Two video clips, each fairly brief. Together they offer a unique and moving perspective on the Iraq war from the perspective of, well, just watch: JAMES BLAKE MILLER
(The links are fairly small, just beneath the photo of the motorcycle.)
Several months back, prominent Sudanese-born businessman and billionaire Mo Ibrahim announced the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. In short, this prize gives a sizeable cash stipend ($200K for life) to African leaders whose careers are proven free from corruption and “who have demonstrated exemplary leadership, improving the welfare of their people and consolidating the foundations for sustainable development.”
Amen! Praise be to Mo Ibrahim for recognizing that humans will be, well, human. Rather than expect them to resist temptation, why not dangle a carrot? Ibrahim’s plan is pure genius.
Which brings me to the extremely corrupt government in the United States. Our corruption, fed in large part by corporate lobbyists, is right out in the open and is absolutely legal. We tend to assume that corruption of government officials is illegal. In most parts of the world, yes. In the U.S., mmm. . . nope. Yes, we’ve tried to ban lobbyists again and again but the corporate interests are just too strong.
Now, what about fighting fire with fire by using the Ibrahim Carrot to out-waggle the Corporate Carrot? Why not set up a similar prize for legislators who, during their careers, recieve ZERO campaign donations and/or perks from corporations and their lobbyists? Believe me, if a U.S. billionaire would step up to the plate (Gates? Turner? Buffett? Perot?), lobbying in Washington D.C. would evaporate overnight.
As the fight for pro-environmental legislation heats up (ahem), the evil wreaked by lobbyists against the entire human race will become more and more apparent. For a sobering account of just how much damage they’ve already done, read Jeremy Leggett’s book, Carbon War. It is critical that we remove these parasites by hook or by crook - as well as the Republican and Democrat legislators who support them.
Mo, I know you read my blog daily. Just wanted to take a moment to thank you directly for your amazing work. Keep me in mind when you’re thinking about your next round of project funding. My film project would interest you very much as our goals seem to be much aligned. Give me a call when you have time. I know you’re busy. I am nothing if not a patient man.
While I usually agree with Grist writer Dave Roberts about as often as Paris Hilton takes public transit (okay, it’s a weak comparison - sue me, I’m tired.), I have to hand it to him for putting together a solid interview with California environmental adviser Terry Tamminem. I can’t say that I’m in agreement with 100% of Tamminem’s positions, but he does seem to have formed a realistic road map. The piece (CLICK ME, BABY) is definitely worth reading.
With over 200 film and television credits to his name (including the original ‘Battlestar Galatica’ and ‘Amazon Women on the Moon’), Ed Begley, Jr. has been more than prolific. Not only that, but he’s a pretty damned fine actor. Most importantly, I make the argument that he is Hollywood’s leading eco-man, as his activism streak stretches decades into the past, way before it was hip to be green.
The man practices what he preaches by living off the grid and pedaling around Los Angeles on his trusty bicycle. Think he’d be caught in a wasteful Prisu? Think again! More importantly, he champions environmental causes at every turn, speaking eloquently and with a solid reservoir of knowledge. Check out the following links. Make Ed Begley, Jr. your new favorite actor!
It’s very odd. The most horrific genocide in the past sixty years is developing, but nary a soul seems to give a damn. Where is Israel on this? Where is our Superhero, Al Gore?
No, only George Clooney is sounding off on the Darfur/Chad genocide. The man is meeting with the Egyptian government to plead for sanity. Unlike many eco-warriors, he clearly sees the link between the Darfur strife and environmental catastrophe AND he is willing to try to do something about it: ARTICLE LINK HERE
Call me crazy, but I’d cast my vote for Clooney before Gore any day of the week. Not to disparage Gore, but I feel that Clooney has more integrity.
[tags]al-gore, george-clooney, darfur, genocide[/tags]
If you aren’t familiar with Dow Chemicals’ history of environmental and human catastrophe, perhaps this may not resonate with you. Personally, I find the following Time Magazine interview with Dow’s CEO, Andrew “Darth” Liveris (pictured), absolutely incredible. Bravo to Time’s Wendy Cole for setting this bastard up so neatly. My favorite excerpts:
TIME: You’re eager to shed Dow’s longtime image as an environmental pillager. How can you reclaim credibility?
ATTILA: A vocal minority believes that we’re bad guys and all we do is pollute. That’s totally inaccurate. Dow Chemical in the last two decades has been a leader in sustainability. I make the case that if Dow weren’t around, clean water would be an impossibility.
TIME: Yet isn’t Dow still dealing with litigation related to its use of dioxin?
POL POT: The legacy issue of dioxin is 80 years old. Eighty years ago, standards were very different than those today. There were no notions of pollution. Smokestacks were everywhere. Look at the steel industry, the car industry. We had to be there to get to here–all of us as a society. There’s a framework under which this can be remediated and repaired. We don’t need anyone’s involvement other than the people who’ve been trespassed on.
TIME: Dow is an enormous energy user. Why hasn’t the development of alternative sources become a priority?
NERO: There’s a lot of noise about wind, solar and ethanol. We’re working on these too, but they won’t be ready to meet escalating global demands. Eighty percent of what we use today is fossil fuels; 80% of what we’ll use 20 years from now is fossil fuels. The carbon molecule and combusting it is the only way we’ve figured out to economically move people and generate power. Diversity of supply is the answer. That means nuclear energy and investing in clean coal technology.
TIME: Have you personally sought out ways to conserve energy?
CALIGULA: We’ve built a new home with what I call space management, so we don’t heat or cool all the house at once. I want to buy a hybrid, but a U.S. company doesn’t make one I want. I’m driving a GM car, so I’ve got lots of pressure on Mr. [Rick] Wagoner [GM's CEO] to develop a hybrid for me. For now, I’m driving a fuel-efficient Caddy.
Every now and again, I very much enjoy revisiting Chief Seattle’s extraordinary speech given in 1854. I’ve excerpted a small portion - if you’d like to read the speech in its entirety (rather brief), THIS LINK will take you to it.
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Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander away beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget this beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its verdant valleys, its murmuring rivers, its magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender fond affection over the lonely hearted living, and often return from the happy hunting ground to visit, guide, console, and comfort them.
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These celebrity profiles are short and sweet, intended only to highlight that celebrity does, indeed, lend itself to educating the public and drawing media attention to the plights of those who collective voices, however many millions in total and however infused with horrific suffering, are drowned out by the aimless meanderings of empty socialites. One by one, I’m picking my way through fellow celebs who actually do seem to give a damn.
Who gives a damn? George Clooney gives a damn.
Clooney on the Iraq war: “You can’t beat your enemy anymore through wars; instead you create an entire generation of people revenge-seeking. These days it only matters who’s in charge. Right now that’s us — for a while at least. Our opponents resort to car bombs and suicide attacks because they have no other way to win. I believe (Rumsfeld) thinks this is a war that can be won, but there is no such thing anymore. We can’t beat anyone anymore.”
Most significantly, Clooney is active in advocating a resolution of the Darfur conflict. His efforts to raise awareness about the ongoing misery include an episode of Oprah, speaking at the Save Darfur rally in Washington, D.C., and interview after interview on the subject. He has also traveled to the region for first-hand information gathering.
Clooney had this to say about the Darfur genocide: “The news is that two years after we’ve said “genocide” that it’s still going on and it’s increasing — and that somewhere in there we can all talk about this and make speeches and say this is horrible and we have to do something. But every day we don’t do something, and every day this goes on, thousands of people are dying and dying horrific deaths. Samantha Power wrote a piece where she met with a woman who was running as they were coming into camp. And she [the woman] was holding two of her kids and her son following her, and they shot her son in the back, who’s six. And she ran up in the hills with her two daughters. And they came back, and they have stuffed the well full of parts of all the citizens of this little village, including her son. They poison the wells in every town they go into. They don’t want the land. They just want to [ethnically] cleanse everyone. The unfortunate truth of it is it’s not somehow sexy enough news and it’s hard. It’s hard to look at, and after a while people don’t want to see it. And there’s a lot of, I think, wear and tear on people seeing a lot of tragedy. But while we don’t pay attention to it and sort of shut our eyes, there’s an awful lot of killing going on, an awful lot of rape going on. Here’s the thing: We always see this now. We have tragedy fatigue on television. Every day, 20 kids [are] killed in Iraq or, you know, there’s always disaster. Pakistan, Afghanistan, there’s always horrible disaster in Nepal now. But this is genocide, and if everybody just got up right now out of their chair and picked up a phone and called their congressman, or called the number that registered with the president, it makes a difference. It always has.â€
An aside: Can we get some armed NATO troops in there already? No? Fine, let’s start a fund to hire Croatian mercenaries to protect these people. Hell, Charlton Heston can round up a group of neo-Rough Riders in a heartbeat. Stop already with the geopolitical excuses, the religious obstacles and the myriad other excuses offered by handwringers who don’t really give a damn about human lives. FIRST, we save lives and end suffering. THEN, we worry about the potential political fallout. It’s very simple – we either put love and respect for each other above politics and religion, or we don’t. If we don’t, we’re sub-human and deserve this planet not a whit. The imbeciles in governments around the world think they have it all worked out, think they know how to manipulate world events, that they can predict the results of global (in)actions, yet they’re no better equipped, in terms of basic intellectual prowess, than you, nor I, nor a factory worker in Macau. What they believe, erroneously, is that they are privy to information that separates them, elevates them, and positions them in such a way as to make their insight more accurate, more helpful, more invaluable to humanity and the world. The reality ism the only elevation that has taken place is the separation, up and away, of their soul from their intellect. Having one without the other renders a person far less capable of acting as a steward or leader than the simplest child. So, am I saying that a group of children would handle the Darfur disaster better, more humanely, than our current crop of world leaders? Yes, I’m saying exactly that.
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The most significant book you’ve read or I will buy it back from you at full purchase price: Lester Brown’s Plan B 2.0 Trust me on this one, just order it. You’ll thank me later.
These celebrity profiles are short and sweet, intended only to highlight that celebrity does, indeed, lend itself to educating the public and drawing media attention to the plights of those who collective voices, however many millions in total and however infused with horrific suffering, are drowned out by the aimless meanderings of empty socialites. One by one, I’m picking my way through fellow celebs who actually do seem to give a damn.
Who gives a damn? Angelina Jolie gives a damn.
When it comes to individuals who are doing what they can to improve the lives of others using all the tools available to them, this woman stands out as a real champion.Yet, for whatever reason, there seems to be a special brand of vitriol pulled off the shelf whenever she makes a statement or appearance. Not to say that she doesn’t have plenty of supporters or that she is the only high-profile celebrity targeted for derision, but her detractors are unusually vocal. I’m not sure what her dating status have to do with the social and economic issues to which she dedicates herself so thoroughly. She doesn’t get taken seriously at Davos because she stars in action flicks. One doesn’t get an audience with the world’s top influentials unless one walks the walk and talks the talk (or unless one is lucky enough to be placed in the Oval Office by Daddy and his friends).
From the almighty Wikipedia:
“With increasing experience, Jolie became more involved in promoting humanitarian causes on a political level. Since 2005 she has attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, announcing the formation of a Council of Business Leaders with UNHCR’s Deputy High Commissioner, Wendy Chamberlin, in 2005, and participated in the panel discussion Human Rights: Reduced to Charity? in 2006. Jolie also began lobbying humanitarian interests in Washington, D.C. where she met with congressmen and senators at least 20 times since 2003. She explained in Forbes:
“As much as I would love to never have to visit Washington, that’s the way to move the ball.â€
Tip of the iceberg, this excerpt. Read the whole thing here. You really should read it (skip down to Humanitarian Works). Along with Bono, George Clooney and a few others, she’s right up there, in terms of celebrities who are working to make a real difference. Certainly, the power of celebrity is a great boon, drawing attention to people and causes who have difficulty attaining recognition any other way. Yet, it also has its drawbacks. Celebrities who try to do right are often ridiculed: Who are we to fight for the environment? Who are we to voice our concern? A better question to ask is, “Who is our President to be fucking everything up?†And who are the men and women, on both sides of the party lines, who aid and abet him? Think they were all born leaders? Think they weren’t born with silver cutlery sets jammed in their jaws? All I’m saying is, anyone who is trying to do right, to fight against the destructive forces of ennui (consumer-citizens), greed (consumers and politicians) and ignorance (all of us) should be applauded, no questions asked.
I’d love to hear your comments.
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The most significant book you’ve read or I will buy it back from you at full purchase price: Lester Brown’s Plan B 2.0 Trust me on this one, just order it. You’ll thank me later.
[tags]angelina-jolie, celebrity, lester-brown, darfur[/tags]