Well, personally I think your voice does matter; that’s why I asked for clarification. And I think it’s self-evident that ever-increasing debt is unsustainable. I only suggest that if we don’t take government-supported action now the biosphere will be unsustainable, and that will be far worse than an unbalanced checkbook.

Almost all of the debt has been run up by neoconservative, tax-cutting, military-spending Republican governments. It doesn’t make sense to me to tighten our belts every time there are people who need help only to let them out whenever there are rich people who need to get richer and poor brown people who need to be invaded.

Maybe once we get through this rough patch and have a renewable-energy-based ecological society we could rethink those ideas, and bring down the debt gradually by sane tax and war policies.

Just pointing out that ever-increasing debt cannot ultimately be sustainable in any sense of the word. What do I suggest? My little voice doesn’t much matter, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask our legislators to formulate some plan for paying off the debt. We are one of the wealthiest countries on earth and we’re borrowing money? It doesn’t add up. I’d rather go through a reasonable amount of belt tightening now instead of ruining our currency, economy, and lifestyle after gorging on a fantasy.

I did consider other issues besides the national debt when I voted. Whatever the case, the legislators are who they are so now is the time to hold them accountable. … Good luck with that.

One other item for the list: Obama appointed an envoy for climate change (Todd Stern) at the State Dept. This is a creative and necessary step. It won’t accomplish anything by itself, but it could prove pivotal in dealing with China, India, etc.

i could just say i needed it elsewhere and then plug the (viral) Campaign for the 3Cs–our current 3 major interlinked challenges of Climate catastrophe, restoring the Constitution, and reducing the power of Corporations. 3 symptoms of our 1 main problem, which is psychological and systemic. Can’t solve any without working on the other 2.

As soon as you said “loan guarantee authority for clean energy projects” I started to get that feeling in my gut—the one that usually ends up with me flabbergasted by the brazenness and dissociative ability of the ‘faith-based’—aka anti-science, anti-reason, crowd.

“I know that you keep pointing to the cost of new nuclear power plants, and I have gotten tired of arguing over projections. Since there are not yet any completed projects, it is an exercise in assumption making.”

And there it goes—the transition from queasy stomach to throbbing blood vessels along my temples. I’m not entirely sure what you mean, since I keep thinking you can’t possibly mean what you seem to be saying. Maybe that’s intentional on your part. In any case I think by “new” you mean “planned, not yet built”, since it’s the only translation that makes sense in the light of half a century of actual “completed projects”—some less than a decade ago. But you say “there aren’t any completed projects”, which of course is absolutely true and logical if you refer to “new”/planned-but-not-built projects, since something can’t at the same time be completed and not yet built. (as far as I can ferret out, anyway).

But then that whole paragraph becomes a tautology, and meaningless as far as explaining why you’re tired of arguing about the costs of (nuke) projections. Maybe you’re tired of it because you always lose, and maybe that happens because you’re always wrong, and maybe that’s because you’re arguing the wrong side.

Currently operating nukes and their owner-operators have a demonstrable record of coming in waaaaaaaay over budget, raising utility rates, polluting (mine tailings, just for a start), causing cancer, having accidents (Chernobyl, TMI, Brown’s Ferry, numerous other near-disasters), lying to regulators and covering up shoddy, irresponsible, illegal and dangerous practices and construction, (when there was any semblance of a regulating regulatory agency to even disover the lies) and even so, being expensive and unreliable. They destroy economic democracy; they suck up capital which could be used to conserve or to supply power far cheaper, far more ecologically and democratically, by solar, wind and other renewable sources. Far from being the major objection, cost is the least terrible thing about nuclear power. It is only the thing most people pay the most attention to.

No matter how little you charge for it, a steaming deposit of plague-ridden diarrhea is still a pile of shit.

I’m confused. Certainly the billionaire bailout was a monstrous travesty; the tax-cut parts of the stimulus as well, and we (including Obama, who voted yes on most of the crimes of the Cheney-Rove administration) could have done better. You can thank that last administration and the Republicans and Blue Dogs and OK, most of the other Democrats in Congress, for jacking up the debt and deficit for a big stick, a couple of wars/occupations and that CEO perk package. What do you suggest? Doing nothing that costs money until we pay it all off? So why did you vote for Obama when Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney were available?

Like I said, not trying to pick a fight. Just confused.

Signed,
Obama-voter, living on credit

God knows, I love the potential that Obama represents as much as anyone, but the damage being inflicted by the growth of economies (and coal burning) in China and India isn’t suddenly going to disppear just because the US President has made some decent progress locally?

Not actually relevant: I was thinking this morning that maybe the only way to get things moving globally is to couch all this in terms of a war, given that War is the only thing that really seems to galvanise people (and make them accept lifestyle sacrifice). Well. Partially relevant. This is a *global* war for survival.

And the US is not, contrary to popular belief..er.. in the US, the world’s only major influencer.

[JR: I guess you don't read this blog regularly. Or even the full post. It's only been a month. Not really enough time to change the world.

But as I have written many times, the top priority is a deal with China -- rats, I just realized I left Clinton's first trip there out of Obama's major accomplishments, the recognition by him and his top foreign policy folks of urgent need to start bilateral discussions with China on climate.]

Fox News has all the old neocon wannabes screaming the stimulus plan is pure pork, including the energy initiatives. Harry reid finally got his choo choo to Las Vegas! (Maybe some elements of the plan deserve criticism, but this is a smear.) Obama and ACORN forcing banks to stop red-lining in Chicago casued the recession, don’t ya know! Obama didn’t inherit the mess. He caused it! I get it at work, and from some relatives.

With attitudes like that, noisy climate change deners, and Fox News, Obama might as well stop trying to appease the Republicans and energy special interests and use the majority in Congress do what is necessary.