I’m a little behind the curve this month, but I have one final question to pose before the New Year.  It goes out to my fellow Progressive, Tim Ashe:

Why in heaven’s name did you nominate Dick Mazza to yet again chair the all-powerful Committee on Committees?

It certainly couldn’t be because he is so uniquely qualified to make committee assignments.  

Appointing Bob Hartwell, a climate change denying Republican to chair the Natural Resources and Energy Committee in 2013 does not speak well of his judgement in such matters.

If certainly couldn’t be a reward for Mazza’s loyalty to the Democratic/Progressive agenda,  as he has energetically come out for Brian Dubie, Phil Scott and other Republicans as they challenged Democratic/Progressive hopefuls and incumbents throughout the years.

Mazza has already had more than his share of opportunities to chair the C on C, so it can’t be for reasons of good sportsmanship.

There has been quite a history of speculation on Green Mountain Daily about why Senator Mazza’s persistent disloyalty and ideological peculiarities haven’t already disqualified him, years ago.

You should know that some folks will inevitably see a connection between your inexplicable endorsement of Mazza and your own appointment by the C on C to the

plum post as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

So I’m putting it out there for a reasonable explanation.

I hope you have one.

( – promoted by Sue Prent)

As I look ahead to this coming year, a number of thoughts come to mind.

First and foremost, against an enormous amount of corporate media noise and distraction, it is imperative that we not lose sight of what is most important and the vision that we stand for. We have got to stay focused on those issues that impact the lives of tens of millions of Americans who struggle every day to keep their heads above water economically, and who worry deeply about the kind of future their kids will have.

Yes. We make no apologies in stating that the great moral, economic and political issue of our time is the growing level of income and wealth inequality in our nation. It is a disgrace to everything this country is supposed to stand for when the top one-tenth of 1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and when one family (the Waltons) owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent. No. The economy is not sustainable when the middle class continues to disappear and when 95 percent of all new income generated since the Wall Street crash goes to the top 1 percent. In order to create a vibrant economy, working families need disposable income. That is often not the case today.

Yes. We will continue the fight to have the United States join the rest of the industrialized world in understanding that health care is a human right of all people, not a privilege. We will end the current dysfunctional system in which 40 million Americans remain uninsured, and tens of millions more are underinsured. No. Private insurance companies and drug companies should not be making huge profits which result in the United States spending almost twice as much per capita on health care as any other nation with outcomes that are often not as good.

Yes. We believe that democracy means one person, one vote. It does not mean that the Koch Brothers and other billionaires should be able to buy elections through their ability to spend unlimited sums of money in campaigns. No. We will not accept Citizens United as the law of the land. We will overturn it through a constitutional amendment and move toward public funding of elections.

Yes. We will fight for a budget that ends corporate tax loopholes and demands that the wealthy and special interests begin paying their fair share of taxes. It is absurd that we are losing more than $100 billion a year in tax revenue as corporations and the wealthy stash their profits in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens It is a disgrace that hedge fund managers pay a lower effective tax rate than teachers or truck drivers. No. At a time when the middle class is disappearing and when millions of families have seen significant declines in their incomes, we will not support more austerity against the elderly, the children and working families. We will not accept cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, nutrition or affordable housing.

Yes. We believe that we must rebuild our crumbling infrastructure (roads, bridges, water systems, wastewater plants, rail, airports, older schools, etc.). At a time when real unemployment is 11.4 percent and youth unemployment is almost 18 percent, a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure would create 13 million decent paying jobs. No. We do not believe that we must maintain a bloated military budget which spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined and may lead us to perpetual warfare in the Middle East.

Yes. We believe that quality education should be available to all Americans regardless of their income. We believe that we should be hiring more teachers and pre-school educators, not firing them. No. We do not believe that it makes any sense that hundreds of thousands of bright young people are unable to afford a higher education while millions leave college and graduate school with heavy debts that will burden them for decades. In a highly competitive global economy, we must not fall further and further behind other countries in the education we provide our people.

Yes. We believe that the scientific community is right. Climate change is real, is caused by human activity and is already creating devastating problems in the United States and throughout the world. We believe that the United States can and must lead the world in transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy. No. We do not believe that it makes sense to build the Keystone pipeline or other projects which make us more dependent on oil and other fossil fuels.

Let me conclude by relaying to you a simple but important political truth. The Republican right-wing agenda — tax breaks for the rich and large corporations, unfettered free trade, cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, nutrition and virtually every other program that sustains working families and low-income people — is an agenda supported by Fox TV. It is an agenda supported by The Wall Street Journal. It is an agenda supported by Rush Limbaugh and the 95 percent of radio talk show hosts who just happen to be right-wing. It is an agenda supported by the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable and much of corporate America.

It is not an agenda supported by the American people.

By and large, poll after poll shows that the American people support a progressive agenda that addresses income and wealth inequality, that creates the millions of jobs we desperately need, that raises the minimum wage, that ends pay discrimination against women, and that makes sure all Americans can get the quality education they need.

In the year 2015 our job is to gain control over the national debate, stay focused on the issues of real importance to the American people, stand up for our principles, educate and organize. If we do that, I have absolute confidence that we can turn this country around and become the kind of vital, prosperous and fair-minded democracy that so many want.

We cannot let this day pass on Green Mountain Daily without mention of the shutdown of Vermont Yankee.

Many will heave a sigh of relief that, after a stressful decade of mysterious leaks and other concerns, the flawed reactor will go out with a whimper rather than a bang.

I am among that number but recognize the hard work and dedication of the VY staff who made it so despite engineering issues and management obfuscations.  Some of those folks are now looking for other employment, but many others will be retained for site security purposes and decommissioning over the coming decades.

That being said, I am far more grateful for the tireless effort of the many dedicated activists who never relented in their quest to shut the place down.  That VY finally closed for economic reasons is sweeter still, as it bears out one of their chief rebuttals of the “public benefit” argument.

In reflecting on VY’s closure, Leslie Sullivan Sachs of The Safe and Green Campaign (and coincidentally, my colleague at Fairewinds Energy Education), made the following observations:

“Obviously, the legacy is decades of radioactive waste no one wants to take responsibility for – not the owners, not the federal government, not the state,”

“That beautiful strip of former farm land on the river, right in a village, will be a sacrifice zone,” she said. “Maybe a swath of it will be declared a nature preserve someday, like they’ve done at other nuclear waste sites. It helps folks forget the waste left behind.”

And she points to the following lens through which we can view the impact of VY’s closing on most Vermonters:

* 2010 Independent Survey: Two-thirds of Vermonters say Yankee should shut down.  Overall, 71 percent of state residents are “less supportive now of Vermont Yankee, the nuclear reactor, than [they] were six months ago.” That includes 57 percent of Republicans, 82 percent of Democrats and two thirds of Independents.

• Given a choice, fewer than one in 10 Vermont residents (9 percent) would ask their power company to use nuclear energy to power their homes, compared to 71 percent who selected “wind, solar and other clean-energy technologies.”

• The fact that Entergy has been unable to find the source of the tritium leaks makes more than three out of four Vermont residents (76 percent) “less confident in the company’s ability to safely manage a nuclear reactor”.

Having generated electricity for considerably less than a single adult’s lifetime,  Vermont Yankee will go on menacing the environment with its radioactive by-products for centuries, and the unconcealed location of its nuclear waste stockpiles will remain a temptation to terrorists until some distant future date when space can be created for it in an underground repository.

That’s quite an outsized negative payload, even if it can’t be measured in carbon units.

I’ll leave it to others to do the number crunching, but I would hazard a guess that when all the subsidies for construction, all the liability costs absorbed by taxpayers, plus the billions in future costs for decommissioning and waste management are factored in,  those brief years of useful service  hardly measure up as adequate return on public investment.

It’s an appropriate moment to reflect on the impulses that brought us down this particular garden path, and for that we must look to the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War, when “Atoms for Peace” served the twin interests of propaganda and proliferation.

The meme of “mutually assured destruction” justifying an unending arms race emerged.  At almost the same time, the Atomic Energy Commission got busy repackaging the persistent nightmare of Hiroshima into the modern housewife’s happy helper.  The military/industrial complex was born.  

Who’d have guessed that less than half-a-century later the primary threats to our security would come not from conventional states, but from a multitude of rogue agencies, completely oblivious to their own destruction and fully prepared to unleash doomsday should the opportunity present itself?

Who’d have guessed that, within the same half-century, all that prosperity fed by cheap energy would become too much of a good thing and we would find ourselves knee-deep in waste and planetary destruction, grimly regarding the possibility of our own extinction?

The answer is: precious few.

As always, the views expressed in this diary are my own alone and do not necessarily agree with those of Fairewinds Energy Education.

The Nation magazine names Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy “Best Senator” for 2014, cites his work on Cuba policy, FOIA, sentencing reform, success with judicial nominations, other Leahy projects —

LINK:

http://m.thenation.com/article…

Email subject line: Time is running out to support the VDP in 2014  

Friend,  2014 has been a year of persistence for the Vermont Democratic Party.

That is the subject and the opening line of a recent cheery little email I received from the Vermont Democratic Party soliciting last minute end of the year contributions.  

2014 a year of persistence?  

Of course there are distinctions between the party and Governor Shumlin’s specific policies. It isn’t all about the Gov. and health care but a wide range of issues.  

The email explains:

The VDP Platform covers a wide range of Democratic values and includes a commitment to economic opportunities for all Vermonters, opposition of outsourcing jobs to other countries, encouragement of tax policies that tackle income inequalities, and addressing climate change by promoting alternative energy.  

It [the platform] also includes an unshakeable dedication to providing affordable and accessible health care coverage to all Vermonters. Despite the obstacles, we are 100% committed to seeing these principles become policy in our state and our country.

So was 2014 a year of persistence?  

In fairness the Governor is often quite persistent. He’s shown remarkable persistence, if not unshakeable dedication, on not raising taxes on high-end earners.  

But in light of the Governor’s year-end retreat on single payer – “Now is not the time for single payer “ – the VDP might want to re-think any claim on persistence.  

I haven’t given in years, so I have no intention to take the VDP up now on the offer to celebrate the end of the year by donating. But time is running out to snark in 2014.

Update #2 December 27, Downed Wire Day 33 (no doggerel this time): The day after Christmas (Friday 26th), a  guy temping for FairPoint showed up, a day late and a truck short. His truck had broken down, he said, and he was driving his girlfriend’s Blazer. Girlfriend was doing the ride-along. All he had for equipment was a ladder, and no back-up, to haul up 200-plus feet of phone line to a height that would allow unimpeded access for delivery trucks and emergency vehicles. When I got home from errand-running, the line was up, sort of, lower than normal, at its lowest point about as high as my DIY pole. He left the ladder, so we assumed he would be coming back with help.

WRONG! I just saw the taillights heading down the driveway, and the ladder is gone, so I guess he’s done as much as he’s going to do. That line will be down in the first ice-storm, and then we’ll get to do it all again. {Heavy sigh}

Well, here’s the newest update on the FairPoint phone line draped across the driveway saga, now 31 32 days old.

Got a phone call this morning (December 24) from “private name, private number” who turned out to be “Byron,” from FairPoint, speaking with a slight southern accent. He was checking in to see whether the problem still exists, and whether it would be okay for a couple of technicians to drop by tomorrow – yep, on Christmas – “to take a look at it.”

Of course I said okay. And I note that no repair promise was made. And I thought, “Gee, FairPoint must be paying something like triple overtime to get these folks to work on Christmas.”

I was getting ready to go picket with the unions, and maybe I’ll still do that, to show solidarity from someone who has been waiting over a month for a repair and who puts the responsibility where it truly belongs: on the incompetent, intransigent management.

Merry-Happy-Whatever-You-Celebrate, friends. Please keep a kind thought for the unions – Communications Workers of America (Local 1400), and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (Local 2326) – who are struggling for their jobs and dignity and fighting a widespread public perception that they are to blame for the backlog of no-service, no-repair complaints.

Update: Here’s the promised doggerel with today’s (non-) events:

A FairPoint Christmas

‘Twas the day before Christmas, and when the phone rang

A guy named “Byron” from the FairPoint gang

Said they’d be working tomorrow, would it be okay

For a crew to come here by truck or by sleigh

To look at the line over the driveway hung low

With a word of apology for being so slow.

Of course, said I. It’s been four weeks,

A little more, even, and my tone was bleak.

I slept that night with extra hope for the morrow,

Tempered with a sense of cynical sorrow.

Two weeks in I had built us a quick-fix pole –

To make space for our cars was the immediate goal.

And it worked well enough for us to go under

It stood through two storms to my great wonder.

But now FairPoint would fix it, or so Byron said.

I spent a nice Christmas, hope mingled with dread.

I checked all day, I could see it from here,

That fragile pole still keeping the driveway clear

Enough for Wayne who delivered our wood.

And when Ross plowed the driveway that pole still stood.

Good thing, too, since as darkness fell

There was no news from FairPoint, nothing to tell.

No guys with a truck, no temps who’d been hired

To come to the sticks to fix our phone wire.

I felt bad for the union folks out on their strike

Who’d be back at work, except for the spite

Of managers and owners who refused to agree

To concessions workers made with deliberate speed.

Those workers had a Christmas but only just thanks

To people who donated toys to their ranks

So the kids would manage a bit of good cheer

In what has been a very lean year.

Six p.m. has gone by, and there’s no sign of a truck,

Just one more instance where the customer’s stuck

With lousy service and promises broken

Regardless of the rosy words that were spoken.

If I had a choice, I’d cancel my service.

But with no cell near, I’d be rather nervous.

And without a connection for web and WiFi

How would I then political trickery decry?

I’m with the unions, FairPoint should settle,

The workers have shown such strength and such mettle.

The issues are serious, customers leaving in droves,

What more do you need to drive the point home?

And so I exclaim as I peer through the night

Support the workers, my friends, the unions are right!

Happy Hanukkah & Seasons Greetings to my friends & frenemies @ GMD.

Not doing anything for Christmas this year. We’re pretty down. The festiveness contrasts against this backdrop & only serves to emphasize the hardship & tragedy around us on all levels, personally as well as world, state & national scene.

Though I nor anyone else for that matter has written about Ferguson & the senseless killing of another unarmed black man in New York — the grief of the families, their friends & our nation have weighed heavily on me & I don’t feel like celebrating anything.

But I do want yalls to know I care deeply about GMD as far apart as we may be politically & hope all is well. Peace.

I wrote to fam & friends to ask that we not exchange gifts this year:

Hi: Just a note to say we are not exchanging gifts for each other this year, or anyone except our children & grandchildren. Please honor our choice & do not send anything but a card – it will be graciously refused, nor do I wish to have any discussion. I am also reminded that it is not about money or gifts however I do not wish to impose this on kids & grandkids. This will also enable me to relax & enjoy the season w/o the pressure of shopping.

Our income and savings have taken a drastic hit, we have lost some savings cushions, we have little disposable income & there are many looming threats due to high taxes, fees & other assorted issues here in VT as well as locally w/much more on the way, as well as a lot of uncertainty.

I don’t do things on the cheap, regift nor do I have the time to incorporate DIY schemes. I need to free up my time to focus on my children, grandchildren, kittycats & household. I love you all very much & hope all is well.

Merry Christmas -sc    

Cheech & Chong – Santa Claus and his Old Lady

https://www.youtube.com/watch?…

No Room at the Inn — Mahalia Jackson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?…

It’s the holiday season and our astute readers deserve a hearty ho-ho-ho at least once in a while.  When this little gem crossed my desk I knew it was just the thing.

Released in 1966 to sell nuclear energy to a presumably gullible New England public, “Atom & Eve” is a rich repository of political incorrectness and shameless propaganda.  If you’re looking for that perfect ironic Christmas gift, this is the baby for you (copies offered for purchase at the above link.)  

They seem to have been pretty oblivious to the contradictory narrative of what happened when Adam (Atom?) took a bite of that apple!

Have fun with this and see how many examples of “Oh my God!” moments you can identify.  My family was in stitches.

(Former Governor Thomas P. Salmon (the Elder) circulated a letter-to-the-editor praising Vermont Yankee and its supporters as it nears shutdown.  The letter was just asking for a pithy response. Here is one I particularly like! – promoted by Sue Prent)

There is plenty to criticize in Tom Salmon’s ode to Vermont Yankee, but two paragraphs are particularly odious. He writes,

“Eight years ago…I began to notice the heat being turned up on Vermont Yankee. A rather fierce ideological battle from the hard left ensued. Some were Vermonters, but the vast majority lived in other states… However, in Windham County, a hardy band of citizens said, “We want to be heard on these issues.” And so the nonprofit Vermont Energy Partnership was founded to advocate on behalf of public policies that facilitate affordable, safe, reliable, clean power…”

The Vermont Energy Partnership was founded by a “hardy band” of the most powerful corporations, few from Windham County, including IBM, Casella Waste Management, and Pizzagalli Construction, plus business associations like the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association. And, of course, Entergy.

Despite being a former governor, Mr. Salmon conveniently forgets democratic process – unless he believes that our own legislature and towns were infiltrated by the folks living downstream from the reactor. In Town Meeting votes across the state over the years on referenda on the future of Vermont Yankee, 51 towns voted to close Vermont Yankee and only 3 towns voted down the resolution. The Vermont Senate said shut it down in February 2010.

To paraphrase Sen. Randy Brock, a Republican who reluctantly voted against Vermont Yankee, if anti-nuclear activists had infiltrated Entergy’s board of directors, they couldn’t have done more damage to Vermont Yankee’s reputation than Entergy did to itself.  

This is not Peter Shumlin’s finest hour.

Having built much of his base by embracing single payer as the ultimate model for Vermont’s healthcare future, it appears  he has now painted himself into a corner.  

One might almost accuse him of magical thinking, having refused to even consider the possibility of raising revenue for any reason through tax increases levied on those most able to contribute.

Anyone could have predicted that there would be upfront costs to hurdle in making the transition to single payer, even though a well-run program would ultimately mean savings for everyone.

Way back to his first gubernatorial primary, he gained on Doug Racine primarily by promising to deliver single payer. Racine wouldn’t make any such promise, acknowledging that it wouldn’t be simply a matter of waving hands and making it happen.

That honesty probably cost him the primary, and we have seen the disappointments unfold as Shumlin’s campaign promises have faded, one by one, in the cold light of daily governing.

An all or nothing kind of guy?  It sounds like Shumlin has just given up on the idea altogether because it can’t be done without asking for sacrifices from the moneyed class.

It’s not a matter of avoiding injury to the economic sensitivities of the wealthy so that they will generously donate employment opportunities to the less privileged!

It is they who benefit most from a well-run economy that keeps labor healthy and fully employed so that the working class is able to buy the goods and services provided by those in the profit class.

This is not just a betrayal of the coalition of Democratic talent that originally set aside their differences to put Shumlin in the governor’s seat; it is a betrayal of the promise Vermont held out to lead the nation as a model for a functioning single payer system.

To take the position that this cannot succeed in the U.S. is to say that we are incapable of doing something that every other advanced nation has managed to do.

There is no lack of resources in the nation or even in the state to make this happen.  Over the past few years, corporations and the wealthiest class have seen unprecedented income growth.  There is so much money out there, that in some cases, they literally don’t know what to do with it; thus the rise of venture capitalism and exotic “investment” products.

It is shameful that the governor has been unable or unwilling to convince his own class to step-up and make a real contribution to the cost of establishing a well-run single payer health system.  At the very least, his promises obligated him to make that appeal.

Instead he has stuck with a version of the Reaganomic argument that says the rich can’t “bear” any additional taxation.

Peter Shumlin has squandered his opportunity to lead Vermont into a visionary future where it might have flourished in the economic afterglow, attracting progressive enterprises and talented new residents to reinvigorate our little state.

What a pity!