New Clear Vision

Moving from Water Wars to Collaborative Management

by Martin Zehr, aka Mato Ska

Groundwater in California is the focus of the latest water war between water users in the North and users in the South. Some 38% of water used in the state comes from groundwater mining. The battlefield of this war is the Central Valley of California and the Central Valley Aquifer.

Norris Hundley estimated California’s groundwater reserves in his book, The Great Thirst, amounting to 850 million acre-feet, with the caveat that less than half that amount was usable. Running from the Sacramento Valley to the San Joaquin Valley this aquifer circulates roughly 2 million acre feet of water/per year. Withdrawals account for roughly 11.5 million acre ft./yr., according to the Groundwater Atlas of the United States. In December 2009, satellite-imaging projected the loss of 30 cubic kilometers of water since 2003, which is creating an unprecedented political struggle in the state of California. (more…)

Learning to Speak Truth to Each Other

by Robert Jensen

In mainstream politics in the United States, everyone agrees on one thing: We’re number one. We’re special. We’re America. We’re on top, where we deserve to be.

In dissident politics in the United States, we have long argued that this quest for economic and military dominance can’t be squared with basic moral and political principles. We’re on top, but it’s unjust and unsustainable.

Whether or not the United States has ever had a legitimate claim to that top spot — or whether there should be spots on top for any nation(s) — the days of uncontested dominance are over: Our economy is in permanent decline and our military power continues to fade. We are still the wealthiest society in history, but we are no longer the dynamic heart of the global economy. Our military is still able to destroy at will, but the wars of the past decade have demonstrated the limits of that barbarism. (more…)

Protecting Workers from the Dangers of a Broken System

by Diane Lefer

“Regulation kills jobs.” We keep hearing that mantra from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. What became clear at the forum called on Tuesday evening by the Southern California Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health is that we need to say loud and clear that “Lack of regulation kills people.”

According to “ Dying at Work in California,” recently released by SoCalCOSH and Oakland-based Worksafe, 40 years after President Nixon signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), an estimated 6,500 workers in California die from chronic exposure to chemical, biological, or physical agents each year and in 2009 (the latest year for which data is available) there were over 300 confirmed worker deaths and 491,000 reported work-related injuries. (The report can be downloaded here.) (more…)

Not on a Moving Train!

by David Swanson

How often have we been told that we can’t have a serious nonviolent movement resisting our government’s destructive path as long as the Democrats are better than the Republicans?

How often have we been told that we can’t back third-party candidates as long as the Democrats are better than the Republicans?

This week has seen an inordinate number of realizations that the Democrats are as bad as or worse than the Republicans. And what has the response been?

Activist groups are proposing not to donate money to President Barack Obama. Some have even suggested declining to volunteer for him. Most responses have been even weaker than that. Citizens have transformed themselves into pundits and announced that Obama will not be reelected. (more…)

Articulating a New Narrative in the Shell of the Old

by Randall Amster

It goes without saying … that we take the greater portion of this world as we find it, not as we might like it to be. In this sense, we primarily play the roles of resigned participant or cynical observer where conscience exists, and where it does not the outcome is often manifested in terms of either willful neglect or conspicuous consumption. A relative though not insignificant few in every era will take up the thankless and unscripted task of confronting the status quo in an attempt to turn harsh realities into humane alternatives. Still, despite such efforts, it goes without saying that the impetus for positive change is seemingly outstripped by the rate of ongoing decay. (more…)

Reconsidering Our ‘Self-evident’ Truths

by Winslow Myers

Nothing could be more painful than having reality call into question the fundamental values, which, consciously or subliminally, have guided our entire lives. Just to spell out, for clarity, the exact words in our Declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness….”

For millions of us fortunate enough to be citizens of the United States, these are not temporary or situational truths. They articulate our deepest hopes and dreams. They are assumed to hold true for all time. They are values worth fighting and dying to preserve at home and even worth imposing, at whatever enormous expense, upon others abroad. (more…)