“A lot has been made of the overwhelming support for Bernie among young people,” said Providence Rep. Aaron Regunberg. “And, as one of the youngest members of this General Assembly, I’ve found much of that discourse pretty condescending. You know, I hear ‘these kids, they don’t know how the real world works, they’re naive, when they grow up a little they’ll understand how pie-in-the-sky this Bernie guy is.’ And I don’t know about the young people here today but I am not taking that anymore.”

Regunberg, whose impassioned sermon electrified the crowd, continued:

“As I see it our generation is maybe the most realistic and the least naive of any I can think of. We’re the generation that has grown up with the crushing knowledge that our lives will be shaped in the coming decades by climate catastrophe.

“We’re the generation that graduated to an economy that offered fewer jobs and greater serfdom to our student loans. We’re the first generation that has seen, even under the first African American president, that our black and brown brothers and sisters continue to be disproportionately incarcerated, continued to be mowed down in the streets with their hands up. We’re the first generation that saw in almost 400 years just how much damage an unregulated Wall Street can cause, that has seen how appallingly false the credo that privatization and free trade and austerity are the answers to, rather than the causes of, our appalling levels of inequality.

“And I say this sadly as an elected democrat we’re the generation that ha watched as too often our party gives into and sometimes joins republicans in supporting this toxic agenda. So, no, we’re not naive. But we understand that this system, in many ways, is broken and we need bold change, we need systemic reform, we need – I’ll say it – a political revolution. That’s not unrealistic thinking, that’s our reality.”

North Kingstown state Senator Jim Sheehan, who previously endorsed Sanders, also touched on the topics of youth and revolution.

“You know, it’s been said that politicians look to the next election but statesmen look to the next generation,” Sheehan said. “Take a look around you right now. This is the next generation right here today. And Bernie Sanders represents you.”

Sheehan added, “You could say that Bernie is something of a unicorn in a cesspool of dishonesty. Bernie courageously speaks truth to power, particularly the power of the political and economic establishment. And he is there with us, the people, on important issues. The American dream is our birthright as Americans and if our government is no longer going to fight for the American dream for every American than it must change it’s way and we are going to change it’s leadership to Bernie Sanders.

His support, he said, proves Sanders is appealing to a diverse group of voters.

“I am not known in this building behind me as a progressive Democrat on all issues,” Sheehan said. “So what drew me here today? Well, it’s not a $225,000 speaking fee, I can tell you that right now. I am not getting paid to be here right now, this is a labor of love… My wife said ‘You gotta look past the label.’ People like to label in our country. ‘Democratic Socialist’, they said. ‘Don’t look at Bernie. Democratic Socialist!’ As if it were a four-letter word. Well, when you look past labels, you see the real people behind them. When you get to know them as a person and the issues that Bernie cares about deeply, you come to a quite different conclusion. Bernie is a great man, a good man, an honest man, and as I stand before the Independent Man, he is an independent-minded man.”

During his speech, Regunberg reminded everyone that Bernie Sanders’ political revolution must move forward, even if his candidacy doesn’t.

“The work that we are doing today,” Regunberg said, “the door knocking and canvassing leading up the  leading up to the primary, the votes that we’ll be casting on April 26, that is all an important part of this movement but it can’t be the end of this movement. The presidency is an important position, but whoever has it with Washington the way it is right now if we want real change we need to put in the work to achieve it at the state and the local level. We need your voices in this building. I need your voices in this building.”

The rally featured teachers, Teamsters, feminists, environmentalists, queer and LGBT people – and all sorts of people that are being called to the populist upsurge in this country ignited by Sanders. The imperative after the primary, speakers said, is to implement the Sanders’ agenda.

Robert Malin, on the executive committee of the RI Sierra Club, organized the event. At one point he apologized to the crowd for the seemingly never ending supply of speakers, but as he said, usually he asks a bunch of people, and most can’t come. This time, nearly everyone he asked to speak made time to be at the rally. Perhaps the people closest to the problem understand that time is truly running out?

Penn Johnson supplied some warm up entertainment…

…then Ray “Two Hawks” Watson sang a Native American song.

Rhode Island’s renewable energy industry is sure to benefit from the EPA’s new Clean Power Plan, said Abel Collins, program director of the Rhode Island chapter of the Sierra Club.

“The new EPA Carbon Rules are great news for Rhode Islanders, because the coal burning fire plants in the Midwest that have been poisoning our air for decades will either be closed down or cleaned up, preferably shuttered for good,” Collins said. “That will mean significant public health benefits, healthcare savings, and that’s even before we look at the climate impacts. Rhode Island’s economy is poised to capitalize on renewable energy development, and the planet will be better for it.”

Seeking a 30 percent cut in power plant emissions by 2030, the New York Times called President Obama’s executive order that the EPA tighten regulations on coal-based power plants “one of the strongest actions ever taken by the United States government to fight climate change.” It’s called the Clean Power Plan.

State Rep. Art Handy, primary sponsor of the Resilient RI bill that would develop a plan to address climate change said:

“While there has been much hand wringing about the new rule from the coal industry and their allies about these reasonable new rules, the truth is they will spur innovation in clean energy and efficiency, prevent thousands of deaths and millions of asthma attacks and will move our country in the right direction to reduce the impact of climate change on our economy and our society. Rhode Island with other northeastern states already started on this path with the successful RGGI program – the new rules will bring the rest of the country along with what we have been working towards for years.”

Channing Jones, campaign director of Environment Rhode Island said: “This announcement is exactly what we’ve been waiting for. EPA’s announcement is a huge win for the health of our families and our environment.”

He added, “The dirty energy companies that oppose this move may question the science and predict economic apocalypse if we act. They can make up whatever claims they want. But a cleaner, more energy-efficient economy and environment is not going to undermine our prosperity. In fact, our kids’ future depends on it.”

Jones’ comments echoed a post Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse wrote for Vice News, published Sunday night:

Sight unseen, the polluters have been characterizing the rules as part of a “war on coal” that will kill jobs and impose unfair costs on industry. Don’t believe them.

Their claims are exaggerated at best, and flat-out lies at worst — and they look at only one side of the ledger, ignoring the effects of carbon pollution on the rest of us.

The EPA proposal, according to Vox “will set different emissions targets for each state — which, when taken together, will aim to cut carbon-dioxide emissions from the nation’s power sector as much as 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.” After a one-year period to finalize and tweak the new rule, Rhode Island and other states will have until June 2016 to develop a plan to reduce emissions. “States will be given a variety of options for cutting their emissions — using more efficient technology at coal plants, boosting their use of solar or wind or nuclear power, or even joining regional cap-and-trade systems that require companies to pay to emit carbon-dioxide.”

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas- who may go down as the worst justice in the history, went further writing that “all limits on campaigns contributions are unconstitutional.”

This makes the Nobel-Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz article the 2011 Vanity Fair magazine article entitled “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%“, quite prescient:

“Of all the costs imposed on our society by the top 1 percent, perhaps the greatest is this: the erosion of our sense of identity, in which fair play, equality of opportunity, and a sense of community are so important. America has long prided itself on being a fair society, where everyone has an equal chance of getting ahead, but the statistics suggest otherwise: the chances of a poor citizen, or even a middle-class citizen, making it to the top in America are smaller than in many countries of Europe. The cards are stacked against them. It is this sense of an unjust system without opportunity that has given rise to the conflagrations in the Middle East: rising food prices and growing and persistent youth unemployment simply served as kindling. With youth unemployment in America at around 20 percent (and in some locations, and among some socio-demographic groups, at twice that); with one out of six Americans desiring a full-time job not able to get one; with one out of seven Americans on food stamps (and about the same number suffering from “food insecurity”)—given all this, there is ample evidence that something has blocked the vaunted “trickling down” from the top 1 percent to everyone else. All of this is having the predictable effect of creating alienation—voter turnout among those in their 20s in the last election stood at 21 percent, comparable to the unemployment rate.”

So what’s the solution? Abel Collins offers this:

“We have the numbers. Let us freely assemble, muster our forces, and occupy politics from the bottom up. Put your name in the hat for city or town council. Start a blog, plan street theater, get arrested and be heard. By all means, we should start by reversing the effects of Citizens United. Municipal and statewide resolutions calling on Congress to amend the U.S. Constitution to say that corporations aren’t people and political campaign spending isn’t protected speech can get the ball rolling. Amending State Constitutions via voter initiative or legislative referendum to this same effect as I have proposed in Rhode Island is another step. Whatever else, let us not cede the political sphere to the corporations, whether they are people in the eyes of the Supreme Court or not.”

At least it is one strategy, but considering the ethics of our state legislature it seems rather unlikely. Getting mass numbers assembled and engaged seems a more likely strategy to succeed. But can we do it? That is up to you.

(This video is from 10-8-13 #2 Abel & Noam Interview Part 2 Money as Free Speech Produced by Robert Malin c.2014)

The Guardian summarized it well, saying

“The report from the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change concluded that climate change was already having effects in real time – melting sea ice and thawing permafrost in the Arctic, killing off coral reefs in the oceans, and leading to heat waves, heavy rains and mega-disasters.

And the worst was yet to come. Climate change posed a threat to global food stocks, and to human security, the blockbuster report said.

‘Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change,’ said Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC.

Monday’s report was the most sobering so far from the UN climate panel and, scientists said, the most definitive. The report – a three year joint effort by more than 300 scientists – grew to 2,600 pages and 32 volumes.”

The bottom line is that nowhere near enough action has been taken to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, and the urgency to do something increases with each passing day. Rhode Island can be considered among those that have failed to act, but that could change this year.

While Massachusetts and Connecticut passed comprehensive climate change legislation over 5 years ago, Representative Art Handy’s Climate Solutions Acts have consistently fallen flat at the State House. This year Handy, who chairs the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee, has taken a new approach.

His Resilient Rhode Island Act of 2014 keeps the same ambitious goals for mitigating RI carbon emissions and adds new provisions for climate adaptation, helping the State’s cities and towns coordinate in preparing for rising sea levels, increasing flooding, and more extreme weather events. By adding the adaptation piece, Handy hopes to build a stronger coalition of support behind the effort, as storms like Sandy and the floods of 2010 have convinced businesses, officials and residents alike that we need to be more prepared.

Considerable momentum has already been generated for getting this bill passed. The Coastal Resources Management Council has been conducting outreach around its Beach Special Area Management Plan (SAMP), Governor Chafee recently created the Executive Climate Change Council, the fantastic Waves of Change website was released, and Senator Whitehouse’s continued campaigning at the federal level is being heard here. The Resilient RI Act even has its own information filled website. Additionally, Brown University is devoting resources to the effort, and it is Sierra Club RI’s number one priority.

In fact, I started a petition in support of the bill yesterday that already has close to 150 signatures on it, and I invite you to be a part of creating even more momentum on Smith Hill. CLICK AND SIGN

Time is of the essence. The Resilient Rhode Island Act is going to be heard this Thursday in Handy’s committee. If you can, I urge you to come out and voice your support. The IPCC report and our own senses demand this urgency.

If we had had the wisdom to pass such legislation twenty years ago when the science supporting it was already demanding such action, we would not have suffered so badly from Sandy’s glancing blow, and we would have created the framework for building a clean energy economy that would have meant thousands of good paying jobs. Better late than never, right? Just ask Sheldon:

No one in Washington DC has been more vocal about the need to address climate change than Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. And here in Rhode Island, no one has been more vocal than Sierra Club director and former congressional candidate Abel Collins.

On Friday, at 2pm, these two leading climate activists will be together at the Ocean Mist in Matunuck – perhaps the most obvious example of how climate change is and will continue to alter coastal Rhode Island. The iconic Ocean State beach that is a mainstay of the Matunuck economy gets closer and closer to the water as climate change exacerbates coastal erosion.

From the Facebook event:

It’s been a hot week. Cool off on Friday and come have a FREE Climate Change Cocktail and Sign the Washington Bound Banner! Speakers include Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Kevin Finnegan O’Mist Owner, and more. For additional information call 401-578-0210

For more on climate change, Whitehouse speaks about it on the Senat floor every single week. Here’s his address from this week:

Anyhow, here’s my poem this week, which as it happens I wrote back in 2009. It’s prose.

Meditation on the Economy

A crystalline calm is upon the ocean. The washed azure sky, without even the blemish of a cloud, speaks in the most fragile whispers about the proximity of beauty and death. The emerald water swallows with greedy equanimity both the heavy and light. The sun stretches down amber rays diffusing through the teeming life, down to fathomless twilight. Somewhere, black and unknowable is the bottom. Deeper and more quiet than the blackest dream, the ship is sinking. Strange sounds resonate from the hull, air trying to push its way out, the wood groaning in protest. Large pockets rise to the surface and burp erratically as the wreck shifts in the rolling currents of its descent.

It had gone quickly at the beginning. The weakness so long in atrophy relented to its fated failure in a crack of thunder. Instantaneously, the sea rushed gurgling and hungry into the lower compartments, sucking the ship down. At first, the air had freed itself in a multitude of voices, whistles, sighs, and whooshes. It was a song of physics and chaos.

Now, an eternity of moments and ten minutes later, only the stern remains above water, pointing accusingly skyward. The ship is sinking, slowly and remorselessly, a death that shudders nearer with each successive belch. The sinking is slower now but no less certain. In a panic that is so blind it is also silent, the crew and passengers are mostly frozen in denial. They cling to the idea it has stopped, that they can bob above the waves until the rescuers arrive. In reality, no aid is coming.

There aren’t lifeboats enough, and the self-important are claiming first right. These are the men in fine clothing and uniform; the captains of industry, the shipwrights, and the crewmen. Behold their fear, the dawning realization in their eyes that they aren’t in control. Their reasoning is that they will be better able to get and send help to those left behind. Sure, they were the ones that had brought them to this pass, so, too, they must be the ones who can find the way back. They offer this reasoning to the others in blue gel- cap cyanide placebos. They are saying ‘god bless you,’ and there are even tears in some of their eyes as they push off. They reason and excuse themselves from guilt. Cowardice, for naught.

The clarity of the ocean air, the sharpness of the light arcing through it, and the magical colors that they elicit; these perfections are not to be denied their finality. The falling inertia of the ship will draw the lifeboats down just as surely as the planet’s gravity draws the ship to its doom. It shall be a shared oblivion. The perfection; the fragile secret spoken by the breeze of beauty and death; no one is to speak of them.

Remember way back in the days when we feared Mitt Romney might become president and, if he did, he would cut public funding to PBS? Well Rhode Island already beat Romney to this nightmare scenario for liberals … WSBE Ch.36 is being transitioned off the state payroll beginning this month, reports Bill Rappleye of WJAR, and the local PBS affiliate now has about two years to become self-sustaining or else…

WSBE’s budget was dramatically cut in the 2012 state budget and both Gov. Chafee and the legislature should strongly consider reinstating the funding next year. Are there perhaps some potential synergies with Capitol TV? It’s easy to see why the mainstream media wouldn’t give much coverage to public broadcasting cuts, and WJAR deserves credit for reporting this story. It’s also easy to see why publicly financed television is important, in light of WPRI’s decision to keep Abel Collins out of its televised debate.

Speaking of WPRI, the other local TV station reports that state legislative leaders sometimes drive state vehicles to private events. It’s a well-reported story and plenty newsworthy but I often find myself wishing that Tim White would use his considerable investigative prowess to shed light on more meaningful issues than publicly-funded company cars and state workers who take long lunch breaks – like this one, for example. My guess is this type of red-meat-for-Republicans reporting is being driven by the same corporate forces and trickle down mentality that kept Collins out of the debate and thought Rhode Island needed a show catering to corporate executives…

And speaking of red meat for conservatives … Woonsocket voted to make school committee members appointed rather than elected officials. Town councilors and municipal officials across the state are no doubt jealous of the control the city just wrested away from the school department.

Look for financially-struggling West Warwick to be the next to consider this huge change in how local public education is managed.

Might Hurricane Sandy be the bellwether that gets Rhode Island to act on climate change? EcoRI runs a great piece that makes the case it should … meanwhile legislative heavyweights Sen Josh Miller and Rep. Chris Blazejewski are teaming up to study the effects of climate change on the Ocean State.

Here are some of the best overreactions to Obama being reelected. Though my favorite wing nut of the week is the Montana legislator who asked for his salary in gold and solver coin.

If you don’t think Republicans’ war on taxes is a part and parcel of class warfare, famed GOP strategist Lee Atwater might agree with you … but, then, he seemed to think it was part and parcel of a race war!

On this day in 1776, a British newspaper reports that former friend to England Ben Franklin has taken up with the revolutionaries in the American colonies…

In a first for Greens, these qualities won Collins—an independent—the Green Party’s endorsement at its state committee meeting in August. A statement at the time called Collins Rhode Island’s best choice for Congress, saying he’d be a “strong, clear voice, for the people and the planet.”

“Of course it’s possible to challenge the two-party system,” Collins declared. “What’s not possible is to sustain the unsustainable, to make more fossil fuels, or create a peaceful society when people are motivated by fear, and not by love.” After his endorsement, Collins told the Greens he is “proud to be the peace candidate in the race, and proud to have the endorsement of the Green Party.”

After Collins’ strong performance in this week’s debate, a lot more Rhode Islanders will give his campaign a second look. If enough voters were tuned in, Abel’s progressive campaign is going to do very well on Tuesday.

Tony Affigne is state committee chair for the Green Party of Rhode Island. Visit the Greens at www.RIGreens.org

Abel Collins uttered these words on a recent edition of RIPR’s Political Roundtable, and they ring truer today than at any other time in our history.

The “spoiler” argument by the lever-voting Democrats in Rhode Island is patently false, and this is an attempt to disabuse my Democrat friends of this notion. Maybe, if the entrenched Democrats in office actually served their constituents effectively, they would have no such worries about a “spoiler.” In any case, there don’t seem to be enough staunch Republicans in District 2 to make Mike Riley competitive, and he hasn’t really courted the Independent vote in any significant way.

Most point to the candidacy of Ralph Nader for the Green Party in 2000 as proof-positive that a third-party candidate can “steal” enough votes from the Democrats, thereby catapulting a Republican — George W. Bush in Nader’s case, and Mike Riley in Abel Collins’ case — into office.

Let’s look at the “Nader put George Bush into office” misconception.

In 2000 — on the heels of eight of the most prosperous years in modern history under Bill Clinton — it would have seemed that Al Gore was a shoe-in for the White House. After all, who could argue with a continuation of the Clinton policies that precipitated such a boom in prosperity?

The Republicans, as they have been known to do, nominated one of their own to run against this record of prosperity on a purely ideological platform. George W. Bush ran on a platform of “compassionate conservatism” and frankly, this platform — which, in Bush’s first month in office, was exposed as a dirty conglomeration of skewed facts and outright lies — effectively cut Gore’s legs out from under him, especially during the debates in which I can remember Mr. Gore more than a few times uttering the words, “I agree with Mr. Bush.” Gore failed repeatedly in the 2000 Presidential race to differentiate himself from the “compassionate conservative.”

Now, Gore may be a smart fellow, and even an effective legislator, but his personality — or lack thereof — was a big part of why he lost the election. Clearly, few people found his laconic, lispy Tennessee drawl charming enough to generate any enthusiasm around the candidate. Bush took full advantage of this, and played up his affable frat-boy “Guy you want to have a beer with” image. As a friend of mine put it, “Al Gore couldn’t campaign his way out of a wet paper bag.” Nowhere was this more evident than in Gore’s home state of Tennessee, which he lost. No presidential candidate has ever taken the White House while losing his home state.

Remember the charges of ballot tampering in swing states like Ohio and Florida? This tampering — though never officially substantiated — arguably gave more votes to Dubya than Nader “stole” from Gore. The dirty trickster Karl Rove engineered this tampering and the subsequent contesting of ballots in these states by well-placed Republican operatives, including Florida’s then Secretary of State, Katherine Harris.

Let’s not forget the Supreme Court decision that shutdown a manual recount of ballots in some of Florida’s most hotly contested precincts. The recount, and subsequent Supreme Court decision, vaulted the term “hanging chads” into the American lexicon and spawned the heavy metal band of the same name.

The controversy over the awarding of Florida’s 25 electoral votes, the subsequent recount process in that state, and the unusual event of the winning candidate having received fewer popular votes than the runner-up, marked only the fourth election in U.S. History in which the eventual winner failed to win a plurality of the popular vote. Later research showed that by the standards requested by the Gore campaign in their contest brief or by the partial statewide recount set by the Florida Supreme Court, Bush would have likely won the recount anyway. However, the same research indicates that had the statewide recount included all uncounted votes — overvotes and undervotes— as seems probable based on later statements by the judge overseeing the recount and supported by faxes made public in November, 2001, Gore would have won the election.

Let’s also not forget that despite Nader’s “stolen” votes and poll tampering by right wing operatives,  Al Gore actually won the popular vote by just under a half million votes, which should give any American pause— Republican or Democrat — concerning the Electoral College and how we elect the leader of the free world.

Given this, the 2.74 percent of the popular vote that went to Ralph Nader is a moot point. A 2002 study by the Progressive Review found no correlation in pre-election polling numbers for Nader when compared to those for Gore. In other words, most of the changes in pre-election polling reflect movement between Bush and Gore rather than Gore and Nader, and they concluded from this that Nader was not responsible for Gore’s loss.

Furthermore, after attempting to lay the blame for Gore’s loss at the feet of the Greens and Ralph Nader, did the Democrats alter their platform and positions in an attempt to garner the votes that Nader “stole”? No, they didn’t, and they paid for it again in the 2004 Presidential election which — by hook or by crook — George W. Bush won handily over John Kerry, without the presence of a “spoiler” from a third party in the race.

Those of you who have made my acquaintance know that I am no cock-eyed optimist. Most would say I’m a skeptic, bordering on cynic. I have seen the slow decline of this state and country accelerate under the “leadership” of Republicans and Democrats alike.

Healthcare and education have become unaffordable to most of us. The rate at which our climate is changing has surpassed even the worst-case scenario predictions. Our food supply is being tinkered with through genetic modification. Fewer families move from poverty into the middle-class, more wealth is concentrated in the 1 percent, and none of it “trickles down” to those in need. The so-called “job creators” continue to sit on their wealth, rather than reinvest in their businesses, and take advantage of tax breaks, loopholes, and subsidies that weaken the economy of the country that afforded them the opportunity to rise to economic prominence in the first place.

I have often said that the only difference between Republicans and Democrats in the national arena is that Republicans want to drive the bus toward Armageddon with the gas pedal on the floor; Democrats are willing to obey the speed limit. No matter which party controls our government, the fact remains, the bus is headed in the wrong direction.

The only regret that I have in taking on the management of Abel Collins’ campaign for the last 6 weeks of the election cycle is this: I cannot vote for him. I live in District 1, but rest assured that the Independent candidate for the House seat in my district, David Vogel, will be getting at least one vote from the city of Woonsocket.

The question that Democrats in both of Rhode Island’s Congressional Districts face is not, “Do we vote for a Democrat who offers lip service to his constituents, then votes solely on party lines, strictly out of fear of a Republican taking the seat?”; Democrats who, in the case of Jim Langevin, are pro-life, pro-war, pro-censorship, pro-Tar sands oil, and pro-invasion of privacy.

The real question is this: “Do we vote for an Independent candidate that more accurately represents our party’s and country’s ideals even though he doesn’t have a capital D next to his name?”

I urge all self-defined Democrats statewide — especially those who are registered to vote, but haven’t in the last few elections due to disgust, disillusionment, or disenfranchisement — to consider this question and go to the polls on Tuesday, not out of fear, but out of hope and confidence that the only wasted vote is the vote cast for a candidate that you don’t believe has your best interests and the best interests of Rhode Island at heart.

In short, do we, as Democrats, vote for Democrats or democracy?

If you need to be convinced of Abel Collins’ passion, compassion, and understanding of the problems this country faces please view the video that is embedded on the home page of RI Future.