Barton bullshits while the Earth burns

How can you hope to counter the far-right and the corporados when you're struggling to put bread on the table? I s'pose that's a very old question, one that constantly arose in the history of the labor movement and any other number of struggles for social justice. That question plagues me this morning 'cuz i should be on my way to the job, yet this page has lingered for weeks unattended (not that anyone's reading it anyway!).

In any case, while i've been pounding away on someone's roof, power-crazed rightwing nuts like Rep. Joe Barton from Texas have been using U.S. tax dollars to spread the gospel for Big Oil. Barton's a real piece of work, btw. Given to all sorts of over-the-top hyperbole, he recently went after a local UMass, Amherst professor over the guy's work on climate change. Being a toady for Big Oil, Barton spends a good bit of time trying to trash all the science behind global warming. Nevermind that the vast majority of the world's scientists now agree that human-caused climate change is a given, Barton continues to pursue a flat-earth mentality. In his lame-ass schemes to stop the tide of sensible change, Barton, chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, has demanded that UMass prof, Raymond Bradley and other academics document all funding and sources for hundreds of studies on climate change within the next three weeks.

In the interchange between the two, Barton implied that the professor was trying to avoid the congressman's witchhunt by stating, "I would be surprised if a scientist decided to react to our request by taking the Fifth or going on the lam." Of course Bradley gave absolutely no indication that he would do either, but that's not the point. Barton is all about inflammatory rhetoric. He's like the Bill O'Reilly of the House.

The most recent example of Barton's bullshit came out yesterday in his comments over the utterly disastrous House Energy Bill. Barton said on NPR that the only real opposition to the legislation will "come from the far-left", as if the corporate giveaway he helped engineer through congress was anything other than another death sentence for the planet and a grab bag of greed for his masters.

So, what's a simple worker/activist to do? Bitch away on his blog i s'pose.

We are like cancer

So, today is the International Day of Action on Climate Change, but in the nation that holds the dubious distinction of causing the greatest amount of damage to the Earth's climate only one small action is taking place (see below). The so-called American way of life, the over-consumption, the "good life", the American Dream, is more like a cancer on the planet than any sort of indicator of well-being. To deny this is to live in denial. The facts are in: we suck. Your grandchildren will curse your existence. Change or die.

[the pr]:

Today is International Day of Action on Climate Change

{for U.S. action info see below and: http://chapelhill.indymedia.org/news/2005/06/15469.php}

Today alongside the release of the diluted and impotent declaration by the
G8 on climate change where the biggest climate criminal state [guess who!] refuses to
cut emissions, there are direct climate actions are happening around
Scotland and the world. In Venezuela, New Zealand, Iceland, Australia, the
Philippines and UK, there are actions against cliamte criminals as part of
a global movement for climate justice. It is saying 'no' to G8, World
Bank, IMF, UN & corporate market-based 'solutions' to the climate crisis,
and 'yes' to a post-oil, post-poverty, post-capitalist future.

The Boogie on the Bridge in Glasgow is part of the celebration that an oil
free future is possible and we hope that it will be a peaceful
demonstration that the police respect. It is part of an essential
consciousness raising of the full scale of the ecological and social
breakdown we face and that climate change cannot be left to the G8.

Due to the terrible events in London, and the heightened level of
repression and restriction on freedom of movement and legitimite protest
in Scotland, the actions may well be smaller and less visible than hoped.

Why continue with this day of action? Because already people are dying
every day because of the gross over consumption of the west and our oil
addiction. Because millions are already suffereing from failing crops,
raising seas and climate chaos. Because G8 spin won't drag us out of the
downward spiral we're in. Because the G8 mantra of 'economic growth and
damn the consequences' means business as usual, which means climatic,
social and ecological meltdown. We must all realise that cuts of 60-90%
are required NOW and one way of mnay is to stand up against car culture
and destructive new road building programmes. We must dismantle
oil-fuelled power structures like the G8, before the climate catastrophe
dismantles us.


Web: www.dissent.org.uk/g8climateaction
Email: july8climateaction@yahoo.co.uk
Details: Rosie Jones/Bob McLintock, G8 Climate Action - 07969 906892

Also see: http://www.undoit.org/undoit.cfm

One million signatures in U.S. sought for petition here: http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/globalwarming_petition

4th of July - celebrate the birth of our damnation

Another good idea gone bad. Is it too late to finish the so-called American Revolution? The Bush regime and the neo-cons are dragging this nation through the mud.We have no real friends. We've yet to atone for over a century of previous sins committed against the original inhabitants, people of color and women. Can we fix this thing?

Happy Co-dependence Day.