At the Frontlines of the Global Transition
The United States has entered an era of political insurgency with grave consequences for the economy, the environment, our safety, and our way of life.
Thank God, it’s over. The radical right is retreating back to the dank, dark, fetid corner from which it sprang 30 years ago. The wreckage they’ve wrought has left a nation unable to govern, an economy that will be wobbly for years, a president drained of credibility, and a capable nation doubting its own creativity and strength. But if there’s one enduring value to the meltdown in leadership in Washington and the financial markets in …
WASHNGTON — The Hip Hop Media Lab, an online non-profit that introduces low-income kids to the possibilities of making money with their creative talent, is a partner this week in producing the annual Take Back America conference. So is MoveOn.org, Living Liberally, Netroots Nation, and USAaction. This is the sixth edition of a three-day fest designed to introduce liberal America to some of the movement’s new icons — the New Organizing Institute, Hip Hop Caucus, …
 In 2005, when Jim Kunstler published “The Long Emergency,”  an unsettling synthesis of major market trends (peak oil), environmental conditions (global warming, water scarcity, disease), and what he called the other “converging castastrophes of the 21st century,” I was among the skeptics who was convinced that Kunstler’s analysis was uncharacteristically hyperbolic. Nearly two years later the shine on my bubble of optimism has dulled a bit. Essentially, Kunstler predicted that soaring oil prices would generate enormous economic, political, and cultural …
Democratic presidential candidate and Illinois Senator Barack Obama skipped across the big pond on Tuesday and landed in Detroit, where he stirred a modest amount of interest by scolding American auto makers for letting the Japanese take command of the industry, and then offering a federal hand in contributing to the industry’s health care costs in exchange for convincing auto makers to increase fuel efficiency by about 1 mile a gallon per year. [youtube]GpYkCNohmf8[/youtube] Big deal. Both ideas …