The Editorial in Wednesday’s Messenger focussed on recent observations that upward mobility is largely nonexistent, no matter where in the world one might live.  

This comes as no real surprise, but it got me to thinking about the price we pay for the myth of upward mobility in America.   It may be the single most paralyzing factor in our failure to reverse growing income inequality.  

The editorial mentioned that inability to rise from one’s birth class is so universal that it exists even in Sweden. But there are notable differences between the U.S. and Sweden, like universal access to quality healthcare, and quality education through University, which make the life of the “unequal” Swede far superior to what it is in the U.S.

Our own Horatio Alger-style fantasy around the lifting potential of “bootstraps” has been endlessly abused to justify an ever-narrowing commitment to social welfare. In the face of this persistent and debilitating myth, it is the instinctive knowledge held by impoverished Americans that they will never escape their miserable existence, which drives so many to make truly desperate choices.

The social safety net that was built over a century ago, was the shrewd concession of American oligarchs who had seen the lengths to which desperate poverty and a callous ruling class had driven Russian peasants.  

Now that same class of oligarchs has forgotten lessons learned and is bound and determined to dismantle what remains of that social safety net.

The editorial correctly opined that income “redistribution” and education are the only real ways to achieve class mobility; but people like the Koch brothers and the (Walmart) Waltons, who truly are the “1%,” are betting their bankrolls on the end of public education.  

As for income redistribution?  So long as the SCOTUS Citizens United decision stands, individuals have only as much representation in Congress as their money can buy.  How likely is it that the poor will be fairly dealt with under those circumstances?

We are told that individual American’s accept this inequity as a strictly “temporary” situation as far as they themselves are concerned.  They don’t raise a louder objection to the rich having it all because they still hope to be numbered among that anointed few.  Once again, the Kochs and Waltons can count on our worst instincts to keep them secure at the top of the pile; because the myth of upward mobility enshrines selfishness as a national value.

That’s where the real work must begin: in disabusing the gormless of the idea that, somehow, they, too, can be super-rich.  

It is far more likely that you could find yourself in the shoes of the poor and homeless.

Barely two days after thirteen more Vermont towns officially voiced their opposition to allowing tar sands oil to be piped across our state, the Canadian government has given the green light to begin reversing the flow in the Enbridge Line 9 pipeline so that tar sands heavy crude can begin its journey to eastern seaboard refineries.

In order to reach U.S. refineries, a most likely route would run right through the state of Vermont, via the Portland-Montreal pipeline, an old and potentially unsafe conduit for the sticky stuff.

Quite apart from the doomsday potential of tar sands oil emissions to put the final nail in the coffin of the biosphere, there is a very real possibility that, along the way, the corrosive sludge will so undermine the integrity of the pipeline that it may rupture from the strain, spilling tons and tons of the viscous toxin out onto Vermont’s lush green valleys.   The result could be an economic and environmental calamity such as Vermont has never seen.

“It is time to send a clear message that tar sands growth stops here,” said Johanna Miller, Energy Program Director at Vermont Natural Resources Council. “In the wake of this Canadian decision, it is crucial that the State Department make it clear that a Presidential Permit, accompanied by a full environmental impact study, be required before oil companies take one more step toward using Vermont as a highway for the dirtiest oil on the planet.”

“The continued devastation of climate change demands that we keep tar sands oil in the ground and out of Vermont,” said Sandra Levine with the Conservation Law Foundation. “This decision brings tar sands oil one step closer to Vermont, but Vermonters are committed to using every tool available, including Act 250, to stop tar sands in its tracks.”

It’s the eleventh hour for proaction to sustain life as we know it, and Vermont is uniquely positioned, in this case, as a surprisingly potent gate-keeper.

the more routes are blocked, the longer it will take to develop one of the world’s dirtiest sources of fuel, and likely the more expensive and difficult it will be to do so. “It’s not a certainty that this resource will be developed, and for the sake of our climate and future, it must not be,” (says Miller) “Vermont can play a meaningful role in this.”

Vermont is also possessed of a unique tool with which to hold the line.  Already the bane of sprawl, strip malls and big box stores, Act 250 could prove to be a hero of this planetary drama as well:

In order to bring tar sands through Vermont and Northern New England, it is likely Portland Pipe Line Corporation would require approval from the U.S. State Department. Pursuant to a September 2013 ruling from the Act 250 District Commissioner in St. Johnsbury, the company would also need an Act 250 permit.

A coalition of the regions strongest environmental advocates,  including the Vermont Natural Resources Council, VPIRG, 350 Vermont, the Sierra Club, the Conservation Law Foundation, National Wildlife Fund and the Natural Resource Defense Council is calling on our most powerful leaders, Governor Shumlin,Senator Leahy, Senator Sanders and Peter Welch to use all of their influence to ensure that this environmentally irresponsible proposal does not escape the most rigorous review.

All environmentally concerned Vermonters should join them in the effort to stop the Vermont phase of this foolhardy scheme.

Yesterday, Burlington residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of three firearms regulations which seem destined to redirect the entire conversation in Vermont.

Despite a hearty endorsement by Burlington voters, adoption of the new rules seems unlikely at present, since that would require  significant changes to state law, and my guess is that this is more than even the Democratic majority in the legislature is prepared to undertake right now.

Still, the good folks of Burlington have done us all a favor by necessitating a conversation that has long been overdue.

Even on our little lefty blog, the topic has drawn enough heat from both sides to, more than once, bring us close to a meltdown.

We should be better than this, and we will be, going forward.  

There are not two, but many “sides” to this big and peculiarly American issue; and arguments both valid and invalid come from every direction.

One of the best arguments that proponents of “open carry” have is that guns are a reality; and that they already are everywhere, exponentially outnumbering gun-owners; so that it well might be argued that we have no choice but to arm ourselves.

That same argument can easily be turned upside down as the very reason why we must reexamine our fundamental relationship with guns and gird ourselves for change.

That’s where the orthodoxy police try to end any further debate with the “constitutional closer.”  

Rather as the devout are instructed not to question revelations lest they lose their faith, Americans have been taught that any thread pulled from our constitutional cloth will unravel the whole thing, leaving us in a state of naked anarchy.

Personally, I think that is utter nonsense.

We have an open-ended bill of rights precisely because our forefathers came to realize that they were not infallible; and that the passage of time and circumstances cannot help but force new perspectives.  Still they trusted that the founding principles, and the better nature of the people who would be born under those principles, would ensure that the nation remained nimble and just.

Arguing that we cannot now have the difficult and urgent conversations around firearms is yielding to the same sclerotic atrophy that has doomed great nations throughout history.

I can’t accept that without a fight.

Add Charleston to the list of towns that passed resolutions against piping tar sands oils.

_________________________________________________________________________________

‘Just got a joint presser from 350.org and the National Wildlife Federation confirming that at least twelve Vermont towns report that they have passed resolutions against tar sands oil being piped through the Northeast Kingdom:

Vermonters again expressed wide concern over the possibility of toxic tar sands being transported through an aging pipeline in the Northeast Kingdom or by other means. As of Tuesday night, residents of at least 12 towns – some of them crossed by the 60-year-old pipeline, others nearby – reported that they had passed resolutions expressing concerns and calling for careful environmental review of any proposal regarding tar sands. The towns include Albany, Barton, Glover, Hartland, Jay, Richmond, Shelburne, Stannard, Strafford, Sutton, Westmore and Wheelock. Several others had planned to consider resolutions as well. To date, 41 Vermont towns have called on our leaders to stand up for the state’s waters, farms, and future against tar sands transport.

____________________________________________________________________________

In St. Albans City and St. Albans Town, Town Meeting Day 2014 was a total rout for incumbents on the City Council and Selectboard alike.

I took particular pleasure in the City’s results, which saw the first female Council member seated in nine years, as Tammie DiFranco defeated Aaron O’Grady in Ward 3.  Also defeated was one-term incumbent Jeff Young, who lost Ward 4 to his predecessor Scott Corrigan.

In the Town, longtime Selectman, Bill Nihan was overwhelmingly defeated by Stanley Dukas; as was Steve Coon, whose seat went to Bruce Cheeseman.  

Of further note, Town of St. Albans voters finally approved a 1% local sales tax.  The primary reason for the sales tax?  Infrastructure pressures from the new development centered on that huge Walmart that just opened in October.  

‘Told ya so.

The nuclear news from Japan is pretty much all bad these days; nevertheless, the Japanese government has decided to turn its back on caution and restart its reactors that have been idle for the past three years.

Speaking for the Japanese Ministry of Economy and Trade, Toshikazu Okuya rationalized the move with economic arguments, insisting that the the country can not prosper without nuclear being a significant component of its energy portfolio.  Officials are promising a gradual reduction in dependence on nuclear energy, which, up until the shut down, represented about 30% of Japans energy supply; but they are establishing no deadlines or other benchmarks, leaving many extremely skeptical that this is anything more than lip service paid to ease nuclear jitters in the country.

Meanwhile, back at the radioactive ranch:

Over the course of the past month we learned that

1) January 30, 2014 – TEPCO admitted there “might” be a 3-inch hole in the suppression shield at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2.  

There was.

2) February 20, 2014 – Workers at the same Unit accidentally short-circuited one of the two functioning thermometers used to monitor the temperature in the bottom of the damaged reactor, but there are no plans to replace the thermometer because radiation levels are too hight to attempt it.  The failed thermometer was the same one that was replaced last September, when it was discovered that only one out of ten thermometers was still functioning.  Now it appears that monitoring will have to depend upon the last functioning thermometer in the depths of the crippled unit where a constant flow of water must be maintained in an attempt to cool the melted core.

3) February 24, 2014 – Human error once again was the cause of a leak of over 100 tons of highly contaminated water from one of the storage tanks that are lining up on the site as the crisis continues with no end in sight.  

TEPCO also admitted that workers were not sufficiently monitoring the levels of water inside of the tanks and ignored alarms which indicated the water levels in the tank were increasing.

A bit late, TEPCO has “decided” to dig some observation wells in order to investigate the possibility of groundwater contamination resulting from the leak(s).

If they do find contamination in the groundwater, TEPCO plans to dig a well in order to pump water out, but with limited storage space some experts have questioned whether TEPCO would be able to adequately store this additional water for any extended period of time.

But nobody’s  going to rain on Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe’s  parade of economic opportunism.

Abe, who fantasizes about  a boom in sales for Japanese-made reactors in the global market, last year successfully courted the International Olympic Committee for a Tokyo Games with the following :

“There are no health-related problems until now, nor will there be in the future, I make the statement to you in the most emphatic and unequivocal way.”  

I guess he must have had his fingers crossed behind his back at the time.  

As we have reported on GMD, despite the best official efforts to suppress or misrepresent data, a marked rise in thyroid cancers that can be linked to Fukushima has not escaped the notice of medical observers.

Now what’s this I hear about Entergy trying to play a fast one on Vermont with regard to their decommissioning obligation for Vermont Yankee?

Let our experience be a cautionary tale to any community considering a walk down the primrose path to nuclear energy.  

Buyer beware!

I’ve just downloaded the tally sheet from the St. Albans City vote last night.  As I more-or-less predicted, the total number of voters was 678.  

For now, I’m pretty content with the outcome.

________________________________________________________________________

It’s interesting that civic nerves seem a little raw, not just in St. Albans, but in major cities and towns all over Vermont; from Burlington to St. J; Montpelier to Rutland.

‘Tis the season to get out and vote, so I have a couple of my own thoughts to share.

In St. Albans,  Mayor Gamache and the City Council have poorly represented the interests of the community in a number of recent decisions, and I go to the polls with that in mind.

There certainly is an excellent choice in Ward 3, where a highly qualified female candidate has emerged, offering the opportunity to finally break the gender lock that men have held on the City Council for far too long; but in Ward 4, where I vote,  I find myself between a rock and a hard place.  

The  incumbent, Jeff Young,  has joined the rest of the Council in disrespecting the public process and suspending its rules.   I refer, of course to the issue concerning the fate of the  J. Gregory Smith Homestead house.

This past year, I have been profoundly disappointed in my alderman’s inability to appreciate that this is not merely a question of whether or not an historic building can be saved; it is a question of whether or not the developers of that project have received inappropriate favors from the City and not been held to the same rules as bind ordinary citizens.

Unfortunately, his challenger represents further entrenchment of the culture of cronyism that drives the City agenda.   “No sale,” say I to both candidates.

If you, too, feel that you cannot support  the only names offered on your ballot,  you still have a choice to write-in your own name or that of a trusted neighbor.  Taken together, all of those ballots, represent a  vote of non-confidence against “business as usual,” which will send a powerful message to your Town Hall.  I cannot support either candidate in my ward (4); nevertheless, I will not fail to vote for someone whom I can depend upon to respect the process.

St. Albans City  has a population of roughly 7,000 individuals and a voter turn-out of… what? Seven or eight hundred, at best?  

The parking garage bond vote last September totaled 559 “for” and 170 “against.”  The City Manager characterized this as a “landslide” victory; but with only about 8% of the population supporting the measure, you’ve got to ask yourself what the other 90% really thought about the issue.

A lot of people have simply given up on getting rid of  cronyism and backroom deal-making; so they don’t even bother coming out to vote anymore.  But reform will never happen without citizen participation at the ballot box.

Believe me, I know how tempting it is to throw in the towel; but be assured that all of the special interest movers and shapers, whose advantages depend on keeping their man or woman in City Hall, will be making sure that their supporters get to the polls.

Let’s make sure to get our protest votes in there to be counted as well!

The only way you can truly become disenfranchised is if you choose not to participate at all.

The complaints sound entirely too familiar to me:  a project framed by big business that would forever affect the livability of a residential neighborhood; public concerns dismissed without full exploration by independent analysis; cronyism and developer-driven permit decisions; disrespect for those who dare disagree; political appointments used to “expedite” approval;  even open meeting violations.

In this case, we are talking about Roseanne Greco’s harsh criticism of the South Burlington City Council over its failure to uphold public opposition to the F-35 siting; but the way she characterizes the political culture over there in Chittenden County, certainly sounds a whole lot like what’s going on right now in St. Albans with regard to redevelopment  of the Smith Homestead and reconfiguration of Maiden Lane.

How can members of a legislative body choose to remain uninformed?” Greco asked. “Educating oneself before making a decision should be an obligation.”

Tell me about it, Roseanne!

Whether we’re talking about environmental, health or traffic impacts, it’s getting to the point where no one wants to hear the bad news if its going to disallow some project upon which the business establishment hangs its hopes for a bonanza.  

No argument is allowed to trump the economic one, even if that economic one is extremely weak, short-sighted and captive to private enterprise.

Those who persist in voicing concerns over unanswered questions eventually find themselves shut out entirely.

Unfortunately, it’s not an easy task to galvanize the aggrieved into an effective political force to challenge a fouled process.  The machinations have become so familiar that most people just shrug and say “What can you do?”

What you can do is vote in every single election and on every single ballot item.  

If you don’t like or trust anyone whose name is on the ballot, write-in the name of someone you do trust.  Not “Daffy Duck” or “Your Aunt Fanny,” but a real person from your neighborhood.  That way, your vote becomes a statement of protest, not merely a prank.

If we could just get all qualified voters to the polls to exercise this opportunity for protest, the poor choices we are given on the ballot would be shown for what they are in the final tally.  

No more allowing the unprincipled to claim a “landslide” victory when all they’ve managed to capture is support from less than 10% of the population, as actually happened last September in St. Albans with the parking garage bond vote.

At least on the local level, it remains true that we get the government that we deserve.

Once again, I am reminded of the good old days of Vatican II and liberal Catholic activism in America.  

What does my heart good is that the woman at the center of the story is probably a veteran of those hopeful moments in an otherwise bleak century of reactionary Catholicism.

Sister Meghan Rice, 84-years young, just got herself arrested and sentenced to 35 months in the clink for engaging in a peaceful but highly illegal protest at a defense storage facility in Tennessee!

Acting as Transform Now Plowshares, Sister Rice and her two companions, both seasoned activists, have brought down the sledgehammer of Tennesse justice for singing, offering food to a facility guard, and inflicting what supposedly amounts to $1,000. in property damage.

Fellow peace activists Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed were sentenced to 62 months in prison. The three were convicted of cutting fences and entering the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in July 2012, embarrassing U.S. officials and prompting security changes.

Weapons grade uranium is stored at the facility, and we know how sensitive are breaches of nuclear security these days.  I’ll just bet those unnamed officials were “embarrassed!”

One has to wonder why the justice system persists in handing out such completely inappropriate sentences along the lines of “zero tolerance,”  assuming that the draconian measures act as a deterrent to hardened criminals and terrorists.  What a load of baloney!

Anyway, the story and the smiling photo that accompanied it completely made my day.  

This gal is twenty years my senior, has the hierarchy of a recently conservative church on her shoulders, yet still manages to kick some butt for peace.  

…And just look at all the graybeards surrounding the three detainees.

They do not go gentle into that goodnight.

Tough as our economic and environmental challenges may be, one need only look to Fukushima Prefecture to know we have been relatively lucky, so far.

In a new video release by Fairewinds Energy Education,  Arnie Gundersen tells us that recent reports from TEPCO indicate that the scope of damage to the spent fuel pool in the #3 reactor at Fukushima far exceeds anything that has been previously suggested in news releases.  

Much has been said about the commencement of efforts to remove spent fuel bundles from the damaged fuel pool of reactor #4.  Shifting the focus to reactor #4 was a shrewd way to avoid discussion of the much graver situation at reactor #3, where fifty-plus tons of debris have collapsed into the fuel pool following a detonation shockwave that represented the worst explosion that occurred at the facility.

TEPCO doesn’t want to talk about Unit 4 because it has no good answer to provide for what can be done about the radioactive mess at the bottom of the debris pile.

The implications are chilling, but the bad news is deeply buried in a recent corporate report entitled TEPCO’s Nuclear Power Plant Roadmap.  The company has provided no translation, so volunteer translators are assisting Fairewinds in making the information accessible to industry watchdogs around the world.

Bottom line?  Because bad stuff does happen, if events like the Unit 3 detonation shockwave can’t be planned for and a successful robotic response engineered into the original design, it’s madness to even consider the continued use of nuclear energy.

New TEPCO Report Shows Damage to Unit 3 Fuel Pool MUCH Worse Than That at Unit 4 from Fairewinds Energy Education on Vimeo.

For anyone who has been following the drama in St. Albans City over developer-driven changes to the infrastructure of tiny Maiden Lane, I thought I’d provide this update.  On Monday night, the City Council dissolved the Design Advisory Board, which had unanimously opposed those changes.

Here follows the statement which I read at that meeting:

We, the appellants in the matter of the Smith House/ Owl Club at 13 Maiden Lane in St. Albans, Vermont, will not be bringing a separate appeal to Superior Court concerning the changes to parking on Maiden Lane that have been approved by the City Council.

Although we continue to believe that those changes will have an adverse impact on the historic downtown in general and on our neighborhood in particular, we feel it would be counterproductive to devote any of our limited resources to a separate appeal.  Absent broader knowledge of the situation, the judge will be inclined to accept the opinion of the elected City Council as to what represents the best interests of the people of St. Albans.

For us private citizens to undertake the necessary traffic study would not only be financially impossible, but would also set a wrong precedent under which the City might again abdicate its responsibility to devote the necessary time and resources to thoroughly investigating the impact of a change to the right of way that may seem “minor” to the City Council but not to the neighborhood.

The City has taken the position that the scale of the private project for which the change is to be undertaken is not sufficient to trigger the need for a traffic study.  We disagree.

The diminutive scale of Maiden Lane itself effectively enlarges the project and its potential impacts.

Even if the scale of the Connor redevelopment project for 13 Maiden Lane would not alone trigger the need for a traffic study, surely in combination with the large new ACE Hardware project less than half-a block away, it should.

Together, the two projects mean increased volume of traffic at the already troubled intersection of Main and Congress Street, doubling the impact on tiny Maiden Lane.  Even Messenger St. is likely to suffer negative impacts near its intersection with Congress St.

For the City to take the position that neither of the two projects triggers the need for a traffic study is simply irresponsible.  There were repeated requests for a traffic study from the public, but those requests were ignored.

In so doing the City administration has set itself up as an advocate for the interests of one private developer in opposition to concerns expressed by many members of the public and the entire Design Advisory Board.

If the City was not prepared to undertake the entire cost of such a traffic study, it could have compelled the applicants to contribute as a condition of their approval.

In light of their decision to rubber stamp Connor Contracting’s parking proposal and leave it to a judge to undo any damage from that decision, we do not believe that the City Manager, the Mayor and the City Council can be relied upon to protect the best interests of the people of St. Albans.  However the remedy to unreliable government will not be found in an endless series of related appeals.

The only path to better governance remains at the ballot box.  

Sue and Mark Prent, and Peter Ford