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Action by government on Transition issues with opportunities for advocates to engage the political system for positive change.

Coffee and tea anyone?

By February 15, 2012
Tea and Coffee sign

I'm pretty sure it was history in the making, local history anyway. And who knows? Maybe Mount Shasta, California’s example will encourage other towns around the country to take similar action. Last week, concurrent with the first snow of the season, a meeting took place between Shasta Commons, the area’s Transition Town movement, and the South Siskiyou Tea Party. While sleet and ice pounded the windows outside the building, warmth and understanding predominated in the meeting room … [Read more...]

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Energy and presidential politics

By February 7, 2012
Mitt Romney & Va Gov Bob McDonnell as "Friends of Coal"

We found out the hard way when my husband Erik ran for the Virginia state legislature* that too often issues within states and localities are drowned out by the political noise blared out across the nation from Washington by the news media. (Transition Voice readers will know Erik as our publisher). It was 2009, and on the local campaign trail, almost all Erik ever heard, besides concerns about jobs, were questions on the federal health care bill, the cost of wars, and the US federal … [Read more...]

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The Politics of Lowered Expectations

By January 4, 2012
Obama

Ezra Klein, the bright, young, economic policy columnist for the "Washington Post" believes that Obama came out ahead last year in the "administration's bitter, high-stakes negotiations with the Republicans in Congress." He cites four major negotiations in 2011 with the Republicans that Obama won. Obama won the game of chicken played in February by the House Speaker John Boehner and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell to avoid a government shutdown. He won the battle to raise the … [Read more...]

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Funniest spoof ad since “Idiocracy”

By December 13, 2011
screenshot from "Ron Bless America" spoof campaign ad

We love Ron Paul. At least the half of him that wants to get US troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, repeal the USA-PATRIOT Act and cut subsidies to Wall Street and Big Oil. We even like the nutty professor who fingers the Fed and gushes about gold. But we're not so crazy about the crazy Ron Paul who wants to rev-up a Texas Chain Saw Massacre on social security, environmental protection and support for clean energy. That's not the only reason we loved Conan O'Brien's spoof of Paul's edgy new … [Read more...]

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Ten ways to #OccupyWinter

By November 29, 2011
Winter Tent

Though police and municipal actions have busted up some Occupy encampments, and others have folded temporarily due to weather, the movement is alive and thriving in both the popular imagination and on the Internet. Occupy-related communiques are more than holding their own on social media sites, in blogs, and in spawning a huge outpouring of creativity in art, essays, memes, ideas and actions. The first wave of Occupy is clearly established, and the second wave is beginning. But, like the … [Read more...]

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Let them in!

By November 28, 2011
Congress sign

From New York City to Oakland, and several cities in between, the police, on orders from city officials, have smashed the Occupy encampments and evicted the protestors from public parks and spaces. More politicians from Congress to the state and local level want the Occupy people OUT! Well, why don't they start letting them into the places where decisions are being made against their legitimate interests? Let them IN to: Having jobs and affordable housing; Their legislatures without … [Read more...]

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Occupy’s 2nd month celebrated in small town Sebastopol

By November 23, 2011
Occupy Sebastopol

We celebrated Occupy Wall Street’s (OWS) second monthly anniversary in small town Sebastopol,California with its less than 8000 residents, on November 17. We packed a City Council meeting where over two-dozen people spoke in favor of Occupy Sebastopol (OS) and the five-member Council supported it. Though large cities and police assaults on peaceful occupations fill mass media reports, many smaller and mid-size cities continue with successful, vigorous occupations around the US. What … [Read more...]

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Even the electric chair probably created jobs

By November 21, 2011
Keystone ad

While attending a conference for solar energy companies from the Mid-Atlantic states held last week in Washington, DC, I picked up a copy of The Hill, a newspaper for Washington insiders that comes out daily when Congress is in session. And I marveled at the full page ads taken out by big government contractors and industry lobby groups and directed at members of Congress and their staffs. Just another way that corporations act like people -- people with huge budgets for issues ads, that … [Read more...]

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#Occupy’s existential moment

By November 18, 2011
Existential moment

Hey jammers, dreamers, believers, Here is a testimony from the streets of New York: Lost my stuff, including power cord for my laptop, in the raid, something or someone cleared out my bank account, and it's raining. I could just write a country song. I'll tell you this: the resolve is still here. People I talk to are a healthy mixture of rage, comedy, resolve, and excitement. Also exhaustion. Maybe the raid was the best thing that could happen? I worry about the inevitable suffering that … [Read more...]

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Repression expands resistance

By November 17, 2011
police motorcycles

From Oakland, California to New York City, the police, ordered by politicians, have smashed through Occupy encampments. Noted for their rigorous non-violence and orderly arrangements - tents with medical assistance, legal aid, libraries, media relations and sanitation controls - the Occupy protestors are being shoved out of their public places all over the country. The Mayor of Oakland admitted to the BBC in an interview that mayors, police and other security officials have been in contact … [Read more...]

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