Mike and the Hydrogen Economy

 ' This life is brutally hard - without energy it would be SO much harder - hydrogen may actually be the 'answer' but not on the massive profit making scale it is heading towards. '

Yes, I certainly agree with you! We all use energy consumption as a yardstick to our progress in pursuit of the "good life"... and it's more nearly the inverse.
    
' ...the trick is to quit using so much energy but here we are again - confusing consumption with control.
    
' we do not need 25 billion ppl on this planet - we do not need 15 billion ppl on this planet - we probably don't need 5 billion ppl - but no one is going to suggest population caps - no one is going to look at what is ideal for quality of life because profit is a growth industry and to make profit the numbers have to keep going up.
    
' As profits go up quality of life goes down - it is a proven fact... '

Absolutely agree with all of that. I live in Thailand where a portion of the population is on the Western/Indian/Chinese "modern" treadmill already... where nothing is ever enough. But the majority of the people live in villages in the countryside, have little, are and have been more nearly content being able to reap the real goods of life... but are simultaneously being seduced and destroyed, by television chiefly, and missionaries, induced to get on the treadmill.

In reality they are perfectly poised to reject the modern monstrosity, predicated on endless growth... a patent impossiblity evident to anyone above the age of reason... "justified" only by the belief that one's own life will be over before the bill comes due. And it is of those folks and their way of life in nature that I am thinking.

The ability to set up a solar apparatus not only to provide lights, but also to provide fuel for the motorbike, for the motor to lift water in the well, and to power the one-man walk-behind tractor... all done off-the grid, decentralized, without the need to earn the money elsewhere to pay the energy bill. That's what I have in mind.

And then let rural and suburban Americans and Canadians, the number one consumers per capita of energy on earth, learn from the rural Thais how to live in nature. And to be happy. The Thais know, even now, how to be happy. The West has everything to learn from the "ignorant peasants" of Asia.

A decentalized hydrogen energy economy with a 50% reduction in energy consumption accompanied by a 50% reduction in desire for the useless junk that consumes so much energy is what I'm after, and what I think the world needs.

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Times have changed. We are going to empower the American people. Let’s work together. I am tough. I’m not afraid. None of this politics as usual. -- Mike Gravel

 Happy Birthday Mike Gravel! And many happy returns.

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Times have changed. We are going to empower the American people. Let’s work together. I am tough. I’m not afraid. None of this politics as usual. -- Mike Gravel

 Mike and the Ni4d

What could be more apparent in the midst of our nation's collapse than the fact that it is up to us the people to take back control of our nation, end its precipitous decline, straighten up and fly right?

It's obvious to me now, but it's part of the human condition to take breakthroughs, the really great ideas, for granted...  "everyone knows that!" once they've been broke through.

Or perhaps it's the nature of the ideas themselves, that they fall out of suspension in the noosphere because the sphere is super saturated... the great ideas come on the cusp of the revolution.

Well... Mike Gravel is certainly the man who put direct democracy front and center for me.

Many people have insight enough to realize the systemic nature of our problems, and their insolubility wihin our current political structure.

But no one else went the extra inch to a solution, and that extra inch was miles and miles in the taking.

It looks as though it will take the complete collapse of our nation before people will stoop to pick up the pieces, but more and more people are coming around to reality : you cannot have change without changing.

And when the change finally does come Mike's groundwork will suddenly be "discovered" and he will bcome an "overnight sensation"... again.

In the midst of the brown shirts rousing the rabble Mike's work is invaluable, providing a common-sense, easily accessible alternative to the traditional fascist route when things do fall apart.

Thanks again, Mike. Counting down to your 80th birthday. A young man of eighty years if ever there was one.. just 1 more day to go.

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Times have changed. We are going to empower the American people. Let’s work together. I am tough. I’m not afraid. None of this politics as usual. -- Mike Gravel

 Mike and the Wars

As I mentioned above the electrifying moment of the 2008 campaign was when I heard Mike speaking the truth about the illegal and immoral war in Iraq and laying out a plan to end it.

In that instant the wheels began to turn to eliminate Mike from the campaign. He had spoken the truth and that is something that had to be nipped in the bud in American politics.

The wars have dragged on now eight years in Afghanisan, seven years in Iraq, a year and half now in Obama's new war in Pakistan, six months in Obama's new war in Yeman, hard to say exactly when the war in Iran began.

Barack Obama has extended them all just as he promised he'd do before his election. The only thing that's changed is the people supporting and defending the wars : used to be the neo-cons, now it's the neo-liberals - the 'progressives'.

The wars have become more inhuman with the increasing use of drones making possible and so inevitable the killing of whole extended families on the basis of TV pictures. The wars have become more destructive of America financially as well with their costs absolutely out of control.

"These people are not our enemies." Mike said that of fhe Iranians. The simple truth.

There are 175 days remaining 'til election day, 2010 in the USA. We may peacefully and non-violently rid ourselves of 435+34=469 of our 537 most deadly enemies on 2 November... or not. Up to us.

Counting down to your 80th birthday, Mike. A young man of eighty years if ever there was one.. 2 more days to go.

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Times have changed. We are going to empower the American people. Let’s work together. I am tough. I’m not afraid. None of this politics as usual. -- Mike Gravel

Mike and the Military-Industrial Complex

The latest and greatest from the US Military-Industrial Complex are remote piloted, drone killing machines. They allow US armed forces to kill someone else's family from the comfort of their Barca Loungers in NV, then punch-out and commute back home for supper with their own.

Meet Lt. Col. Chris Gough: Killing by Drone and Proud of It.

' In just ten years, the planners foresee U.S. taxpayers shelling out seven times more than they have been on drones as the numbers ordered increases six-fold.

' There’s also secret work ahead on an intercontinental nuclear/conventional bomber drone which will cost another couple of billion dollars.

' Northrup Grumman’s X-47C which increases the weight of the bombs able to be carried from five tons to 110 tons also looks interesting.

' However, Mark Kassner, Deputy VP of Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems was keen to stress the civilian uses of the drones - Internet shopping and delivery. Imagine the skies full of these unmanned aircraft delivering groceries and furniture to your garden or apartment building roof.

' Proliferating it certainly is. The White House is considering sending them to the Somalian government. Texas Governor Rick Perry wants them deployed on the border with Mexico. Pakistan is developing one. Israel is developing more and more of them.

' The ratio of civilian to military deaths in wars has been steadily rising and we can expect it to continue. '

Our USA is fast degenerating into a truly despicable nation. We're a nation of war criminals at this point. We cannot even stir ourselves to put an end to it.

There are 176 days remaining 'til election day, 2010 in the USA. We may peacefully and non-violently rid ourselves of 435+34=469 of our 537 most deadly enemies on 2 November... or not. Up to us.

Clearly this would not be happening if Mike Gravel were the POTUS. I remember Mike reading the 'Pentagon Papers' into the Congressional Record the last time our nation went crazy. I saw Mike Gravel read the riot act to the other, fraudulent, candidates for POTUS in Carolina just about three years ago and felt alive again, politically.

I'm still alive politically, although not having much of an effect. But you are an inspiration

Mike Gravel. Thank you for that.

Counting down to your 80th birthday, Mike. A young man of eighty years if ever there was one.. 3 more days to go.

-- Times have changed. We are going to empower the American people. Let’s work together. I am tough. I’m not afraid. None of this politics as usual. -- Mike Gravel

 Mike and Health Care

I read today that Walter Hickel died, aged ninety. He was the governor of Alaska twice, terms twenty years apart. I'm sure Mike knows him well. I remember him for his response to the Santa Barbara blowout, and for being fired by Richard Nixon for telling Nixon that he should listen to the people and end the wars in Southeast Asia. Hickel died at Horizon House in Anchorage, an assisted living home operated by Providence Alaska Medical Center. Life and death. And health, good or bad, in between.

If Mike were the POTUS we would all have Health Care Vouchers now... instead of being ORDERED! to buy a private insurance policy from the mob. The present incumbent dealt with the health care insurance companies' problems, the problems of the medical-industrial complex, certainly not with our own.

I remember Mike saying, and I paraphrase... The first thing a politician thinks about when making a decision is "How will this affect the people who funded my  last campaign?", then "How will this affect my next campaign?", then "How will this affect my party?"... right off the bat his constituents finish "out of the money".

The 800 Million Dollar Man has more people to think about at step one than any other politician in history... our interests have never got past step one with him.

I know you are in good health, Mike. I'm in fairly good health. I hope everyone else is as well, because between all of us and medical care, should we need it, there're barriers that just keep growing every day.

The rich are richer than ever while the numbers of poor and stressed Americans grows every month with the unemployment rate. Not conducive to good health and less and less chance of affording medical care should our health fail.

Counting down to your 80th birthday, Mike. A young man of eighty years if ever there was one.. 4 more days to go.

And happy birthday Arpidoodle! Glad we're all still here.

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Times have changed. We are going to empower the American people. Let’s work together. I am tough. I’m not afraid. None of this politics as usual. -- Mike Gravel

in physics they say every action has an opposite and equal reaction - or more to the point - every action has what amounts to an equal reaction - I think the opposite and equal reaction theory is pretty far off base - reactions are always multidimensional - they add up to an equal reaction - they are just not a single 'event'
 
This is a huge factor in environmental husbandry.
 
 We didn't know carbon would hurt us in the 40's and 50's and we don't know what the reaction from the potentially enormous usage of hydrogen will be - all I know is that people will have an absolute heyday consuming what they think is safe energy - but - there will be a reaction - it's in the first law of physics
Are we going to so pollute our atmosphere with static electrical (dis)charges or lethal ionization - the trick is to quit using so much energy but here we are again - confusing consumption with control.
 
we do not need 25 billion ppl on this planet - we do not need 15 billion ppl on this planet - we probably don't need 5 billion ppl - but no one is going to suggest population caps - no one is going to look at what is ideal for quality of life because profit is a growth industry and to make profit the numbers have to keep going up.
As profits go up quality of life goes down - it is a proven fact.
 
This life is brutally hard - without energy it would be SO much harder - hydrogen  may actually be the 'answer' but not on the massive profit making scale it is heading towards
 
A couple of years ago I said the ecomony was like a runaway train approaching a washed out bridge with Hilary Rodham Clinton saying " speed it up, we'll jump the gap" ...(and most Dems and Reps  too) ... Mike Gravel was one of the only ones saying " let's put the brakes on the G** D***ed train!
 
Mike was the voice of reason
 
John - do you ever feel like you're addressing a large large group of lemmings hoping you can stop their rush to the sea?
 
Collective intelligence is a media controlled oxymoron. It wasn't in your 20's and 30's but it is now.
 
I am a political 'virgin'  Not so with economics, activism, or physics but sad to say 'yes' with politics. I find politics a writhing syphillitic hotbed comprised of all evil and hate it with every fiber of my being - but - it is the nut that has to be cracked.
 
Take care  - hey! my b-day today lol 55 and still alive.