Stop Me Before I Vote Again

The Apollo alliance is a fantastic concept and deserves all our support. However, congress and industry, and labor too, are all ready to jump on it and pervert it from its real intentions. Hydrogen fuel, already promoted by Bush, is one example. Solar power, backed by union labor, is another.
We shouldnt take a "purist" stand on this, however, but get in on the ground floor of the movement, particularly locally, and try to keep it clean.

I dunno, J.S. It looks like the usual run of dem policy wonks and Big Green wheel spinners. I see Hendricks has weaseled his way in from CAP and there's some Sierra Club time wasters on the steering committee. Time will tell, though.

As with any choice of how to expend our limited time and energy, we have to evaluate the prospects beyond the rhetoric in determining if it is likely to be productive, or conversely, a waste of time. As others have observed, this includes looking at who is involved, their track records, as well as asking probing questions about whether the project might realistically empower people in their communities. If we are satisfied with the answers, then we can choose how to participate: research, education, organizing, lobbying, demonstrating, and so on.

For investigative researchers who choose to intervene, it poses the additional task of determining what forces are lined up against the project, what they are planning and doing to stop it, who might conceivably hijack it for other purposes, and how the inevitable obstruction and subversion of the public process might be both exposed and circumscribed. As with any initiative that involves that big pot of dough called the US Treasury, there will be criminal enterprises conducting overt and covert operations in both maintaining the status quo and in developing new ways of stealing the pot.

i start
"The American people need to declare war on on their own big energy corporations"

but this mighty grand mission
leads me to produce

but a single pea :

"the apollo alliance"

and yet i agree with bobw
it's a start
and i don't mean to suggest
there aren't better avenues to attack big energy

i really just want to put the target on blastiing at them
as to helping the earth
i leave that to my share of this sites
epigones

Count me among them, JSP. Apollo makes a good carrot, used properly. For the whip, I'd look to reinsurance.

"Many people rail against the unresponsiveness and irresponsibility of the government. They often say things like "What is needed is..." plus the name of some big, successful government project from the glorious past – the Marshall Plan, the Manhattan Project, the Apollo program. But there is nothing in the history books about a government preparing for collapse. Gorbachev's "Perestroika" is an example of a government trying to avert or delay collapse. It probably helped speed it along." (1)

~Dmitry Orlov

--

Y'all are moving into KOSa-Nostra-Country, "Energize America" (2) Style (I sense the revival of a late 60's, early 70's sitcom!), with this Apollo Alliance love affair.

Beyond the numerous and prohibitive technical issues (3), and the obvious fact that "you're on your own" is the mantra of the Federal Government (look no further than the continuing, relentless aftermath of Katrina (4) and Rita), we "simply" face too many fronts which require Apollo-Manhattan-Marshall plans.

From rapidly decaying infrastructure (5), to overpopulation-and-migration (6), to climate change (7), [Don’t Mention The Wars!], to climate refugees (8), to a smoke-and-mirrors economy (9), you name it, we need to address it...but not with impossible schemes, silver bullets, and techno-fixes a la "the good old days".

We need to confront the mirror first and foremost. Our profligate, rapacious, corrupt, and "non-negotiable" way of life -- our oft-vaunted "standard of living" -- is the blackened heart of our eviscerated soul.

I see no willingness -- right, left, or center (virtually across the board no matter how you define such spheres, graphs, or spectrums) -- for radical sea-change to the tune of "small is beautiful".

The current "popular" rhetoric (dream on, I'm quite sure the overwhelming majority of Americans are clueless about energy: top to bottom, side to side) is all about unsustainable sustainability in the form of infinite growth on a finite planet.

The "good news" is that "The Times They Are A-Changin". It will probably happen relatively slowly ("one day is like any other" (10)), but there is no doubt in my mind, "Imperial Entropy" (11) is upon us.

Peace in struggle,
--
David Emanuel
--
(1) From "Closing the Collapse Gap" (Slide 23)

A presentation from "Local Solutions to the Energy Dilemma" (April 27-29, 2006, N.Y.C.)

http://www.cluborlov.com/ClubOrlov/ConfSlides/index.html

I highly recommend perusing the entire presentation (accessed via the above referenced link)

(2) "Energize America - Achieving U.S. Energy Security by 2020 (Draft Five)"

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/18/62733/6577

Tangential Aside: KosLand is the definition of labyrinthine

(3) Many of which are cursorily addressed in "What You Need to Know about Peak Oil" ( http://www.omninerd.com/2006/05/17/articles/52 ), scroll down to the "Fueling the Future" section.

See also, http://www.energybulletin.net , and http://www.theoildrum.com , to search (hydrogen, biofuels, ethanol, wind, solar, nuclear, etcetera) to your minds' discontent and hearts' dismay.

(4) Katrina: A Grim One Year Fact Sheet

http://prorev.com/2006/08/katrina-grim-one-year-fact-sheet.htm

(5) "Experts warn U.S. is coming apart at the seams"

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003226851_fragile26.html

(6) "The Most Powerful Force on Earth"

http://www.safehaven.com/showarticle.cfm?id=5403&pv=1

(7) "The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years"

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article338830.ece

(8) America's Eco-Refugees

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/08/17/americas_ecorefugees.php

(9) Artificial Recovery; Real Job Losses

http://counterpunch.org/roberts08212006.html

(10) Morris Berman, author of "Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire", as interviewed by Bob McChesney (Media Matters radio)

http://www.will.uiuc.edu/am/mediamatters/

Scroll down to the "July 30, 2006" show

You might also “enjoy” a recent edition of Unwelcome Guests featuring Morris Berman

http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=program-info&program_id=19495&nav=&

(11) "Imperial Entropy: Collapse of the American Empire"

http://www.counterpunch.org/sale02222005.html