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Shocking:  at least 13 times during the administration of George W. Bush, various US embassies abroad were attacked—with fatalities in several instances. This number excludes the US Embassy in Iraq, which was attacked frewquently—I checked two of these, chosen at random, and both were easy to verify.  13 or more terrorist attacks on US embassies from 2002-2008, many of them with far more dire consequences than Benghazi: 36 people dead (including nine Americans) in one attack, in Saudi Arabia; 16 in another—one of two in Sana’a, Yemen (there were also two in Karachi, Pakistan. And George W. Bush, according to the article, did nothing to boost embassy security after these terrorist attacks.

Yet somehow, those who have been vilifying Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice over this were strangely silent. No outrage from the likes of Lindsay Graham and John McCain when a Republican, even an unelected one, was at the reins. Democrats were quiet too. They actually believe their own rhetoric about defending our president in times of crisis, even when he’s wrong.

It shouldn’t be a surprise. After all this is the same Republican crowd that fiddled while His Imperial Delusional Majesty burned up the Bill Clinton budget surplus and replaced it with soaring debt and massive deficits stemming from his two illegal and immoral wars, from corruption, and from giveaways to corporations that didn’t need them, at the expense of the safety net—but turned into deficit hawks and affordability watchdogs the moment Obama took office. And why does the media give these clowns a platform, under the circumstances?

I certainly have my issues with Obama, and have criticized him often in this space and elsewhere. But we all need to call attention to the blatant Republican hypocrisy on this and a host of other issues. Let’s be fair, people!

The organizers of a rally to protest Karl Rove’s appearance at the University of Massachusetts tonight opened the microphone to anyone who wanted to talk. I hadn’t planned to speak, but I felt I had something to share with this crowd of 150 or so, most of them in their 20s.

My remarks went something like this:

Back when I was a teenager protesting the Vietnam War, we had a president named Richard Nixon. We thought he was pretty conservative—but his record is to the left of Barack Obama.

Obama blows with the wind. He feels the breeze of the Tea Party—but he doesn’t feel us. We have to ‘have his back’ when he does the right thing—and make a lot of noise when he doesn’t.

Richard Nixon brought us the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, detente with the Soviet Union, a newly opened door with China…

Barack Obama took nearly three years to get us out of Iraq, failed to close Guantanamo (and hasn’t tried very hard), escalated drone strikes, backed away from his early rhetoric on climate change, and refused to provide the deep change he was elected to bring.

Even on his signature issue, health reform—one area where he was actually willing to act presidential–he wouldn’t even talk about the real reforms, like single-payer. Yes, I know he has done many good things, and I now he’s been battered by a hostile Congress. But he could have done much more, if he’d enlisted the support of progressives around the country.

And not only has he failed to undo most of the policies of the Rogue State Government of George W. Bush, he has let the treasonous, anti-moral crooks and liars of the George W. Bush administration, including Karl Rove, walk free.

Obama is weak and susceptible to public opinion. Yet, only the opinions of the right-wing fringe seem to sway him—because the left does not understand how to pressure politicians. We elected him twice, and we can get him to listen to us. But for that, we need different strategies and much much better framing.

Ten years ago, the United States began its illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq: an operation based on numerous lies, no real evidence, and a lot of testosterone.

Iraq, as we know now and strongly suspected then, had no connection with Al Quaida, nor did it have “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” It had a stable, if nasty, government. And it had the bad judgment to have a little war with the U.S. over Kuwait during the first Bush administration.

So George W. Bush and his minders decided to get even. And the United States became the “rouge state” that the Bush administration accused Iraq of being.

What did we accomplish with this shameful chapter in our history? Hundreds of thousands dead and injured and homeless, vicious acts by US troops and Blackwater mercenaries at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, and widespread enmity throughout the Arab world. Oh yes, and the worst kinds of extremist terrorists established a beachhead in places where they had never had strength before, including Iraq itself. And Iraq’s economy shattered. And the US economy—let’s remember that GW Bush inherited a SURPLUS from Bill Clinton—badly damaged.

A weak President Obama has brought us back into the company of nations, and partially rebuilt the US economy but has failed to reverse so many of the wretched Bush policies and has allowed the right-wing extremist fringe to frame and control the discourse.

To commemorate these ten years, MoveOn.org asked people to share one memory. Rather than focus on the negative, I wrote:

I remember the amazing demonstration in NYC just before the invasion that filled at least four wide avenues on the east side of Midtown Manhattan. I am guessing there were about two million of us, and the police wouldn’t even let people down to the low-number avenue (I think it was 1st Ave, near the UN) where the “official” rally was—so we spilled over and filled up 2nd, 3rd, and Lexington. The media only counted people on the official avenue, but those of us who were there know it was enormous–possibly the largest US peace demonstration in history.

Of course, it should not be a surprise that the mainstream media severely undercounted us. After all, Judith Miller of the New York Times and many other supposedly skilled journalists were cheerleading the run up to the war, neglecting their journalistic due diligence, and even firing those among them who dared to speak out (including Bill Moyers and Phil Donahue).

No more illegal, immoral wars!

In a discussion on the merits or nonmerits of nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on nuclear power plant safety, someone sent me an article by Gregory Clark. Clark argues that because another nuclear plant down the road from Fukushima had a higher seawall and was not damaged by the tsunami, nuclear power should be considered a good alternative.

This one really had me scratching my head; it’s one of the most bizarre arguments for nuclear power I’ve ever seen. Just because one plant managed to avoid a problem that brought several plants at Fukushima to collapse, how is that any kind of justification for the technology?

Here’s what I wrote in response:

I find Dr. Clark’s argument particularly puzzling: that a different nuke didn’t not fail during the earthquake/tsunami that clobbered Fukushima s not even relevant. I don’t know of ANYONE who would argue that every nuclear power plant will have a catastrophic failure. The argument against nukes boils down to two areas:

1. ROUTINE nuclear power plant operation is unhealthy, inefficient, does NOT solve the carbon problem (because the fuel cycle has many carbon-intensive and environmentally destructive components, starting with mining the uranium and continuing through milling, processing, transportation, creating the fuel rods, transporting again, actually running the fuel through the reactor, aging of the waste, transportation of the waste, etc.), causes thermal pollution, and releases radiation into the environment.

2. The potential for CATASTROPHIC FALURE is constant, and the industry’s safety record is abysmal. Although there are a relatively small number of nuclear plants operating in the world, at least a dozen have had major failures (including, ironically, the Fukushima plant the summer before the tsunami–as well as others you never heard of, like Windscale, Enrico Fermi, and Browns Ferry), and hundreds have had serious safety issues).

Here’s a very brief and far-from-complete list of the problems: Huge creation of carbon, huge safety risk, chance of wiping out a large area, need to store the waste completely isolated from the environment for a QUARTER OF A MILLION YEARS–which we have no clue how to accomplish, btw–risk of sabotage, risk of structural failure (especially on older nukes that have been embrittled by decades of high-intensity radiation, uranium mining that’s just as destructive to the environment as oil drilling etc., centralized power generation with all its problems, risks, and wastage…

I applaud the bureaucrat who built the higher seawall at Onagawa–that was a good decision. But I fail to see how that in any way justifies this corrupt and very dangerous industry that does nothing to solve our environmental problems and could make them quite a bit worse.

Yesterday, I heard a RepubliPundit on All Things Considered, decrying Obama’s inauguration speech because he felt it was confrontative and didn’t offer any “olive branches.”

Seems to me, Obama has spent the last four years offering olive branches to the right—and having 98 percent of them snapped off, chewed up, and spat back in his face. The Republicans have been incredibly unwilling to compromise, or even make any substantive proposals. Meanwhile, Obama’s base rightfully feels like a whole lot of areas where there should have been progress have stagnated. I personally I’m glad he is finally stepping up and saying he was elected to make change, and he’s going to make change. If he can at least bring us back to the economic stability and human rights approaches of the Clinton era (and yes, he’s better than Clinton on gay rights), that will be a big step in reversing the Rogue State government of George W. Bush.

Some exciting news from north of the border (and driving distance from me): Quebec shut down its only nuclear power plant, the 675-megawatt Gentilly 2, yesterday. Quebec now joins Germany and Italy, among other places that have abandoned nuclear power.

I’m not familiar with this particular plant, but according to the article, it’s had a history of troubles.

What’s especially interesting is that this plant’s license was very recently renewed.

As someone who’s been using what influence I have to help shut down Vermont Yankee, whose license was renewed by the federal government in violation of both Vermont state law and the earlier promises of plant owner Entergy, this gives me hope. Vermont Yankee has been operating illegally since March 2012, and immorally and unsafely since Vermont Yankee first opened in the 1970s.

Sooner or later, as a society, we will figure out that not only don’t we need nuclear, but relying on nuclear power poses huge risks—not just the catastrophic failures like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, but in routine operation. There are risks to our health, from radiation releases…risks to our freedom, because of the security apparatus necessary to protect not just the plants themselves but the entire infrastructure at every step along the very complex path to splitting atoms—starting with mining the uranium and continuing through the milling, processing into fuel rods, transportation across great distances, use in the reactor, and then storing the waste for tens of thousands of years—and risks of putting so much trust in a few large generating stations and being unprepared to cover their absence when they suddenly go off-line. And don’t even get me started on the economic consequences of nuclear power.

Oh, and if you believe the nuclear power industry’s propaganda that nuclear is a “green” technology because the actual moment of splitting atoms doesn’t produce greenhouse gases—think about the carbon footprint AND the energy cost of all those other steps in the process.

The good news: we already have all the know-how to get rid of nuclear and phase out fossil fuels. Clean and renewable energy alternatives exist, and their technology is improving all the time. By designing intelligently to lower demand, and switching to sources like solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, even magnetic and tidal energy, we could maintain and improve our quality of life, reduce greenhouse gases, have more money in our pockets, etc., etc. A good place to start exploring is the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Reinventing Fire page, which shows how countries like Denmark have boldly embraced a safe energy future, and how we could too. Yeah it’s a bit technical—if you want something easier, try this infographic about the potential for renewable energy in the US (note that this chart includes biofuels, some of which are not necessarily clean).

My own view:

• The greatest potential for energy is in designing and retrofitting for conservation and in changing our use paterns; in the US, we could easily slash energy consumption 50 percent, and with a deeper effort, 80 percent or more. After all, northern European countries like Germany and Denmark use half the US’s per capita energy and achieve comparable lifestyle quality.
• The clean renewables like solar, wind, and geothermal supply far more energy than we use; we just have to capture it efficiently.
• It makes the most sense to capture that energy in small systems close to where the power will be used, rather than building huge centralized, environmentally risky solar and wind farms and then wasting a huge percentage of the energy in transmission losses.
• We have the technology. We just need the will. Let’s do it.

Dear Mitt Romney:

A few months ago, we heard that you participated in beating up a gay kid when you were a high school student. Watching you at the debate tonight, I can easily believe that you were a high school bully. You’re still a bully!

Do you think you’re going to score points by jumping in repeatedly when it wasn’t your turn, monopolizing the time to make the same three or four tired points over and over again instead of following the rules of the debate? Do you think the rules don’t apply to the 1%? Just because president Obama was too polite and Jim Lehrer too ineffectual to stop you from grabbing far more than your share does not mean it sits well with those of us who were paying attention.

And neither does your latest round of flip-flopping–or should I call it by its more accurate name: hypocrisy? How, all of a sudden, are we supposed to believe that you’re a great friend of the middle class, that you will not cut taxes for the wealthy, and that you’re happy about government regulation? That’s not what you said all the way through the primary debates. It’s not what you said in a campaign stop when you told that poor shnook, “Corporations are people, my friend.” And it’s not what you said when you dismissed 47 percent of the American people, at a private fundraiser when you thought the world wasn’t listening.

And then there are the lies: You know the $716 billion claim is nonsense. And where did you get the absurd statement that half of the green energy companies the government invested in have failed? If I counted right, this ABC news story cites eight separate false statements from Mitt Romney, and they didn’t even pick up on the energy gaffe. In fact, there’s a spate of Twitter activity using the hashtag #MittLies.

Yet again, the question must be asked, which is the real Mitt Romney? And can somebody please give Jim Lehrer the hook before the next debate and put in a moderator who can set limits on this out-of-control man?

My local paper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette of Northampton, Massachusetts, ran an AP  story about the foundering Mitt Romney campaign under the headline,”Slipping in polls, Romney tries to seem caring.” (The link may not work if you’re not a subscriber, but here’s a link to the same story with a slightly different headline, on the AP website.)

Two things I’d like to explore about this, and not what you think. I’m really not going to discuss the content of Mitt Romney’s campaign at the moment, though I could certainly “take him to the woodshed” about a lot of his messaging (I might do that next time). Today, I want to look at the linguistics of this headline: specifically, the use of “tries” and  ”seems.” I’ll use comedian Stephen Colbert’s framework of “truthiness” as a lens.

Trying is different from doing. It’s one of those words I’m working hard (notice I didn’t say “trying”) to excise from my vocabulary, and from the materials I create for my marketing clients. Trying, rather than doing, predisposes toward failure: “well, I tried.”

Language influences us in ways we’re only just starting to imagine. If your language includes a dozen words for cooperative problem solving, but none for war, how does that shape foreign policy?

In Spanish, there are two distinct verbs that translate into English as “to be”/”is”: Ser (to be in a permanent state) and estar (to be in a temporary condition or location). If you’re describing a permanent condition, you use ser. Examples: “I am a mother” or “I am a father” or “the mountain exists.” Gender takes ser, because until recent decades, that was seen as permanent.

Estar is for conditions that could change: “I feel tired” [right now]; “I am at the cafe”; “the food is on the table”; “she’s pregnant.”

Oddly enough, your profession, even though it could change, takes ser: “soy escritor”—”I am a writer.” What does it say about the class ladder of a society that sees a job title as permanent?

In English, we don’t have the ser/estar distinction.  Thus, I chose to write above, “I feel tired” because I don’t want to ascribe permanence to that kind of negative thought—even as an example in a blog post and not as a statement of reality—by using “I am.”

So, that the writer perceives that Romney is only trying, and not accomplishing, is very telling.

And then there’s the other trigger word in that headline, “seems.” Which brings us to Stephen Colbert’s elegant concept of “truthiness”—stating something that you wish were  true as if it’s fact  (something many senior George W. Bush administration officials as well as quite a few pundits—especially but not always on Fox News).

Romney’s attempt to “seem caring” is a great example of truthiness; the real Romney, behind closed doors, wrote off 47 percent of the American public.

Of course, in fairness, it wasn’t the Romney campaign that said he’s trying to seem caring; it wasn’t even the Associated Press, whose headline was ”Slipping in polls, Romney assures voters ‘I care.’” The “tries” was inserted by a headline writer at the Gazette. But I think that person actually nailed a few central problems with the Romney campaign. He appears incredibly clueless in his interactions with ordinary people…he can’t decide where he stands on many issues, or on his past accomplishments…and these two together combine to present an image and aura of inauthenticity. Someone who “seems” to go for “truthiness,” rather than a man willing to stand on the facts of his record or his positions.

(For more on the life choices that stem from your word choices, I strongly recommend this interview with Donna Fisher, which is available without charge through the end of the week, and then will go behind a firewall. I have no affiliation with Donna or that teleseminar series—but I have listened to it four times, and it’s very rare that I listen to a call more than once. The relevant section starts about 13 minutes in.)

Vacationing in Northern Minnesota, driving up Hghway 61 from Duluth, at mile 54.3, we followed a sign for a scenic overlook that had a nice description in a book of gentle hikes on the North Shore. This took us off to the west a mile or so, up a high hill overlooking the lack.

Unfortunately, this lookout was built by the Northshore Mining Company to provide views of its massive taconite transfer plant, a hideous blot on the beautiful lake view. From the parking lot, there are signs to three different views: plant, lake, and city.

When we saw “plant view,” we figured it would be some rare species growing on the side of the hill, but the sign actually refers to the taconite plant, and the lookout contains an informational display about it. “City View,” on the other side of the hill, provides a vista of the small town of Silver Bay, an uninspiring collection of suburban tract houses and a large campus with a green-colored roofs that I’m guessing is the local school complex. The “Lake View” overlook was a little bit better, with a pleasant, if not exactly breathtaking, view of Palisade Head just north—the lookout we thought we were going to is there—and Tettegouche State Park two miles beyond

I found myself extremely annoyed. I felt I’d been betgrayed by false promises, and event hough there was no charge, it wasted my time and my psychic energy—the moreso because it turned out Palisade Head, just a mile and a half up the road, wasa much nicer overlook.

This “attraction” gets my vote for Most. Useless. Scenic. Overlook.

I’m a long-time fan of Van Jones, and one of the things I love is that he can frame things in ways that those on the other side of the political continuum can relate to.

Too often, the left frames things in its own language (often couched in liberal guilt)—and the right dismisses us as silly and naive. Listen to minutes 30 to 35 of this speech to see how Van Jones puts the argument for going green into an issue of individual economic liberty, and turns the don’t-subsidize-solar argument into a compelling Tea-Party-friendly argument for ending oil subsidies (why doesn’t he talk aobut nuclear, which would not exist as an industry without subsidies?)

Later in the talk, he discusses solar and wind as farmer power, cowboy power, etc. And demonstrates that organic farming is traditional, and that we should return to our roots after a century of “poison-based agriculture.” And calls not for subsidy for green initiatives, but for green as entrepreneurship, enterprise, and job creation—arguments that both liberals and conservatives should relate to.