Is Oiling the Wheels of Politics a Greenwash?
I was thinking tonight about Greenpeace and how foreign funding has been banned, bank accounts frozen. The story was questioning about the rights of indigenous peoples and mining interests deforesting. I started thinking why is the government of India doing this. Then suddenly interests popped into my mind and I started to wonder about energy companies. Apparently the province where this activity was taking place was the biggest energy area in India. Then I thought about democracy as everyone has a right to dissent. Then influence comes to mind and you can put the pieces together. Then I decided to look at political contributions and found the article below.
If you want to ensure democracy is democratic then all donations should be banned. Government should fund both sides of politics in campaigning. Private interests should never be able to fund specific politicians. Greed just fuels this manipulation as their interest is higher profit yields. They look at opposition as impediments and they seek to remove barriers to trade. Governments are lenient as they see economic growth as providing security yet if the environment is eroded to the point where survival diminishes then a false economy is happening and it is a downward spiral until the last tree falls, when is it enough?
The message sent is that democracy is for sale to the highest bidder. Indeed, what is democracy? I understand it these days as virtues, when you respect others, when you value a persons right to an opinion when it differs from yours, when you don’t demonise opponents nor seek to criminalise them, when you value every person as equal, when you defend a persons right to speak up or as Evelyn Hall (not Voltaire) said ‘”I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”[ then you are beginning to get a feel for the real democracy. Anything that dictates the state of play, manipulates, removes others rights to be heard fairly, where justice is perverted then you are experiencing dictatorship and in truth that works against the dictator, as they always fall. People will naturally contest unfairness. It is in our DNA.
This article is interesting in highlighting influence in the United States Political system and I would say across the world. It reflects a distortion when some industries are making too much money through consolidation into multinationals. The environmental issue always reminds me of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth – the gold bar or the planet. What is in the true interests of people, what represents their highest interests is my question? What of the future of children? Do we care? I was informed that the forestry industry in Tasmania spent 2 years drafting an agreement with environmentalists which represented democracy. Then I found out that the agreement is to be torn up with this present government (see http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bushtelegraph/tas-forests-ob/5318850). I wonder about energy interests yet again. So I leave you with the question what is true democracy government facilitating discussions between opposing interests or government becoming a player in the conflict? Which is ethical which is not? Which unifies? which divides society?
My last thought to record here was that I saw a singing/visual presentation on the Tarkine forest tonight (see http://www.tarkine.org/). This forest is in Tasmania. I loved how the artists sought to generate a sense of connection to the forest as our mother. The poets bring to life the real meaning of this incredible life and how we are intimately interwoven into natures fabric. We are still in mindsets of separation, many do not see that we are nature, what we do to nature we do to ourselves. I reflected on that tonight. Bob Brown spoke (former Australian Greens Senator) feeling inspired and positive. He felt the Tarkine will be saved. It is through the spirit of people that real change occurs, what we value we pre-serve, we serve it before it diminishes as we realise that nature is the greatest security. When you realise you are one with all of it, your whole world view will shift and you will never return to your old mindset. Suddenly you will feel what indigenous people across the planet know in their souls, the planet is indeed what nourishes us and inspires us to live. I will go to the old growth forest and commune with nature. I am not a greenie, I am into harmony and balance. I want to see us all learn how to work together and do the hard work of democracy, compromise and find harmony and new learnings in the process. As we meet with those who differ in the end we find they are our greatest teachers. There are no enemies in this life only opportunities to choose who you really are. These experiences that divide are here to teach us about unity. Are you open or brave enough to learn as an example to children?
Tracking Political Contributions from Oil and Coal
Many politicians get money from oil and coal companies – but some receive far more than others.
The website Dirty Energy Money has an interactive that allows users to look up which politicians receive money from oil companies and their affiliated political action committees. The site is a project of the advocacy group Oil Change International and pulls data from the Center for Responsive Politics and its website, OpenSecrets.org.
A few things are immediately clear from the site’s interactive: Republicans receive the most money from energy companies, but Democrats receive quite a bit as well. In the Senate, two thirds of the money the website tracks goes to Republicans, the other third to Democrats. In the House about 83 percent of contributions went to Republicans. In the last two years, Speaker of the House John Boehner has received the most – over $800,000. And since 1999, two Texas Republicans — Senator John Cornyn, chair of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Energy and Natural Resources, and Representative Joe Barton, chairman emeritus of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce — have each accepted more than 2 million dollars in contributions from the industry.
The website also tracks congressional votes on such bills as H. R. 6082, the self-explanatory “Congressional Replacement of President Obama’s Energy-Restricting and Job-Limiting Offshore Drilling Plan,” which passed the House, largely along party lines. Users can view a particular politician’s voting record to judge whether or not he or she is answering to campaign funders. Speaker Boehner, the leading beneficiary of their campaign dollars, voted to help energy companies 90 percent of the time.
This week, Bill Moyers will be speaking with James Balog, the wildlife photographer and filmmaker who has risked his life at the top of the world to chronicle vanishing glaciers and sound the alarm on global warming. Balog’s work demonstrates that the climate is changing – Dirty Energy Money helps explain why.
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