US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1322

Hundreds of thousands of people marched recently in the biggest climate-related demonstration ever. The slogan of the march: “To change everything, we need everyone.”

A day later hundreds of people were arrested in downtown Manhattan for blocking traffic as part of the Flood Wall Street demonstration. The protesters' slogan: “Stop capitalism. End the climate crisis.”

The two events, within 24 hours of each other and just a few miles apart, juxtaposed what have been two factions in the larger climate movement. The climate march highlighted the big-tent approach to organizing. Groups with widely differing and often conflicting ideals came together to broadcast a message that climate change is important — which they accomplished — but offered few solutions.

On Wall Street, the protest was a tiny fraction of the march’s size and garnered much less attention, but the demands were much clearer: Hold the financial industry and the politicians who support it accountable for propping up the energy industry.

While the protests had different aims and supporters, organizers and participants from each event said they showed that the divide between them is narrowing. They say that as more and more people become aware of the severity of the climate crisis and as serious political action on climate issues stagnates, lines are blurring between reformists and radicals. Radicals are becoming aware that in order to have a big tent, not everyone has to agree on every issue, and reformists are becoming more open to using once-shunned tactics like nonviolent civil disobedience.

“The public is all over the place in its awareness of climate change, so the march was for those people,” said Sandra Steingraber, a professor at Ithaca College and an environmental activist.

“And then there are the people who have accepted climate change as a fact long ago and are really ready to carry a manifesto to those who are responsible and nail it to their doors,” she said, referring to the Wall Street protesters.

Social and political movements have almost always seen divisions between factions that are more militant, operating under the belief that the ends justifies the means, and those that believe in reforming existing practices as a solution.

The animal rights movement, for example, divided in the 1960s between supporters of the Animal Liberation Front, which illegally broke into farms and labs to free animals, and supporters of more mainstream groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Civil rights groups have split along the lines of whether breaking the law is justified to get a point across.

Similar debates have also flared up within the green movement. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), one of the nation’s largest green groups, has been chastised by other environmentalists for working with the natural gas industry to reduce methane emissions, as opposed to campaigning directly against the industry.

On September 28 2014 21:52 oneofthem wrote:
not sure people besides tenured professoriats have time and money to raise crops and cows for private consumption. working on it though

In his Tuesday address to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in New York City, President Barack Obama announced that the United States will not use anti-personnel land mines anywhere “outside the unique circumstances of the Korean Peninsula,” echoing his administration’s policy announcement released earlier that day. Also, apart from those needed to defend South Korea, the U.S. will destroy its land mine stockpiles.

The announcement brought the U.S. closer to fully embracing the Mine Ban Treaty, which was successfully negotiated 17 years ago this month in Oslo, Norway, and signed by 122 nations three months later in Ottawa, Ontario. The treaty prohibits the use, production, trade, and stockpiling of land mines and obligates mine-contaminated countries to clear affected areas. All states that are party to the treaty must also contribute to clearance and to victim assistance.

Despite calling for the “eventual elimination” of anti-personnel land mines back in 1994, the United States did not sign the 1997 treaty, because of their supposed importance to safeguarding South Korea’s northern border. Since then, the U.S. has remained the biggest contributor to land mine clearance and victim assistance around the world — donating more than $2.3 billion dollars for efforts in 90 countries — even as three successive presidential administrations (those of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and now Obama) have grappled with the contradiction of its financial commitment to help clear land mines and its refusal to join the treaty. With this latest announcement, the U.S. has taken yet another step toward closing that gap.

Five years into the Obama administration’s land mine policy review and after those performed by each of the two previous administrations, the White House’s movement toward a complete ban, coupled with earlier steps taken in June, is welcome news. Also welcome during Obama’s speech was his recognition of civil society — the land mine campaign — as the instigator of the process that led to the Mine Ban Treaty.

On September 29 2014 01:54 Millitron wrote:

I live in a small town. My parents have a garden in their back yard. It's maybe 40ft by 80ft. On a good year, it could easily feed a family of four for a year. And its only a hobby for them, they don't toil away for hours on end.

Now, I don't like this whole localized economy garbage because I know about the advantages of scaling, but people absolutely can raise crops for private consumption. Maybe not livestock though.

On September 29 2014 04:35 oneofthem wrote:

well yes, but as you know not everyone lives in small cities.

On September 29 2014 04:36 Danglars wrote:
It's good to know Obama has a clear position on land mines.

On September 29 2014 01:54 Millitron wrote:

I live in a small town. My parents have a garden in their back yard. It's maybe 40ft by 80ft. On a good year, it could easily feed a family of four for a year. And its only a hobby for them, they don't toil away for hours on end.

Now, I don't like this whole localized economy garbage because I know about the advantages of scaling, but people absolutely can raise crops for private consumption. Maybe not livestock though.

On September 29 2014 06:15 Sub40APM wrote:

Are there actually objective numbers on how much land an individual needs for a sustainable diet? I dont believe that you can support a family of 4 on a tiny plot like 40 by 80.

On September 29 2014 06:37 Crushinator wrote:


I did the maths and you can get 4000 calories worth of potatoes per day per person, if that counts for anything. So if you devote half the field to potatoes, and the other half to some beans, something that gives you fats, and various other vegetables it might just about work. Probably not though

On September 29 2014 07:49 farvacola wrote:
Beef is too good; let the future generations burn for my steaks.

On September 29 2014 10:37 Livelovedie wrote:

Vegetarianism is, at best, a temporary solution to the growing population needing more food. It would only make around a twenty percent difference anyways in exchange for less nutrients.

According to a report last August by the National Resources Defense Council, the average American tosses about 25 percent of food and beverages purchased. For a family of four, the money wasted could total from $1,365 to $2,275.

On September 29 2014 10:54 GreenHorizons wrote:


Well meat consumption is a really big deal. Feeding a nutritious meal to everyone in China is far more feasable than for Chinese people to be able ot eat as much beef as Americans.

Of course as Americans we waste more food in a day than many families in impoverished nations will have an opportunity to consume in a week. So just general conservation and giving a shit about limited resources could go a long way.



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Compared to what a week worth of groceries might look like in a less fortunate place.
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But I'm sure in the mythical meritocracy that is some conservatives world these people just don't work hard enough to have better...

On September 29 2014 11:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

lol, is that supposed to be satire?

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are both calling for Congress to investigate the New York Federal Reserve Bank after recently released secret recordings show the central bank allegedly going light on firms it was supposed to regulate.

Warren and Brown, both members of the Senate Banking Committee, called for an investigation of the New York Fed after Carmen Segarra, a former examiner at the bank, released secretly recorded tapes that she claims show her superiors telling her to go easy on private banks. Segarra says that she was fired from her job in 2012 for refusing to overlook Goldman’s lack of a conflict of interest policy and other questionable practices that should have brought tougher regulatory scrutiny.

After Segarra made the tapes public in a joint report with ProPublica and This American Life on Friday, Warren was quick to call on Congress to take action.