in Mussolini's Italy.


Paul Bigioni raised my awareness, this morning as I leisurely read in bed on this first real day of my two-week study leave, about the economic undergirding of fascism in Europe. Our image of goose-stepping storm troopers and barking dictators is just the outcome of a slide toward greater concentration of wealth and economic power.


Don't be afraid to learn about the disturbing parallels -- greater consciousness of this might just be the difference between learning from horrible mistakes and having our children live them again.


Fascism Then. Fascism Now? - http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1128-24.htm

a modern paraphrase of isaiah 2:5

Yesterday, I was beginning to sort, file and trash the many piles of
documents on my desk, table and, yes, floor in my office and I found
an Advent Devotions 2004 called "Proclaiming the Good News of God's
Peace." Just so happens that today, December 2nd, was the day I was
invited to offer a reflection on Isaiah 2:5-22, and here is what is
written --

A Modern Paraphrase

O house of the Powerful, let us walk in the light of the Lord! For
you have forsaken the ways of your people, O house of the Powerful.

Indeed they are full of financiers from the East Coast, and they
clasp hands with foreign bankers.

Their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to
their treasures; their land is filled with stocked shelves, and there
is no end to their hoarding. Their land is filled with idols; they
bow down to the work of their laptops.

And so people are humbled, and everyone is brought low--do not
forgive them! The haughty eyes of people shall be brought low, and
they shall be humbled; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
For the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty,
against all that is lifted up and high; against all the guided
missiles and smart bombs; and against all the oil fields they claim;
and against all the beautiful technology.

The haughtiness of people shall be humbled, and the pride of everyone
shall be brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted.

In Isaiah 5:22, we are warned to "turn away from mortals, who have
only breath in their nostrils, for of what account are they?"

But do we? Will we?

Glorious God--who infuses everything with love, sublimity, and
power--grace us with the courage to choose love over apathy, justice
over complacency, life over death.

Amen.

make poverty history?

Yes, poverty made a big splash this past summer. Now we need to do something about it.

The Millenium Development Goals bring attention to the way individual and a country's poverty needs to be approached from many angles and there is good info up at the UN MDG site - http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

The Make Poverty History March in Scotland was truly inspiring with 250,000 people marching through the streets of Edinburgh. You can go here http://www.pcusa.org/trade/g81.htm to view some photos I took. A quarter million people, mostly in white, voting with their feet for justice. It was powerful.