Here’s to 2009.

Here’s to a new president.

Here’s to a Democratic Congress.

Here’s to the millions that got involved in politics for the first time this year.

Here’s to campaign promises to restore the economy, get America off oil, end the war in Iraq, bring health care to all, and restore the rule of law.

Here’s hoping we have a strong progressive movement to hold all of our “friends” in Washington accountable to those promises.

Here’s to potential.

Here’s to a new year!

(What’s your toast?)

A group of atheists filed a lawsuit yesterday to prevent prayer and all references to God at Barack Obama’s inauguration.

Newdow and others also argue that the phrase “so help me God,” used consistently in inaugural oaths since the swearing-in of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, should be stricken, saying it is not part of the oath as specified in the Constitution.

According to the lawsuit, the opening and ending prayers “are completely exclusionary, showing absolute disrespect to Plaintiffs and others of similar religious views, who explicitly reject the purely religious claims that will be endorsed, i.e., (a) there exists a God, and (b) the United States government should pay homage to that God.”

In the full complaint (39 pages, PDF), the plaintiffs make several interesting points.

The oath, as specified in the constitution, does not mention God.

The oath of office for the President of the United States is specified in the Constitution’s Article II, Section 1. In its entirety, it reads:

‘‘I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United
States.’’

It is to be noted that the words, “so help me God” are not included in this oath.

Most previous Presidents, including Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, did not include the phrase “so help me God” in their oath.

In fact, it isn’t until 1881, ninety-two years after George Washington’s initial ceremony, that the first use of the “so help me God” phrase can be verified. That occurred when Vice President Chester A. Arthur took the oath upon hearing of President James Garfield’s death.

The phrase, if used at all during the next half century, was apparently used only intermittently until 1933, at President Franklin Roosevelt’s first inauguration. (It is known that neither President Herbert Hoover nor Chief Justice William Howard Taft used those words at Hoover’s inauguration in 1929.

It is impossible to observe the inauguration without being subjected to purely religious dogma.

Individuals have a right to observe their government in action. Richmond Newspapers v. Va., 448 U.S. 555 (1980) (applying this principle to the observation of criminal trials).

This right surely must be free from governmental endorsement of purely religious claims.

Planning to watch the inaugural ceremonies, but wishing to avoid any government sponsored religious dogma (much less Christian, monotheistic religious dogma), Plaintiffs are placed in the untenable position of having to choose between not watching the presidential inauguration or being forced to countenance endorsements of purely religious notions that they expressly deny.

Good for Newdow and his cohorts. While I doubt they have any chance of winning the case, the 20% of Americans who aren’t Christian can at least take solace in the fact that a challenge was made. Given the rampant increases in atheism among American youth, challenges like this are likely to increase over time, and eventually prevail. In the meantime we’ll continue to use God to justify war and discrimination against homosexuals, pledge allegiance to the flag as “one nation under God”, trust our financial transactions to God, discriminate against atheist soliders, and swear our Presidents in with the help of God.

A quote attributed to the 1st century A.D. philosopher Seneca rings as true today as it likely did 2,000 years ago:

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”

Here you are! Happy New Year!

Cruising through the multitudes of year’s end reminiscences, I came across Balloon Juice’s commentary on conservatives’ upside down view of the world. All the errors that have brought us to the disasters we are in seem negligible there in upsidedown land, while Democrats do them the favor of occasionally behaving deplorably.

Right up front, let me say, the worst error of the year was Alan Greenspan’s decision to ignore the laws he was given to enforce, and wait for the market to self-correct. (My comment at Balloon Juice is number 28. There are some excellent answers there.) He has admitted to being wrong, but the entire world is in financial catastrophe because he followed ideology rather than the rule of law. Hopefully, that lesson has been learned for all times.

In his end of year retrospective, John Hawkins lists the seven biggest political blunders of the year. They are as follows:

7.) Pundits blowing the outcome of the democratic primary in New Hampshire.
6.) Eliot Spitzer
5.) Blagojevich
4.) Rev. Wright
3.) The Edwards affair
2.) Hillary’s sniper fire story
1.) McCain bailing out the financial industry.

So, to recap, five of the seven biggest blunders of the year were committed by Democrats, one was committed by the media (who Hawkins considers a de facto member of the Democratic party), and one by John McCain. One can only imagine how well the Democrats would have done in November had they not made so many mistakes, amirite Mr. Hawkins?

What a weird world view movement conservatives have these days.

We’ve been having a discussion at The Sideshow about liberal blogs that for years have pointed out the errors of right wing ideology in general, and deregulation specifically. Of course at the cab you have had Diane’s and my critique of the use of the U.S. government to fight against public interest in such varied areas as the economy, food safety, abstinence only programs, corporate welfare, health care, and every other area I can think of. We are hardly alone, there are many fine minds that have expressed their warnings about the disasters the ideologists in power were bringing down on us.

Astonishment at the incredible blindness of the right is not enough to express here at year’s end. Instead, we need to be resolved that they will be punished for damage done in full knowledge that they were violating their trust, their oath of office, and the laws of this country. Substituting a belief in their higher powers of divination, in contradiction of those who wrote the constitution and the laws, has led to worldwide disaster.

Declaring that ‘no one could have anticipated’ that breaking our carefully drafted laws would result in catastrophe isn’t justifiable. It’s not just great material for comics. It is crime, and they will need to be prosecuted.

The Rule of Law demands that crime cannot be allowed to pay off the criminal.

(This post also at http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/ )

Looks like it;s a bad week for comparisons.  Disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales claims he’s a “casualty” in the war on terror.  Umm, there are actually real casualties in this war, as in people who have been killed and wounded.  Maybe Gonzales thought that if President Bush was a frontline soldier in the war, then his loyal servants who gallantly followed him can be thought of as casualties.  So I guess someone who decided to hire the currently unemployed Gonzales would be supporting the troops?

I am no apologist for Israel and I am beyond appalled by the bombings in Gaza that have killed many civillians, including 5 sisters, all 17 or younger, killed in their beds.  Next to this horror, questions of word choice may seem trifling (and, in certain ways, that is an undeniably fair point), but I still think it is worth commenting on the words of a British Member of Parliament who said Gaza is “the same in nature” as the Warsaw ghetto.

Although the MP is Jewish, I don’t believe that gives her license to conflate one horror with another.  Now the MP, Oona King,did note the “very, very big difference” between Gaza and the Warsaw ghetto, namely that “Palestinians are not being rounded up and put in gas chambers”.  To me, that is the difference that shatters the comparison and renders it counter-productive.  When someone mentions the words “Warsaw ghetto”, most listeners or readers will immediately think of the Holocaust.  Over 250,000 Jews were deported from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka, where they were killed.

I am not damning Ms. King.  I use comparisons myself, and I am sure there have been times when I have made an analogy that others would reject as ill-fitting.  Also, Ms. King has been to Gaza and I fully believe her account that conditions there are horrible even, most obviously in recent days, deadly.

I have spoken to American Jews who don’t see Palestinians as human beings.  I have had arguments in which I am told that “the only thing Arabs understand is force” or that I want to see Israel destroyed because I dared to question a 40 year occupation or the killing of civillians.  I am disgusted by these views.  The pro-Israel side, especially the “Israel is always right side”, has hardly taken the high ground.  But that doesn’t justify Ms. King’s comparison.

I am afraid that Ms. King’s comparison will only be a distraction.  It is simply too easy for the “Israel is always right” crowd to change the subject by attacking Ms. King’s words.  That is not my point, and not my intention.  I believe the most important issue in Gaza and Israel is preventing civillian deaths.  Right now, that means ending the bombings in Gaza.  But I think that Ms. King’s comparison will not help achieve this goal and may serve to distract focus from where it properly ought to be: on the horror of civillian deaths.

Two disturbing trends have emerged recently in the battle against global warming:

(1)  According to Daily Kos, the percentage of Americans who believe global warming is real has dropped from 79% to 71% over the past few years - mostly due to a decline in Republican belief from 62% to 49%.  Apparently, the conservative campaign to deny climate concerns, led by the likes of James Inhofe and James Dobson, has been making some inroads.   Even as the scientific evidence for global warming continues to mount, the effort to convince the public of the danger seems to be losing to the right-wing propaganda machine.

(2)  Edmunds.com reports that pick-up trucks and SUVs, with their lower gas mileage, have actually outsold cars over the past month, making up 51% of all vehicles sold - a distinct reversal of recent trends.  The reason for this reversal is simple, as gas prices have plummeted by more than 50% over the last few months.  What this trend makes clear is the fact that Americans, for the most part, base their purchasing decisions primarily on their pocketbooks, with little regard for environmental concerns.  It also indicates a disturbing trend for short-sightedness, as gas prices are certain to rise again before too long.

Based on these developments, the challenge is two-fold.  The first task is to convince the more reasonable conservatives to listen to the facts of science instead of the distortions of the deniers.  This is a very achievable task.  23% of Republicans in Congress agree with the statement that “it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Earth is warming because of man-made problems.”  In addition, a number of evangelical leaders such as Rick Warren have backed a major initiative to fight the human causes of global warming.  The tide can be turned against the right-wing deniers, but it will require the left to work together with those who are environmentally sensitive on the right - despite our differences on other issues.

The second challenge should prove more difficult: convincing the typical American to buy fuel-efficient cars even when they can afford the gas-guzzling behemoths.  Perhaps this is where the government can step in and help provide the consumer with better options and incentives to buy green.  In his campaign, Obama proposed a plan to help Detroit automakers retool their factories to make more efficient cars, and many have said that a bailout of the Big 3 should include requirements to do just this.  I would advocate for even more aggressive measures, such as instituting a hefty tax on low gas-mileage personal vehicles that would help fund alternative energy research and the development of better public transportation.

At any rate, it is clear that we need to take seriously the deluded campaign of the right-wing deniers and the ongoing myopia of the American consumer.  If we don’t, all the science in the world can’t save us.

(cross-posted at Discipline for Justice)

A new development reaffirms expectations for quick Obama action on our archaic stance towards Cuba. The Telegraph reports:

The President-Elect will move “very quickly” after his inauguration on January 20 to make it easier for Cuban-Americans to visit and send money back to relatives in Cuba, according to a Latin American adviser to Mr Obama’s transition team.

Cuban experts expect him to offer to negotiate to end the five-decade-long economic embargo during his first term in exchange for Cuba releasing political prisoners.

…

First to go under Mr Obama will be rules, brought in by George Bush in 2004, that say Cuban-Americans can only return home once every three years. In addition to annual visits, the amount of money they can take will be raised from $300 to $3,000.

An adviser to Mr Obama said: “Cubans will be less dependent on the state for money and they will have greater contact with their relatives in the US. That can only aid understanding.” Those changes require only a presidential order. The adviser said: “He could do it on day one. Obama has a lot on his plate with the economy so Cuba will not be top of his list but I’d expect it to happen fairly quickly.”

It’s not just Obama who’s on the progressive side of this issue. Legislators from both sides of the aisle are opposing a continuation of the embargo and, as expected, it’s not common sense or human decency that’s prompting the change in attitude.

…a group of 50 Congressmen from both main parties and supporters of free trade want it abolished. The National Foreign Trade Council, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Retail Federation have all called for the complete removal of all trade and travel restrictions in Cuba.

Special interests lobbying for renewed access to the Cuban market is nothing new - only the receptivity of our our elected officials. Attribute this to diminished political costs, as evidenced by Florida Latinos support for Obama (55%). Historically, both parties have supported the counterproductive embargo to woo Florida’s virulently anti-Castro Cuban exiles. As the older generation dies out, however, common sense is finally trumping political expediency.

Let there be light.

As any who come to these pages are already aware, my passion is clear … helping my/your family, my/your community, my/your nation, my/our world find a path toward a prosperous and sustainable energy future. A path that will help us (US) navigate the dangerous seas of the Perfect Storm combination of Peak Oil (and other peak natural resources), Global Warming, and the Financial Meltdown around the globe.

At their core, all three of these challenges are resource challenges. And, solution paths exist to each of these challenges, even if finding our way to that solution could be extremely challenging. An even greater complexity is the simultaneity of these challenges. We must confront, tackle, solve each of these in a coordinated, reinforcing manner as the perfect solution for one challenge might be a lesser response, or even disaster, in another arena. What is the classic example of this? Investing in coal-to-liquids and tar sands could help ameliorate Peak Oil’s impact while providing the straw that breaks the camel’s back on our reckless rush into catastrophic climate change.

We must chart a course and find steady heads to navigate the treacherous seas of these converging of three major storms into the 21st Century’s Perfect Storm. We will either, in the next few years, chart and begin navigating such a course … or we can rest assured that human civilization will become shipwrecked in the coming decades, leaving behind something unfamiliar and undesirable to those currently enjoying the fruits of ‘developed’ global society.

The bright spot in this gloom: it is possible to chart a course.

And, even in the face of the immediacy of a global fiscal crisis and calls for fiscal discipline against any new spending and concerns that economic woes are chilling global warming action, even before the election, ever more voices were calling for a “green” route to a prosperous and climate-friendly global society. Back in October, Politico ran Can green jobs save us? which looked at how both Barack Obama and John McCain are speaking about “Green Jobs” as a core part of the path forward. (Even though John McCain’s rhetoric is, well, mainly hot air.) And, other voices called for ever greater boldness in the face of these crises.

this is a time to think big. We have to grow our way out of the economic depths. We have to use the money we’ll spend wisely enough to create external benefits for the next 50 to 60 years, to wire America like we electrified America in the 1930s, to fix the roads and bridges the way we built them then, to create a new, clean energy grid to replace the old one that served us well. We can not only face the biggest challenges in the world and create a sustainable economy at the same time, but they can complement each other. And we can say “hell no” to those Wise Men of Washington and the conservatives they enable, whose ideas on budgets and fiscal responsibility and supply-side economics have been totally discredited. We need only to have courage in crisis, and a willingness to lead the way.

At Grist, David Roberts articulated how the economic crisis should prompt more green infrastructure spending, not less

Before conventional wisdom hardens in the other direction, greens need to get out and start arguing that the current financial mess is not a reason to trim back our green ambitions, but to accelerate them with liberal spending on a smart grid, public transit, and other job-creating, emission-reducing, capital-intensive projects. Save the economy, save the planet.

And, Eric Pooley called this a Trojan horse approach

Say hello to Obama’s Trojan horse—a climate policy hidden inside an energy-and-economic policy. Obama takes Gore’s energy trifecta, lops off the climate message, and stores it in the belly of the beast while energy independence and economic renewal drive the contraption forward.

But it does not have to be a “Trojan horse,” a hidden agenda.

We can, we should, we must extol the power of combining these challenges and placing a path that provides “a” real solution to these (and, actually, other) very serious challenges before us.

Investing for a smart energy future would:

We saw tremendous movement in the Presidential campaign on energy issues, especially on the D side, with the candidates outbidding each other on better energy policy. President-Elect Obama has spoken strongly on climate issues and put forward a very progressive (read: realist and fact-based) team when it comes to energy and environmental policy.

Within this movement and building on it, what follows is part of the concepts that should help guide us in the coming months and years, in words that might be fit for a weekly Presidential-elect video-log.

Back in November, UN climate official Richard Kinley traveled to California for an international greenhouse gases summit. There, he recommended to government reps in attendance emission cuts of at least 50 percent. Anything less, he said, would shortchange what the dire situation demands.

Great news, then, that Mexico’s environment minister announced plans to cut emissions to half their 2002 levels by 2050 at the UN climate talks in Poznan, Poland, earlier this month. Though it’s far from official (a goal rather than a binding agreement, one that still requires the signature of President Felipe Calderon) the step breaks new ground, and could positively impact the attitude on climate change of both developing and developed nations. From a recent World Bank report:

a strong show of leadership by medium income countries such as those in LAC could help pave the road for increasing commitments among their high income counterparts…this approach would have the added advantage of helping create momentum towards a global agreement for addressing climate change challenges.

Exempt from the Kyoto Protocol because a developing country, Mexico has taken steps to combat emissions all the same. Using the the Clean Development Mechanisms afforded by Kyoto, Mexico has offset 7.4 million tons of Co2, investing more than $100 million in CDM projects.

The government is working to convert coal and fuel oil power plants to natural gas, improve efficiency at the state-run oil company PeMex and replace diesel buses with cleaner vehicles. Programs currently pay rural Mexicans to preserve native forests instead of logging, and a program to plant new trees has slowed deforestation.

As the world’s 14th worst polluter (650 million tons of CO2 a year), and in a particularly vulnerable position vis a vis climate change (the above cited report predicts productivity loss of 30-85% depending on severity), Mexico’s motivation may be more accurately described as self-preservation than as altruism. But at this point we need results, not benevolence: as a developing nation with almost half its population living in poverty, Mexico exemplifies the balance Kyoto’s successor must strike between economic and environmental incentives. The CDMs are a good model in this regard.

In the meantime, Mexico has staked out a progressive position and, If it makes good on its pledge, it will both spotlight the role developing nations can and should play and help eliminate a principal caveat employed by developed nations.

At the level of rhetoric, we’re seeing some diplomatic overtures from Pakistan:

Pakistan has again called for an easing of tension with India in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, saying dialogue would benefit both sides.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi also urged India to move some troops and air bases away from joint border areas to send a “positive signal”.

Of course, it’s also possible to read the call for de-escalation as a veiled threat.

India rejected the call.

Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee refuted suggestions India was mobilizing its military and aggravating an already tense atmosphere.

“We have not escalated any tension, so where is the question of our de-escalation?” he told reporters, referring to Qureshi’s suggestions on reducing tensions between the two neighbors.

Mukherjee told PTI news agency any military movement now was only part of routine annual winter exercises. India had earlier said its troops were on standby, although it said it had made no new deployments since the Mumbai attacks.

So, a momentary stalemate.

There’s one positive sign, at least. Reuters notes that newspaper op-eds in India and Pakistan have taken on a softer tone recently, one indication that public anger may be lessening.

Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, in an editorial headlined “War hysteria abating on both sides” welcomes a report that India is not setting a timeframe for Pakistan to act against the groups it blamed for the Mumbai attacks. “There is always a risk of exaggerating the prospects of peace breaking out between India and Pakistan, just as there is that irrepressible tendency to overplay the fear of war lurking round the corner,” it says.  But it adds: “At the moment all the pointers from New Delhi raise hope. Or, shall we say, they don’t look bleak?”

The Daily Times goes further, arguing that with the threat of war receding, Pakistan must act against anyone launching militant attacks outside its borders and collaborate actively with India to pursue anyone found to be involved in Mumbai.

“The world wants us to do what we know we have to do to survive as a country. We have to take in hand the war against the foreign and local terrorists and in doing so we have to eliminate those who strike across our borders and endanger the security of our neighbours in the region,” it says. “There is no doubt that we have to collaborate with India and earnestly pursue the punishment of anyone found to be involved in the Mumbai attack. The international community that has pressured India to back off today will be relentless in its insistence that we do what we have pledged to do.”

Perhaps the most interesting op-ed comes from India, where The Hindu asks why the Pakistani security establishment made no effort to disrupt elections just held for the state assembly in Jammu and Kashmir. (The polls had a turnout of more than 60 percent, despite a boycott call by separatists.)  The absence of interference contradicted a prevailing assumption in India — although not one articulated officially by the government — that Pakistan’s ISI spy agency and its powerful military had been involved in the Mumbai attacks, it said.

It was possible, the newspaper said, “that the absence of violence (in Kashmir) was the result of Pakistan’s active cooperation with an Indian request made several months earlier, and that the Mumbai attacks were orchestrated by Pakistan-based terrorists without the involvement of the ISI.”

Let’s hope leaders also begin to give each other the benefit of the doubt.

Cooling tensions may also be one reason that Pakistan launched a surprise offensive against militants in the northwest today, though US pressure is undoubtedly another reason. Most doubt the offensive will bring long-last results. And of course, every step forward for the “war on terror” in South Asia brings a step or two backward. This time it’s Pakistan’s decision to close NATO’s supply route into Afghanistan. And that’s another factor driving the US into the arms of authoritarian rulers in Central Asia.

More diplomacy please.