General Custer relied on a survey much like this before his last campaign

"Gosh, this isn't anything like our planning survey said it'd be." Image by jshyun via Flickr

For accurately reflecting sheer, undiluted, jaw-dropping obliviousness, this survey has to take the prize:

Your Input Is Needed!

Decision-makers from the Cities of Salem, Keizer, Turner and Marion and Polk Counties are working together to develop an Economic Opportunities Analysis (EOA) for the Salem Keizer region. A regional EOA identifies the regional competitive advantages and opportunities for long term economic growth. EOAs generally are created to ensure that there is enough land to meet regional employment and community objectives.

Your input needed on the regional economic study. Weigh in! Take the five minute survey now at http://bit.ly/cmUuTF”. The online EOA Survey will be open until July 30, 2010.

You can find additional information at www.mwvcog.org/planning/eoa or contact Suzanne Dufner the Council of Governments at (503) 540-1616 or sdufner@mwvcog.org.

Thank You!

Kimberly Moreland,
Senior Planner
503.588.6173, x7511
kmoreland@cityofsalem.net

Read over the questions and answers and you see a survey that's more accurately described as a push poll -- the chance for business groups to stuff the ballot box with votes for government to do more of A, or B, or C, depending on whether the voters personally benefit the most from A, or B, or C.

What are the real barriers to economic development in Salem-Keizer? How about:

(a) that the bedrock source of America's wealth and preeminence (oil) is at or near the final peak production rates (meaning that an inexorable, unstoppable decline begins, just as huge nations like India and China are wanting to ramp up demand);

(b) that peak oil means the end of economic expansion in a system designed to require continuous expansion and very badly suited to contraction, which will wipe out huge stores of capital;

and (c) that this occurs just as we need to invest massive amounts of capital in renewable and non-carbon-based energy supplies to have any prayer of limiting the destruction of climate chaos.

We've seen the planning mindset shown in this survey before: it's the same one that got the US mired in Vietnam and that General Custer displayed before his grand finale: a complete and total failure to engage with reality and a fantasy belief that planners can make plans and set goals without considering the forces that would tend to work against attainment of them.

In other news, Americans expect magic ponies to ride to the rescue

We'll see a live one of these before we displace oil with other liquid fuels without paying more -- a lot more. Image by gordon2208 via Flickr

Leaves me speechless:

Overwhelmingly, Americans think the nation needs a fundamental overhaul of its energy policies, and most expect alternative forms to replace oil as a major source within 25 years. Yet a majority are unwilling to pay higher gasoline prices to help develop new fuel sources.

WORD: In America as in Salem

JH Kunstler nails it again:

Right after President Obama gave his vapid speech last week, he traveled to Ohio to brag about how much federal stimulus money was going into "shovel-ready" highway projects there. I sincerely believe that the last thing we need right now in this country is more and better highways. Every president since Jimmy Carter has acknowledged that there's a problem with our extreme oil dependency, but none of them have made the short leap to understand that we have a more fundamental problem with car dependency. Someone paying attention to the mandates of reality would get the choo-choo trains running from Dayton to Columbus to Cincinnati to Cleveland [for LOVESalem readers, insert "and from dawn to midnight, hourly, from Eugene to Portland to Seattle to Vancouver" here] - and he would tell General Motors to get into the business of making railroad cars so we don't have to import them from Canada.

Reality is telling us to downscale and get different fast. Quit doing everything possible to prop up the drive-in false utopia and all its accessories. Get local. Tighten up.

Whacking the Old Folks

Bill Greider rates up there with Amy Goodman and Sy Hersh as a fearless reporter who is unafraid to ask the questions that make the powerful unhappy and to tell the truth no matter what. 

Whacking the Old Folks

William Greider | May 20, 2010

In setting up his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, Barack Obama is again playing coy in public, but his intentions are widely understood among Washington insiders. The president intends to offer Social Security as a sacrificial lamb to entice conservative deficit hawks into a grand bipartisan compromise in which Democrats agree to cut Social Security benefits for future retirees while Republicans accede to significant tax increases to reduce government red ink.

Obama's commission is the vehicle created to achieve this deal. He ducks questions about his preferences, saying only that "everything has to be on the table." But White House lieutenants are privately talking up a bargain along those lines. They are telling anxious liberals to trust the president to make only moderate cuts. Better to have Democrats cut Social Security, Obama advisers say, than leave the task to bloodthirsty Republicans.

The president has stacked the deck to encourage this strategy. The eighteen-member commission is top-heavy with fiscal conservatives and hostile right-wingers who yearn to dismantle the retirement program. The Republican co-chair, former Senator Alan Simpson, is especially nasty; he likes to get laughs by ridiculing wheezy old folks. Democratic co-chair Erskine Bowles and staff director Bruce Reed secretly negotiated a partial privatization of Social Security with Newt Gingrich back when they served in the Clinton White House, but the deal blew up with Clinton's sex scandal. Monica Lewinsky saved the system.

Any recommendations require fourteen votes, and Obama has at least five loyalists who will protect him-Senators Dick Durbin and Max Baucus, Representatives Jan Schakowsky and Xavier Becerra, and former SEIU president Andy Stern. On the other hand, if Obama really wants to make a deal, these commissioners will very likely support him.

The people, once again, are kept in the dark. The Obama commission will not report its recommendations until after this fall's elections-too late for voters to express objections. Both parties assume they can evade blame by holding hands and jumping together.

What's extraordinary about this assault on Social Security is that a Democratic president is leading it. Obama is arm in arm with GOP conservatives like Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson, who for decades has demonized Social Security as a grave threat to the Republic and has spread some $12 million among economists, think tanks, foundations and assorted front groups to sell his case. If Obama pulls the deal off, this will be his version of "Nixon goes to China"-a leader proving his manhood by going against his party's convictions. Even if he fails, the president will get some protective cover on the deficit issue. After all, he is targeting Big Government's most beloved and trusted program-the New Deal's most prominent pillar.

Obama's initiative rests on two falsehoods spread by Peterson's propaganda-the notion that Social Security somehow contributes to the swollen federal deficits and that cutting benefits will address this problem. Obama and his advisers do not say this in so many words, but their rhetoric implies that Social Security is a big source of the deficit problem. Major media promote the same falsehoods. Here is what the media don't tell you: Social Security has accumulated a massive surplus-$2.5 trillion now, rising to $4.3 trillion by 2023. This vast wealth was collected over many years from workers under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) to pay in advance for baby boom retirements. The money will cover all benefits until the 2040s-unless Congress double-crosses workers by changing the rules. This nest egg does not belong to the government; it belongs to the people who paid for it. FICA is not a tax but involuntary savings.

As a candidate, Obama assured voters that any shortfall was in the distant future and could be easily resolved with minor adjustments. As president, he has abandoned this accurate analysis and turned rightward without explaining why. He faces an awkward problem, however. Despite conservative propaganda, cutting Social Security will have no impact on the deficit problem that so stirs public anxiety. The White House knows this, and some advisers admit as much. So why is the president targeting Social Security?

Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve chair and adviser to the president, declares, "In my view, we can deal with the Social Security problem fairly promptly." Cutting benefits, Volcker adds, "is not going to deal with the deficit problem in the short run, but it's confidence building." John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, another adviser, agrees but says, "Reforms could starkly demonstrate to skeptical debt markets that the United States is willing to take on a politically difficult fiscal issue."

In other words, targeting Social Security is a smokescreen designed to reassure foreign creditors and avoid confronting the true sources of US indebtedness. The politicians might instead address the cost of fighting two wars on borrowed money or the tax cuts for the rich and corporations or the deregulation that led to the recent financial catastrophe and destroyed vast wealth. But those and other sources of deficits involve very powerful interests. Instead of taking them on, the thinking in Washington goes, let's whack the old folks while they're not watching.

This issue is a seminal fight with the potential to scramble party politics. If Democrats can no longer be trusted to defend Social Security, who can be? The people from left to right overwhelmingly support the program (88 percent), and a majority (66 percent) believe benefits should be increased now to cope with the loss of jobs and savings in the Great Recession.

Citizens can win this fight if they mobilize smartly. We can do this by arousing public alarm right now, while members of Congress face a treacherous election and before Obama can work out his deal. Some liberal groups are discussing a "take the pledge" campaign that demands senators and representatives sign commitments to keep Hands Off Social Security Benefits. If politicians refuse to sign, put them on the target list for November. Barack Obama is standing on the third rail of politics-let's give him a warning jolt.

Published on The Nation (http://www.thenation.com)

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A modern Cassandra

Image via Wikipedia

What people forget about Cassandra is that she was right in her forecasts -- her curse was to suffer by giving people accurate warnings about ills to befall them, and not be believed.

Stoneleigh of "The Automatic Earth" blog truly merits the name: listen to her talk to the Transition pow-wow in the UK. It's the talk of the well-informed world.

Our defeated regulatory apparatus

Interesting article in the Washington Post about the 30+ year struggle to regulate something as innocuous as sunscreen. *

A great illustration of how bad the regulatory system is working when corporations run the show and their wholly-owned servants in Congress and their revolving-door minions dominate the agencies.

Now think about how much worse it is when regulating a real big money enterprise like an extractive industry (mining, oil, grazing, timbering). Kinda explains the Gusher in the Gulf a little better, doesn't it?

(* The point of the article is how broken our regulatory system is, but since we mentioned sunscreens, we should talk about that too. Since the government can't even manage to persuade its corporate owners to keep E. Coli out of food, when it comes to products like sunscreen I'd settle for regulators forcing makers to get rid of the useless and misleading "sun protection factor" labeling system, which is totally bogus because it's non-linear and tells the consumer nothing. That is, SPF 30 is NOT twice the protection of SPF 15; SPF 45 is barely better than SPF 30, etc. The whole SPF rating system is designed to dupe the user and sell more of the high-markup stuff. With a little thought, it's possible to come up with a number of better alternatives.)

PSAs

Image via Wikipedia

Jack Lohman, a retired businessman in Wisconsin, spends his days at civic activism, working to end the legal bribery system known as campaign financing, promote better election methods, and institute single-payer health care -- all in all, a true citizen hero.

He links to two must-watch videos in his latest newsletter:

How to deal with a grease fire in a frypan or saucepan on the stove

Watch how a scam works as it happens (luckily, although the mark didn't know it at the time, not real)

OK, both of those are fairly disturbing and distinctly not fun. So watch those first and then this one to feel better (also from Jack).

True dat

We need fast, reliable trains from Eugene to Seattle. Luckily, Oregon transportation officials are developing a plan to make that happen.

Transportation is responsible for one-third of our global warming pollution. Too many of our trips rely on dirty cars and dirty fuels to get us from home to work. Rail is critical to make transportation more climate-friendly. That's why we need you.

Tell our state officials to think big!

Right now, we have the chance to restructure out transportation system and communities in a way that will help solve the climate crisis. Unfortunately, our state transportation officials aren't thinking boldly enough.

We need to maximize train ridership, reduce car-trips and global warming emissions, and integrate fast trains and high speed rail into local communities. This will require a regional, comprehensive, goal-oriented plan.

Fast trains can provide a backbone of rail for walkable neighborhoods connected by light rail, buses and bikeways. Our future transportation network can:

• Serve the one-quarter of Oregonians who cannot drive due to age or disability.
• Save consumers thousands of dollars in car-related costs.
• Increase transportation capacity and reduce congestion.
• Reduce global warming pollution.

But we need the right plan now.

Get fast trains on track! Click the link below to send a message to our state transportation officials.

http://www.environmentoregon.org/action/transportation/hsr-plans?id4=ES

And thanks, as always, for making it all possible.

Nicole Forbes
Environment Oregon Field Organizer
http://www.environmentoregon.org

P.S. Feel free to share this e-mail with your friends and family.

WORD: we can't afford the death penalty

Of all the arguments against killing someone you've already imprisoned, the cost argument is the one that is easiest to understand but is most counter-intuitive.

As is amply documented, it costs far more to run a system that could result in an execution than it does to keep people locked up without possibility of parole, even for decades. Good editorial on point here.

It's truly weird how people who typically froth at the mouth in rage at government incompetence suddenly get comfortable with government power when those government workers are planning on killing someone.

As Oregon's budget meltdown becomes worse and worse, it's time to quit wasting millions of dollars on a failed deterrent that doesn't and that risks not only killing the wrong guys but also, as a result, letting the ones who did it off the hook.

AND in the long-overdue department, we finally have a state admitting that its criminal justice system often gets it wrong, and examining the problem! What a refreshing change!

And now the Florida Supreme Court is about to get involved. The high court is about to hire a full-time lawyer and name a panel to investigate how the criminal-justice system failed those people.

It is creating the Innocence Commission. It will not look for inmates who have been wrongly convicted but will examine systemic flaws that sent innocent people to prison.

Hint -- start here: Causes of Wrongful Convictions.

Ripley's-worthy story: Huge forest found hidden behind a tiny tree

If only airplanes dropped 50 pound bags of charcoal every minute rather than invisible CO2 ... then people would start to get it. Image by AviaFilms via Flickr

Weird. This is a good example of the problem with criteria-checklist-based environmental certification efforts (like LEED) -- you can wind up with grossly unsustainable businesses and projects winning an award that they can use to claim green cred, thus discrediting both the certification and confusing the general public about what needs to happen.

Commercial jet air travel is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas. Worse, because of the altitude of the flights, the climate damage is multiplied. Salem is still busily trying to lure an airline or two to bring jets back, but so inefficient is jet travel that a single day's travel would undo all the efficiency improvements that this EarthWISE program documents. Bottom line is that there's no sustainable way to do something that's fundamentally unsustainable.

EarthWISE is a well-intentioned program that can be very beneficial, but there needs to be some kind of sanity check that keeps earth-destroying organizations from managing to check enough piddly boxes to get certified while their core business imperils the Earth. Whatever else can be said about commercial jet travel, it ain't wise, and it's speeding up Earth's climate crisis. Giving an airport an environmental award is kind of like like giving the Mob an award for having the highest "Employee Loyalty" . . . it might be technically true but it's missing a very important forest for an insignificant tree.

GREEN CORNER: AIRPORT EarthWISE CERTIFIED
The City of Salem’s Airport Division has received an EarthWISE Certification from Marion County’s program for businesses. The Salem Airport has joined the City of Salem’s Urban Development Director’s office, Fire Department, IT offices, Library and Willow Lake Water Pollution Control Facility in being the first of Salem’s City offices to hold the certification. Fewer than 65 Marion County companies have achieved this certification.

EarthWISE, meaning Workplace Initiative for Sustainable Enterprise, has several focus areas: recycling, waste reduction and prevention, environmentally preferable purchasing, energy efficiency and conservation, water pollution prevention, outreach and education. In order to obtain an EarthWISE certification, a business must complete the application, meet certification criteria and pass an on-site assessment. For more information, visit EarthWISE.

To receive certification, the Airport reviewed purchasing policies to better utilize environmentally friendly products, replaced airport ramp lights with high efficiency/low energy bulbs, and added additional recycling bins. The office also adjusted office equipment to reduce paper use and implemented greater use of reusable cups and plates in the employee break area as well as reset HVAC settings in the terminal building.