Express Your Viewpoints On Energy To Your Elected Leaders
I hope you’ll check out our newest piece of functionality: http://2greenenergy.com/express-yourself/.
Most thoughtful Americans wonder why the United States is more a roadblock than a leader in energy-related technology. It really IS a strange phenomenon, isn’t it? There are numerous, obvious reasons that we need to move steadily away from fossil fuels: respiratory disease and environmental issues are two of them — but what about national security? Why precisely are we so steadfast in borrowing an incremental billion dollars a day and handing it over to empower our own enemies, so that we can sustain our addiction to oil?
I’m the first to admit that this is a complex situation, and that there are numerous different causes of and solutions to the problem. But one thing is clear and simple: at the root of all this lies a profound level of corruption in our government — and that corruption is cemented firmly into place by recent (2010) legislation granting corporations the right to spend as much money as they want to influence our elections.
Now, the most powerful corporate entities on Earth can spend billions of dollars ensuring that the 2012 election goes the way they want it to. And they’re doing precisely that; corporate spending in this space has gone through the roof since the U.S. Supreme Court decision that put all this in place. Whether your concerns are energy, healthcare, social justice — or whatever, your viewpoints are now essentially meaningless in the face of corporate interests that can (and will) outspend you by a factor of a million to one.
Since my main focus is energy, I point out that ExxonMobil (the world’s largest publicly traded oil company):
• Reported net income of $9.4 billion last quarter,
• Has the right to spend as much of that as they wish to influence whatever elections they wish, and
• Has no responsibility to disclose ANY of that spending.
Put another way, until this legislation is overturned, it doesn’t matter what you think; American democracy has been (temporarily, I hope) put on hold.
Does this make you angry? It should. Check out http://2greenenergy.com/express-yourself/.
Virtually all Americans are anxious for a change in U.S. energy policy (actually about 91% by survey) – especially considering the huge number of jobs that will be created as we migrate to clean energy. So, here’s an opportunity to tell your leaders what you feel: http://2greenenergy.com/express-yourself/.
Our leaders are content to bicker across the aisle in Congress while the rest of the world races past the U.S. in the most important industry in today’s business universe. And, at the risk of repetition, all of this exists simply because they don’t know how monumentally peeved you are. Come on. Tell them: http://2greenenergy.com/express-yourself/.
I love what Henry Kissinger said recently: “If it weren’t for the objection of the common American to the war in Vietnam, we’d still be there.” (emphasis mine) That’s an amazing thing to admit, don’t you think? Don’t you feel somehow motivated to exercise your muscles as a citizen?
Of course you do. And here’s your chance: http://2greenenergy.com/express-yourself/.
All of those considerations are well & good, but Marcus Aurelius is supposed to have asked “What is it in and of itself”?
Tax collection. First and foremost. Without that what is there? Poor countries have only poor taxpayers.
RE faces an institutional bias. Upfront costs mean upfront tax payments. No stream of bills to pay means no stream of tax revenues to collect.
Also consider the impact of Solar on peaking power electric rates. Without that spike of money, Electric Utilities go back to being sleepy industries, sans the corporate bonuses.
Green, the color of law. mift? we all are for the american publick has lived on promise for so long they assume a dram like stance that the th word: future will be the place thats a better place. Wake up folks. greeen is a color and the law of commerse says it all. AND, it is an all or nothing of political dissension all the way to the bottem of the dreamers list of premissin grabted for knowing nothing and saying nothing when our hearts are full of hatred for what our parent’s allowed all the way back tot the not so holy Inqusition. What is it we do not get?
First of all the believers, the pasive trusting people who do not waht to think about anything, the bulk of the populace, enmass want not to doubt what they, in trust, vote for as a moral ethical stricture which, since it is believed in word as a sanctioen truth, that the ones in cahrge care about us as a community of human beings who have educated their feelings which haave little contol except to nurture caring and trust, bent to the ones, the icon converts who educste themselve to take advantagee of theis biodegrated realm. Hard to believe?
Not really? Why. Because man never freed himself form the last great tyrany of remebered physically promised contracts with the soverns who govern the word, that the word is made-up, made of pretneding,made to resemble promise, the belief that he [the us now] could be set free with words like caring, feeling, green, an united energy friendly plant. It is totally bogus, for so little want so much when so little has noconnection tot he trap our abcesters set for us in and out of FEAR. NOW, our want for a clearity in a now state is merely an institutional-commercial grade reason that will not allow it, the corperations of the many well paid institutions who sell our own bio-fear in leau of sythetic promise. The same ones with the eye-con degrees, cerdentials, seated positions, the icons of hats and robes, those our fear empowered. That THEY, that will not allow corruptions of thier schema. If 2 billion are fat and 4 billion stare. That is our current view, “accepted” as our lot in life…is it not? Change the bottom and the top will have nochoice but change. can the infamous WE, the squacks do that? HOW?Until what do we change it? Say green until the cows come home. The cows were made fat centuries for the willing slaughter. Define who this WE are? the new WE or the same old yak-yak THEY, as we are known as we die out doing nothing at all but talk. That WE? A defining WE, that wants non-commecial green? Careing with out blame? That is worth what, psycologically? If we can’t profit from green, “green” will be just another Imperial LAW to a criminal act, good guy bad guy, right? Paid for at the bottom, by the ever fearful WE, the winers, for the sake of the empowered top we consume green, feeling, caring and by intent alone…the truth is used against us. Is it not? So, do we live a lie so very well? Are we awake yet, wee folk?
Furthermore the word “good guy” belongs to people with the money. So we sit on our reluctant duffs awiting the guy with money to do what……..set us free. Realky now? Look at this way, wee folk, immedicable HE, the the prosonification of the immutable trusting I, became a deliction of ununified WE’s, but ended up becoming a helpless agreeing sort. The nafarious they, 80% irnorance, 10% unconditional faith and 10% pur hoplessnes after the fact. Sad to be looked at thaty way…huh?
Who are this “they” folk? Why Is it THEY have all the money? Because we are a trusting bunch of dubes. We look up, they look down? we wan to look doen, so we see nothing of what it all MEANS, we trudt the eye-con’s great con. Which is? What and How? Get it yet? we need to wake up. Green, the color of LAW, the new word for a new bottle of whine. Sincerely felt….james beyor
The great american dream of opportunity for the one that creates, works, improves, innovates was the foundation of democracy: freedom from dictators, from people who want to control our lives, who want to decide our future by imposing their “better” knowledge, that was the dream, it was a fight, and everybody must fight for their own rights. The politicians are under the notion that they know what everybody “needs”, but they need something else, we all know… The energy is for everybody and they way it is generated should be a consideration of everybody, but here too, there are many different opinions because there are many different interests.
The best way to decide is DEMOCRACY, plain and simple, it´s going to take some time, but slowly we will get there.
I have written my representative in the House, both my senators, and President Obama on this subject.
Here is the main text of my correspondence:
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Our right to choose between candidates and issues is one of the most basic features of our democratic republic – and this vital birthright has been quite justly expanded to include all races and both genders.
However, this cherished right is being virtually nullified by the deluge of money pouring into our campaign and legislative processes.
The US Supreme court has recently decided that affluent mouths have a legal right to shout while plain folks whisper.
There is no other issue that holds at its base so many aspects of societal and technical progress and civic integrity.
Exxon-Mobil’s profits last year alone were $85 billion. This entity can now flood the entire political sphere surrounding its interests every single year with less than 1% of its profits – and the company won’t even feel it.
An article in the September issue of Hightower’s Lowdown (edited by former Texas Secretary of Agriculture Jim Hightower) perceptively notes that corporate treasuries do not belong to the heads of the corporations, and are therefore not theirs to pump into politicians’ palms.
This Hightower’s Lowdown publication also reminds us that, for about seventy years after our nation was founded, each corporation was granted its charter – on pain of dissolution for any violation – under the strictly limited criteria.
Companies were also prohibited from influencing political campaigns. Our best founders were as wary of the power of corporations as they were of military ascendancy.
Additionally, Hightower’s Lowdown recalls the little-known fact that these fraudulent corporate attempts to demand the rights of persons under law all hearken back to a completely unauthorized entry in the summary with this unfounded statement: “The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in Section 1 of the 14th Amendment…”
The slim majority of SCOTUS justices chose to coronate an obscure court reporter’s aberrant fantasy, and unleash corporate treasuries to even more directly manipulate all our elections, and allow the soulless and unreal creations to simply buy our democratic republic out of hand, and out from under our feet.
This… must… stop.
Don’t allow our cherished country to fall victim to cold greed. Make yourself known to your progeny as a brave and heroic defender of our nation’s best qualities. Please, support the Saving American Democracy amendment.
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Perhaps if a million of us do the same, there might be an impact.
I write/e-mail/fax my legislators regularly–at least weekly–on a variety of topics. I live in Montana, where we have a tremendous wealth of wind power potential — as well as coal. Right now, parts of eastern Montana and the Dakotas are being developed for its coal resources so that (basically) China will have cheaper coal to feed its voracious appetite for energy. The Keystone XL pipeline will not make our pain at the gas pump lessen – it is destined for export to the highest bidder. It boggles my mind that the jobs these developments create are so appealing to the short-sighted! Our glaciers are disappearing, our drought-weakened forests are succumbing to pine beetle infestations while we release the earth’s richest source of carbon that continues to contribute to the climate problem. But as long as our legislators are the best the fossil fuel industries can buy, I do not see any long term changes…it’s still ‘business as usual’. My guess for the future is an economic collapse, within the next 10 to 15 years; perhaps that will be the wake-up call humanity needs to start progressive thinking about how to do things smarter and better….that adage, live simply so others may simply live.
In the meanwhile, I try to educate people and my elected reps but money talks, and I am not the one percent!
Express Your Viewpoints On Energy To Your “Selected” Leaders. I changed the word Elected to Selected in the title, because that is what I think is happening. Powerful companies and interest groups pick a few top runners for any election, then they make sure to fund them and support them until one of them gets “Elected”, they don’t care who or from what party, because they already know they will have their issues addressed by their Selected representative.
Our corporations have been using public resources to further their cause and in particular pad their bottom line. We have been doing this since 1850’s (read Overthrow by Stephen Kinzer), you will know what I mean.
We are still the most creative nation in the world, but how that creativity is being used to better the lives of general population has been greatly compromised by the greed of super wealthy individuals and corporations.
There is still hope.
I will do my part to let my representatives know that there is enough to go around for everybody, don’t sacrifice the masses for the sake of a few.