The Public Water Fountain

"Earlier this year I was invited to speak at the Round Hill Club in Greenwich, Connecticut. If Greenwich is the Republicans’ Mecca, then the Round Hill Club is the Kaaba. In the foyer I passed beneath an oversized photograph of Senator Prescott Bush, a former Greenwich resident and the current president’s grandfather. Somebody pointed to an anteroom and commented, ‘That’s where George met Barbara,’ referring to the president’s mom and dad. It was the club’s annual meeting – always well attended – and as I stepped to the podium I looked out over a sea of skeptical faces, the faces of conservatism. I spoke for an hour – about why the environment is so important to the physical and spiritual health of our nation and it’s people, about how a wholesome environment and a healthy democracy are intertwined, and about the way that President Bush is allowing certain corporations to destroy our country’s most central values. I pulled no punches, and I got a standing ovation.

"A month before, I got a similar response at the Woman’s Club in Richmond, Virginia, where someone boasted that no member had voted for a democrat since Jefferson Davis. … I got those reactions not because I’m a great speaker (I’m not), but because I talked about values that define our community and make us proud to be Americans – shared values that are being stolen from us. ….

"I want to be clear: This book is is not about a Democrat attacking a Republican administration …. I’ve worked hard to be nonpartisan ….I don’t believe there are Republican or Democratic children. Nor do I think it benefits our country when the environment becomes the province of one party, and most national environmental leaders agree with me. But today, if you ask those leaders to name the greatest threat to the global environment, the answer wouldn’t be overpopulation, or global warming, or sprawl. The nearly unanimous response would be George W. Bush."
--Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.; Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy; Harpur Collins; 2004; pages 1-2.

The 2008 primary season has made the issue of bipartisan politics a central focus of the democratic party. Each of the top three candidates for president appears to define their approach to dealing with "Washington" in different ways. Senator Obama speaks of finding common ground; Senator Clinton compared her knowledge of how to get results with Congress with LBJ’s; and John Edwards talks about fighting for the people against the machine.

A number of DUers have expressed their belief that now is a time for democrats to confront republicans, in order to save our democracy. Several have advocated an aggressive "us vs them" position, complete with angry rhetoric and calls for hatred.

I have suggested that there is too much hatred in the political atmosphere already, and that we would do well invest our energies in other methods for accomplishing our goals. Some people agreed with me; some were unsure; and some strongly disagreed with me. One fellow went so far as to claim that I advocate allowing the republicans to shred the Constitution.

I had considered a response that involved the Plame scandal, and efforts to get the democratic congress to investigate the crimes and abuses of power, and to impeach VP Dick Cheney. Many here are familiar with the DU Plame Threads, and the lobbying efforts that DUers have participated in. Still, much of that involves "theory" – what the responsibility of congress is, and how impeachment could come about. Even on this, there remains some serious differences of opinion, and significant differences in values, among DUers. Some are limited to viewing the politics of impeachment in the context of a mathematical equation, while the pro-impeachment advocates understand that it involves a chemical reaction.

Malcolm X used to say that if you place a clean glass of water and a filthy glass of water in front of a thirsty man, you do not need to tell him which one to drink. He will be able to decide on his own. So I thought I’d use an example that involves both clean and filthy water. It involves a large toxic waste dump that the EPA "divided" into two Superfund Sites, one on each side of a rural dirt road.

Some DUers will remember my writing about this before. The site is located in Delaware County in upstate New York. It is on a mountain top that is unique in that it has two creeks that start from one area, and which flow in different directions: one creek empties into the Susquehanna River and the other into the Delaware River.

Several industries in the region used the site, which combines for a 120+ acres, as an unregulated dump for toxic wastes for many years, even after the NYS DEC had ordered it closed. There were significant amounts of solid wastes, waste oils, and solvents dumped into enormous "pits" (some of which were over ten acres) and directly into a small lake and a water reservoir supplying a local hamlet.

I became involved in the efforts to get the site "cleaned" when local residents approached me in 1980. They told me about issues such as a lake catching on fire in the 1960s, when a person driving by tossed a cigarette butt from his car, and of the increases in diseases ranging from rashes and upper respiratory infections to cancers.

It can be frustrating to try to get government bureaucracies to address problems caused by industries with large "defense" contracts. There were some individuals on the state level who were honest and helpful. There were others who were robots, programmed to lie and deceive. Those who were helpful seemed progressive or liberal; those who wasted time struck me as people who once believed in what they were doing, but who had been sucked in by a system that robbed them of their humanity.

The same held true on the federal level. There were people who worked for the EPA who were, in the context of their jobs, cogs in the machine. Outside and after hours, I found them to be decent people, who were intelligent and held sincere beliefs about the need to protect the environment. However, in terms of the process to identify the preferred remedial alternative, they lied in their report on the public’s recommendations. And I called them on it.

I was lucky: I had the assistance of people from the NYC DEP, and from Pace. I put a lot of long, boring hours of research in, and found a document which had been left out of the public record – it was supposed to be page 100556 of the public record, which should give an idea of the amount of detail involved in the case.

In time, it became the subject of the United States of America vs Allied Signal and Amphenol. It was the test case for the EPA’s 1998 MSW policy. It went to federal court twice. I had become acquainted with a conservative attorney working for the US Department of Justice. I was able to deliver information, including a key witness, that showed who had dumped there illegally, after the NYS DEC had "closed" the site.

The site has had a lot of work done on it since then. It is not perfect. But it is much better than it was.

My point is this: the families that lived in the surrounding area included adults who were democrats and who were republican. And, as Robert Kennedy pointed out, there were plenty of children who lived there. The toxins in the atmosphere did not discriminate.

In dealing with "government," including the village, town, county, state, and federal levels, I found myself encountering a wide range of individuals. Some were helpful, many were bureaucrats, and a few were terrible. For the system to work, we have to be able to communicate with, and work with, people who we may not have a lot in common with.

It is important to hold those who violate the law responsible for their actions. I believe that, no matter if it involves some industry that dumped toxic waste in a pond, or the Vice President’s Office in the Plame scandal. More, we need to take a firm stance against those who seek to violate other citizens’ rights, because of the hatreds against people based on race, ethnicity, sex, age, and/or sexuality.

There are poisons in the communities across this country that are as much a threat to our way of life as the PCBs and TCE in the soil and the water on that site in Delaware County. And they do not threaten one isolated person or place: like the streams of water, they travel and impact people even at great distances.

We need to elect a democratic president, and the more democrats and progressive people to congress as is possible. Yet after they take office in 2009, we will still need to have the ability to work to bring the differing people in our communities together, and to pressure our government agencies in order to get them to do their jobs. That’s democracy. We need to identify those who are criminals, and hold them responsible. That is justice. But these goals can only be accomplished by people of good will investing many long, hard hours at the grass roots level.

We face problems that will not be resolved with fear, anger, bitterness or hatred. We are no longer divided by some type of wall, where some will survive while others suffer and die. People like VP Cheney believe that. There are people looking to build walls all around us. But they are fools. We all live on the same planet, and drink from the same well. Let’s remove the poison.

"What is truly my/your highest goal? What REALLY matters the most to me/you?"

All of us need to examine HONEST answers to these questions and think about our priorities.

Identify the goal, and then consider the options for reaching it. Every social/political case I have been involved with that was worthwhile was also difficult. It is never easy to accomplish anything meaningful. There are often surprises along the way, and many of them are "road blocks." You have to be able to adjust, while keeping your eyes on the goal. How much does it matter? How far are you willing to go to accomplish your goal? You are absolutely correct that people need to think about what those questions imply.

ask the same questions of others.

What we're trying to do is essentially social, so we need to clarify our relationships without damaging them.

If a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.
All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin. John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address (20 January 1961)

Thank you for that!

is to make them your friend. That doesn't mean that you agree with everything they say and do, but it does mean show them respect--and how you have shared goals and values. In one of my daily prayers is the phrase "Raise us above the distinctions and differences that divide us."

Good thing to think about. We'll need help from a lot of folks, including republicans, to clean up the disaster left when Bush leaves office.

Quite often in the world of politics, alliances shift with time. That happens on the international level, and even on the local level.

There are always going to be disagreements between people. That is human nature. But we have options for resolving conflicts, including appealing to our better natures.

Thanks.

I will say that yes, we have to communicate with people we may differ to get this country to work. I understand the bitterness will not achieve that (and I'm guilty). I sometimes wonder how to harness my bitterness into something productive while working to disguise the bitterness. I fail when I come across angry, especially when dealing with a reporter. I try to work at it constantly because a little bit of honey works better. The best tool I can use is reason. That tool is harder to implement when the media at large doesn't back you up. That's when I need to take deep breaths and keep going while being even keeled. Very good post as always, H2O man.

He is kind to the animals.

I think it is good to work together, but you need leverage for that also.

Trust. How to place differences aside and trust the motives of those who you think have done their best, and still are, to destroy what one believes was best about this country. How to trust a Congress that has, imho, spit in the face of the people.

Today, there is too much dishonesty for trust at face value. It will take stages.

Especially with the likes of a Harry Reid determined retroactive immunity.

I think, that as referred to by another Waterman OP, the issue will have to become country before party and in that is the possibility of good people from both sides who are disturbed by the last 7 years to come together to work for the common good.

the world...we need concerted effort, vision for the long run, cooperation, sacrifice, honesty, unity. In other words, we need exactly the opposite of what we've gotten for some years now.

I agree with you.

Just read something about traditional Hawaiian culture....used to be tradition that leaders would make significant, important decisions based on what's best seven generations into the future. This is wise and responsible as a general approach and is so far removed from the way our government and corporate leaders operate...for 21st century america, long term is the next quarter's statement and the next election cycle.

I'm worried for my kids.

There is no room for "I told you so" attitudes when current affairs demand collaboration, cooperation, and correction.

Thanks for another magnificent post.

But the actions of the Corporacrats and their handlers will result in nothing short of genocide if they are allowed to continue on their current path of world domination and environmental destruction. Further, as we have seen, the true believers, sheeple, Kool Aide drinkers or whatever else we might wish to call them, are either not living in the same reality as the rest of us or, are so highly medicated as to not care. They simply accept, as truth, whatever any government or regulatory authority tells them. Every resident of D.C. received stellar yearly reports on D.C.'s water quality for years before the lead scandal broke, only to find we were, in fact, being poisoned and lied to.

Your point that hatred is, at best, unproductive is well taken: Righteous, calm and educated anger, on the other hand, is an appropriate tool in this particular fight - a fight that, when it's ramifications are fully understood, is a fight for everything and the survival of our species - homo noninsanelyrichus.

Monsanto, ADM and a few other corporations are working hard at securing control of the worlds food supply and are being fought on many fronts, but too few are paying attention to the other necessity of life - clean water. Excuse me while I adjust my tin-foil hat....

There are few rivers, lakes or streams in the U.S. that aren't currently under advisories for high levels of mercury (from coal fired power plants), herbicides, pesticides, human and animal antibiotics, PCBs, as well as contamination from many other chemicals and drugs; it has been deemed unsafe to eat any fish from these bodies of water more than once a month. Further, I know of one isolated, rural community in the Appalachians where PCBs were found to have contaminated the towns water supply - a mountain spring - and another, Churchville, VA, where the incidence of liver cancer is far higher than would be expected in a small, rural village. Here in D.C., hermaphroditic fish have been found in the Potomac river, a major source of the Capitol city's and surrounding suburb's drinking water. If it's not all due to contamination of the ground and surface waters, I sure wish someone would set me straight.

Worldwide, we are losing access to clean, affordable water at an alarming rate and municipal water systems are being privatized all over the world. The IMF, USAID and World Bank were in collusion when they attempted to force the government of Bolivia, as a condition of aid and loans, to hand their water rights over to Bechtel Corp. several years ago. Fortunately, the people revolted and Bechtel fled. Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and others - whatever you may think of their politics - are doing their best to relieve South and Central America of further interference of these corporate tools in their monetary, food, energy, natural resources and water interests. However, that doesn't mean the war is over. Even some U.S. cities have allowed the privatization of their water systems with a result of poor, unreliable service, drastically higher rates and questionable water quality.

How long will corporate raiders operate these systems at minimum standards before the cost/benefit ratio fails to impress their accountants, the systems are allowed to collapse and the corporations simply walk away saying "not our problem"? In my opinion, the privatization of municipal water supplies is the single most egregious - and dangerous - example of the corporate/Republican agenda. Once all the water is tainted, we will be forced to buy "clean" water at whatever price they choose to sell, or die. That's not a fair choice and you will have to forgive me if I hate them, just a little, for what they are doing to us in a clearly calculated manner.

The protection of our air, food and water should always be held sacred by our government, yet no recent administration with strong corporate ties has failed to betray our interests in these or any other matters of national security - though some have been far less obvious in achieving their agenda than the current maladministration and their corporate enablers in both Houses of Congress. It's up to us to either change their minds, or change our elected representation.