Equality Versus Liberty?

I love it when tortured prose gives isself with upside down logic.
Your article about liberty being trumpeted by equality in the Sacramento Bee barely communicated.

After reading it several times I think I get it.

Your argument hinges on government "grumps" who decide that they should selectively enforce laws based on their inner feelings about equality ; I guess.

How on earth you get there is beyond me.

In Nazi Germany EVERY murder was backed by law.  At Nuremburg, the Chief Justice of Germany's Supreme Court, defended the total breakdown of civilization of genocide, by basically saying the law was supreme; even though it was discriminatory.  We were just following the law was the excuse.  Nazis had the liberty to make laws that killed people for no reason.

Read the "Ox Bow Incident" and the dilemma of liberty versus equality comes up there as well.  The mob uses it liberty to enforce the law without due process, with disastrous effects.

In Nazi Germany, same thing.  EVERY official, every one, said they were following the law, and should not be punished; even though millions were brutally murdered at the hands of the state.

Men can make bad law sir.  My great-great grandfather was hung as a horse thief in Texas by Confederate soldiers.  He was a blacksmith, but was also a Cherokee Indian married to a white woman.

The soldiers were following the law, an Indian caught with a shod horse was immediately convicted on the spot of horse theft, and could be hung.  No due process.  Certainly no equality.  If a white man was caught he could be hung also, but after a trial.

And my grandfather was a blacksmith, his vocation was shodding horses.  With due process he would have been exonerated.  But racsim, and discrimination gave license or liberty to kill him.

Liberty has been used as a mask of repression for a long time.  Liberty has to be tempered by law all the time.

To turn that argument on its head, and somehow claim that there is danger to a democracy or equality is wrong headed.

Nobody to Talk To

I suppose you those of you who read my blog about "We are in this Together" are wondering why I changed my position.

I actually have not changed my position.  However, the failure of the House of Representatives to pass the Farm Bill pointed out the dysfunctional nature of the GOP.  The right wing, some trending so far right they can now be identified as fascist, have so effected the GOP that compromise is almost impossible.

I only wish my conservative friends, and you can't live in Redding, California and can't have many of them, could see the danger that is lurking for all of us in fascism.

Now, I am NOT talking about Nazis.  I am talking about so far right, that anti-democratic notions are espoused.

These are the conditions that worry me.  Today there is a definite trend toward people of color, or mixed ancestry, becoming the majority in the United States in the next twenty years.

Now people do not always vote for one party or the other because of the color of one's skin.  However, if you look at say South Africa, there is a phenomenon that racial minorities, when their privileged position based on race is threatened, they will swing to the right, adopting fascist positions based on racial stereotypes.

For example, in several African nations, prejudice and even genocide have been used by one racial group (tribal as well), to subjugate another.  This is not a manifestation  of race, it is a manifestation of POWER.

The GOP southern white leadership is greatly alarmed by the latest demographic trends.  Their white supremacy position is definitely threatened.

So, what we see is a hard turn to the right.  We see attacks on voter rights, with voter registration rules tightened to exclude the poor and people of color.  In 2012 people stood sometimes for eight hours to vote, while in white areas, there were no lines at all.  People will not always be so patient, and that is what fascist white GOP vote limiters are banking on.

Controlling the vote is essential for a minority to keep control.  Just today we saw the Supreme Court vote to essential suspend the Voters Rights Act, waiting for Congress to act.   If anyone thinks Congress will be able to act, I have a bridge I can sell you!

So, we see this hardening of position by the right, which I would suggest is fascism caused by a growing realization that the white power elite, especially in the south, is in real danger of losing its grip.

And of course, there is the shattering effect of electing a bi-racial President.  That did not happen by accident.  Emerging coalitions of "minorities" have developed into a possible ruling majority, especially regarding election of the President.

If any of you have seen "42" you can see what happens when a racist based culture is threatened.  It fights back.  Jackie Robinson was subjected to unbelievable pressures, by major league players and managers.

And what they were protecting was a system that did not put the best baseball players in the nation on  the field.  The segregated baseball establishment was essentially holding itself back.

The "Negro Leagues" had for years played athletes who were far superior to the skills of the all white major league.

Branch Rickey saw this.  It was a business decision to integrate major league baseball.  And what a success it was.  In fact, it was an African American, Curt Flood, who challenged the ban on free agency, that finally got major league ballplayers of all colors paid what they were worth.  In effect ending segregation made major league baseball a more free market economy.

I wonder if conservatives free market thinkers have ever considered that fact?

In a great irony, the white's only policy of major league baseball had for years had the side effect of dramatically under paying white ball players.

It is no accident that once a year, all major players wear number 42!  Integration of baseball led to a better game, and a more lucrative one as well for everyone.

The same thing will apply to our country if we can break the fascist/racist cabal that is trying to hang on to their false positions of power.

Diversity is our strength.  America is the world's melting pot.  And, remember, in a global economy, caucasians make up a minority!

Right now there is practically nobody to talk to in the GOP, who are a minority holding on to racist electoral policies.

If we can break that grip, and in time we will, justice will prevail, and so will the greatness of America.

Finally, I remember during the Civil Rights era of 1960s, many pundits urged the south to drop Jim Crowe and segregation because it was repressing economic growth in the south.  Companies would not locate in the south because of segregation.  And, the south did not utilize the best and brightest; racism kills meritocracy.  So the south always had economic indicators far below the other states.

Today, to a large extent this has dramatically changed.  Segregation was in fact retarding economic growth, and hurting the south.  Once its death grip was broken, cities from Dallas to Atlanta profited, just like major league baseball prospered thanks to the integration efforts of Branch Rickey.

We need someone to talk to on the GOP side.  The Democratic Party, that long ago decided that racism was a disaster, waits to join hands with the GOP for the good of the nation.

How long do we have to wait?

Unreal, just unreal

Our local conservative leaning newspaper recently published an editorial that both criticized and commended our right wing congressman, Doug Lamalfa.  

Mr. Lamalfa is a rich rice farmer, who as a state legislator mostly lined his pockets with self interest dollars, and passed absolutely no meaningful legislation whatsoever.

The editorial criticized Lamalfa's support for the recently failed farm bill in the House, but lauded some amendments he supported that put some fairness in part of the law's intricacies.  

And meanwhile, the farm bill failed.  

It failed because the wing-nut majority Republicans insisted on draconian cuts to the Food Stamp Program, adding an amendment that required work to get food stamps, with absolutely no provision to establish jobs' incentives for business that would create the work.

In short, require work but have no work.  In short, starve the poor.

No mention in this  about children.  Oh I forgot, we have to repeal child labor law.  

This is fascism!

The right wing in this country long ago went over the line into simple political and economic fascism.  

And the Congress of the United States reflects this.  The brown shirt, black booted fascism of Italy and Germany is winning  in spite of the millions who gave their lives from 1930 to 1945 to stop it.  

The Republican Party is trending  fascist.  Its Party Platform is dominated by Christian Conservatives, who seek a state that is dominated by totalitarian yes fascist, orthodoxy.  

Now you have to know what fascism is to make these judgements.  It is not simple.  But in political science there are fascist criteria that can be applied to measure political activity as fascist.  The United States today has several political movements in it, all right wing, who have long ago crossed the political science criteria of fascism.  Fascism is not that subtle anyway, but for it to grow, especially since the tragedy of WW II, it has to be subtle and hidden at first.  So, there are covers, like Tea Party, that connote democracy, but definitely are not.  In short, fascism works hard to fool lovers of democracy, to lure them into giving up that democracy.   

The Republican Party is quite simply fascist.  Its Party Platform is dominated by plutocracy, large corporate interests who see democracy as a nuisance to cruel and monopolistic predatory business practices that already pushed the nation into a recession/depression in 2007.  There is a concerted and well organized effort to subvert democratic institutions at every level.  

I recently wrote a piece "We All Are In This Together", urging bipartisanship.  

It appears this is impossible.  The House of Representatives cannot even come together for a bipartisan farm bill for Pete's sake!   The Speaker is helpless to forge any coalitions at all.   

You cannot compromise with fascism.  You just can't.  It's anti-democratic push allows no compromise.  

My article was met with derision by the right wing, who dominate politics in my home town.  

Fascists do not like compromise, especially with social democrats (liberals).  They must attack with a vengeance.  

And fascism is insidious.  Many Tea Party Patriots, people who would never dream of helping fascism, believe they are aiding the cause of democracy, when in fact they are lackeys for  the right wing fascist industrialists; the Koch brothers for example.

I still urge those few moderate Republicans and especially Independents to look more closely at the den of racist, jingoistic, nativistic fascists who now dominate the GOP.  It is time to stop this cancerous growth!

In 1932 the social democrats and other democracy loving members of the Reichstag believed Hitler, who was elected Chancellor with the promise to work together with liberals and moderates.  They were all fooled, as Hitler, with assistance from industrialists (sound familiar) moved quickly toward dictatorship.  And democracy died.  And then millions died.

Right now, in this country, the same political sickness exists.  Plutocrats like the Koch Brothers, and others who can now keep their political donations secret thanks to the Supreme Court, are working diligently to destroy democracy.  They are working overtime to destroy any social programs, like the Affordable Care Act, and now even Food Stamps, so that more suffering and hate can be created.

Fascism feeds on economic misery.  It feeds on failures in the democratic process.  Republican fascists are working hard to insure that democracy does not work.  They have subverted the political process to such an extent that Congress' favorability numbers are at an all-time low.  This is being done on purpose, to erode the public's confidence in democratic decision making.  You watch, if they succeed, the next step is "leadership" that suspends democracy because of a created "crisis" and a strongman leader will emerge.

And his name certainly is not Obama.  The President embodies everything the fascists hate: a person who has succeeded in spite of racism, who is a Constitutional scholar, and who embodies democracy.  

In 1933, before WW II, many Americans urged President Roosevelt to suspend the Constitution, to take more bold action to stop the Depression.  He refused, thank God he refused.  Congress continued in session, even during the low points of WW II, the President had to work for all the legislation that was passed, and had to cooperate with the other side.  

Democracy endured because the conditions of democracy:  voting, free speech, a lively political debate, compromise, and justice (except for African Americans and people of color) continued.  

It is interesting that Hitler constantly commented on the plight of the African Americans in the U.S.; he knew that it was a product of the same fascist hate he was using against the Jews at the time.  But in the United States, democracy survived in spite of the racism.  And in the thirty years after WWII, the institutionalized racism in the United States ended because of the leadership of the Democratic Party.  It is no accident that the southern fascist racists found the Republican Party to join.  These same racists are feeding the fascist tendencies of the Republican Party today.  

Fascist Republicans, southern racists, Christian fanatics, are working overtime to destroy these foundations of democracy.

Food stamps must be cut, the Affordable Care Act must be subverted, every tenant of government is suspect and is ridiculed, scorned and attacked.  Big government is not the target, all DEMOCRATIC government is the target.  

It is all aimed at the ultimate goal of a government take-over by the right, and a dictatorship headed up by a conservative who is Christian, warlike, and brutal.  And they will find that person!

If you are still reading this, since fascist is a knee-jerk reaction word (it should be), this is not a rant, this is a earnest warning.  

Our democracy is at stake.  Every time you tune in to the right wing nuts, you soak up more poison that will bring our freedom down.

What did we fight World War Two for????????

Proposition 30 Prediction

We are being inundated by "predictions" by the right that the Affordable Care Act will be a disaster when it is implemented.  There is an enormous amount of money behind an effort to discredit the law before it has a chance.

Proposition 30 in California offers a comparison of the right's propensity to exaggerate for effect.

The right campaigned against Prop 30 as a sham.  It claimed that the tax increases would not go primarily for education, but for pensions, raises for officials; etc.

This was the main argument against the Proposition.  The people of California were not fooled.  They didn't buy the lies.

And what has transpired?  First of all the budget was passed on time,  because the spending bills that were in it did not need the 2/3 vote, since another initiative passed  that removed that idiotic requirement, and  Conservative legislators, thanks to Republican stubborn adherence to immigrant bashing, are irrelevant.

So, laws are being passed, and the state is beginning to move, the economy is picking up, money is flowing again.  Moreover, educational finance has seen the most meaningful reform in fifty years.  

Governor Brown has courageously included in the budget a educational spending provision that finally puts more money into economically disadvantaged areas.  And there is, for the first time in seven years, REVENUE!

Money that can begin to erase the damage of eight years of austerity by yet another Hollywood actor governor, was elected on the promise to cut yet another tax, then ruled  with austerity, starving programs.  He almost pulled it off, until  the damage and the discovery of illegitimacy doomed his leadership.

Arnold was supposedly a moderate, but education suffered enormously under his misguided "leadership".   He was no moderate, he was the same old thing: austerity is promised to cure the economy, and only makes it much worse.  

A Hollywood actor is elected, cuts the tax rates of himself and his other rich friends on the promise that it will help the economy, people are fired, demand for goods and services drop, and a recession follows.  Governor Reagan did the same thing.  California has endured over 30 years of Republican led austerity splurges, with untold damage to human capital and to children.

Educators were left out by Arnold.    Budgets were cut to the bone.  And the children suffered.

And Prop 30.  Well, the cons promised that no money would be produced to help education.   It was all a ploy to add to the greedy teacher's pensions they claimed.

Nonsense...and lies!

Sure enough, not a peep from the right now.  Not a damn peep.

They lied.  They flat lied about the consequences of Prop 30.  The right's propagandists lied about  Prop 98, that MANDATES the amount of new money for education.  There was literally no way  Prop 30 could not be spent on education.  It was the law; and they knew it.

The right's "approach" to almost everything is that lying is just part of the political game.  That somehow it is alright to lie.

When I argued that Prop 30 would help education, to my con friends, I was dismissed.  No, they said, there would be No new money for education.

That was based on a lie, not on honest appraisal.  Now, my friends may not have been lying, but they were operating on talking points that were provided by liars.  

And the lies about the Affordable Care Act are likewise as onerous.

The difference is that richer  interest groups are pouring billions more than they spent against Prop 30,  into a dis-information campaign to discredit the law.  And the premises of opposition are based on bald-faced lies!

Proposition 30 predictions were wrong.  They just weren't wrong  not because of honest errors or mis-understandings  about the law, but because people were lying.  This is a calculated effort, based on lying, to sway public opinion.

Now, I am sure liberal proponents exaggerate for effect at times.  But I would argue the right lies more all the time.  It seems to be part of their political rules; government is bad anyway, so lying about it is okay.

So, cons base their arguments on lies all the time.  Prop 30 was misrepresented during the election, the right was wrong again, they were wrong because they were lying!

We would expect an apology, if the right had any honor it it.  We will get nothing but more lies.

Have any of you conservatives out there ever wondered  why lies have to be used by your interests so much?

Have you ever worried when your values are represented by falsehoods?

Predictable

The reaction was predictable, but still sad.

I had written an article for the local paper stressing the need for bipartisanship, especially in our county.  Shasta County sits as a red bastion in the sea of blue called California.  Right now Republicans do not have even 1/3 of the legislature, which neuters them relative to any bill having anything to do with money.

California has the ridiculous 2/3 rule for any new revenues driven by taxes, thanks to Prop 13.

This has resulted in decades of revenue shortfalls, economic uncertainty, and the once proud public education system in California is in tatters.

My point was simple:  Shasta County is one of the poorest counties in California, and has virtually no representation in Sacramento because Democrats control  the state constitutional offices and the legislature.  A red county has virtually no chance.

So, in my article,  I brought up the 1950 and 60s, when bipartisanship was the rule and not the exception.  Republicans and Democrats worked together on the great water reclamation projects that brought billions of dollars into the north state.

I suggested that voters in Shasta County consider at least more moderate representatives.

The reaction was predictable.  Conservatives raged that the Democrats have caused the economic malaise in Shasta County.  This is interesting since for the past forty years, until 2008, Republicans have dominated.  From Ronald Reagan to Arnold, California has endured the politics of austerity.  Revenues have been cut, Arnold even was elected as part of the recall of Gray Davis, and cut the vehicle license fee, which blew a 10 billion hole, compounded, that only a tax increase by initiative recovered after years of relentless budget deficits.  

Tax cuts cause revenue deficits.  I will say that again.  Tax cuts cause revenue deficits.  Tax cuts also can reduce economic demand, which damages the economy.

But according to my critics ALL of California's economic problems (which are dwindling fast) were cause by tax and spend.

Meanwhile, in blue counties,  Proposition 30 is beginning to take hold.  Desperately need revenues are about to flow into educational budgets.  These revenues will then flow into communities, with additional jobs being created; etc.

In red counties, where conservative school boards, like the one in Shasta County that is sitting on a multi-million dollar reserve, and refusing to even negotiate in good faith with the teacher's union, would rather adhere to ideological purity that common sense.

And, there are conservatives on the city council, who are cutting police officers and firemen, reducing benefits, and also are in a war with public employee unions.  

Of course the result is the increased revenues that are beginning to come in from the state and the rebounding economy are kept out of the Shasta County economy; resulting in more poverty, misery, and a recession while the rest of the blue counties recover.

I call this Potterville.

An attempt at bipartisanship, taking common sense approaches to public policy, would quite simply reduce the economy agony of our county.

But cons don't want to cooperate.  They are so brainwashed by their rich puppeteers that they argue in ways that actually hurts them.

Predictable!

Walkerism

The latest information has come out about the state of Wisconsin.  And it isn't good.

Wisconsin rates 49th out of 50 in the United States for recovery from the recession.  In short, Wisconsin's recovery is next to last in the United States.

Scott Walker, a right wing evangelist, has led Wisconsin right down the tubes economically.

And he did it with austerity.  He was able to convince enough  voters to not recall him.  And he was able to convince a majority of the legislature, Republicans, that cutting government, and reducing work forces would result in economic growth.

And of course, just has it is occurring in Europe, the opposite is the case.

The economy is next to last!!

The same thing is happening in Europe.  Conservatives convinced leaders, that "tightening the belt" and suffering would lead to smaller deficits and economic recovery.  .

And of course, predictably, the opposite happened.

When will we learn.  One, macro-economics is not like your household budget.  Austerity is too severe a remedy.  It reduces demand, and that only deepens the economic downturn.

Keynes was right.  You cannot save your way out of a recession, like you can save your way out of a personal budget crisis.  You cannot apply "common sense for a person" to a nation-state.

Every time it happens.  Every time!  And we keep doing it.

Oh, Mr. Walker is also attacking what is left of the union movement in Wisconsin, and has just signed one of the most restrictive laws in the nation regarding abortion.

That is another little plum that Mr. Walker has brought to Wisconsin, restricting human freedom and a woman's right to determine what is her family's best interest.

Walker fights government regulation tooth and nail.  But when it comes to reproductive rights, the state must rule all.

Every time it happens.  Every time.  Conservatives force austerity down people's throats, the country goes bust and everyone suffers.

In Nazi Germany, the right did virtually the same thing, but then pivoted, and 'primed the economic pump' by declaring war on humanity.

Is Mr. Walker planning the same thing?  

And the Winds Blow And the Temperature Rises

We are in the third month in Northern California of remorseless north winds. 

It is June 8, 2013,  and the temperature is supposed to hit 112 today.  And the winds blow and the temperature rises.

The north winds typically blow when a high pressure zone is moving into the western coastal region.  But, it is usually offset by a "Delta Breeze" that moves up the valley, bringing welcome rain and cooling.

This year, like most of the recent years, north wind all the time.  From January to June, north winds, and unseasonably warm temperatures.

Today, yet again, we will see a  record for high temperature in June, usually a fairly comfortable month.

Except for the last 10 years.

It is happening folks.  It is on us.  Climate change is obvious in Northern California.

Now, we have always been known for hot temperatures in July, August and September. I can remember working in a service station many years ago, and people from the bay area stopping for gas, and immediately ordering that we check their radiators.  We were taught not to do that, because the cars were running so hot, than if you took the radiator cap off, you got a geyser. 

We used to, when ordered about three times, do the twirl and run, emptying the radiator all over the engine, and we sold a lot of coolant.

But now, the winds blow and the temperature rises. 

And today, just today, a conservative rant in the newspaper claiming that fracking  in California's Monterrey Shale will provide thousands of jobs, and save us all.! Never mind that California has many earthquake faults, and fracking has been known to cause earthquakes.  "Just drill baby!

Meanwhile the winds blow and the temperature rise.

Look, we have to lessen our use of fossil fuels.  We just have to.  And so does the rest of the world.

If we don't, this is going to get a lot worse.

And it may get so bad the earth cannot sustain human life.

Right now it doesn't take much to realize that these endless northern winds and heat are drying out the foothills in Northern California and we are in for it.  Wildfires are a real danger to civilization up here, thousands of us live of the outskirts of towns, covered with trees and foliage. 

We are living on a ticking time bomb. 

And, a couple years ago, the state, strapped for revenue, passed a Cal-Fire Fee, about $120 per parcel, to aid in fire prevention and fire fighting.  And the people in rural areas hate it.  This works out to $12 a month, but they see it as big government and unfair taxation.  The Howard Jarvis Tax Association has filed a lawsuit.  And the wind blows and the temperatures rise.

We choose to live here.  Many homes are so covered with undergrowth you cannot see them from the street. And people hold to the myth that global warming is a hoax and taxes are socialistic.

And winds blow, and the temperature rise.

God help us all!

We Are All In This Together

The Democratic Party Central Committee of Shasta County will have a booth at this year's County Fair.

The Democratic Party has about a 30% share of the registered voters in Shasta County.  We haven't elected a Democrat to state or  federal offices in over 30 years.

People in the "Northstate" have been depicted as "The Gun Capitol of California", the "Deepest Red County in California"; etc.

From 1932 to 1972 this was not the case.  Shasta County was a blue county, electing several state and national representatives, who stayed in office for long periods of time, and brought tons of money back home to Shasta County.  Clair Engle, who was a Republican turned Democrat, was even elected Senator from California.  A host of other Democrats were likewise very influential in Sacramento and Washington; Bizz Johnson, James Carr; etc.  

And the money flowed into Shasta County.  

This was also a product of bipartisan cooperation between Democratic and Republican leaders.  Earl Warren, a Republican Governor of California, supported many Shasta Country politicians, in their efforts to develop the north state's water supplies.  

The way it works in California is the south is arid, the north temperate.  

The Sierra Nevada Mountains catch snowfall every winter, and that snowmelt, plus the copious rainfall in the north, feeds the population centers  of the state.  

The water reclamation projects in Shasta County were, and are, a big part of that.

That is not exactly true, snowmelt provides the majority of the water (plus the Colorado River), but there is not doubt Northern California water is a big deal, especially for the Sacramento Valley agricultural industry.  

And Democrats, with Republican cooperation, built them:  Shasta Dam, Clair Engle Dam, Whiskeytown Dam, and others were built along with canals, bridges; etc.

And the county boomed.  

And then 1972 hit, the state began retracting its investment in the future, Prop 13 was passed, southern Californians began moving to Shasta County and it all changed.

The wood products industry crashed, partly caused by environmental regulations that restricted the clear cutting, land destructive methods of the past, and mostly caused by the fact that privately owned forest lands had been over logged.  Regardless of where one stood on the issue, a major industry left Shasta County for all intents and purposes.  The newly arrived conservatives blamed the Democrats, and the county got more Red.  

The old practices of resource development, conservation infrastructure; etc, were ridiculed as wasteful spending by the newly emergent conservative majority.  The remaining Democrats evolved into progressives, who directly clashed with the now conservative majority.

And Shasta County's standard of living dropped.  The middle class, who had been fed by logging, manufacturing, and government reclamation projects, dwindled.  

As time has passed, the divide has even expanded.  Conservatives now join Tea Parties, calling for dismantling of government at all levels.  A statewide fire fee, desperately needed because of global climate changing wildfires that threaten the county, is opposed by Tea Party members as "big government".   The fee is about $1.50 a month!

Anyway, Shasta County is stuck.  It sits as the major population center between Sacramento and the Oregon border, and is broke, poor, and essentially politically impotent.  

The impotence comes because California has gotten Bluer and Bluer.  Conservative rants against immigration, has turned off the Latino and Asian American communities so much, that every state constitutional officer in the state is Democratic.  The large urban areas are hugely Democratic.  Even the state legislature, to date, is 2/3 Democratic, giving a veto proof majority to Democrats.

This leaves Shasta County out in the cold.  Once a showcase of bipartisan cooperation leading to prosperity, Shasta County sits alone, without viable representation.  But, Democrats need Shasta County, to keep their razor thin 2/3 majority.  If only we could get in the game and elect a viable Democrat, or a moderate Republican who would vote with the Democratic majority, to the state legislature, our clout would increase a hundred fold.  The state Democratic Party would need us big time.  

However, we recently crowned another Republican conservative heir to the House of Representative's seat, a hard liner Conservative, who will not even speak to a Democrat, much less cooperate with one.

But, we still are in this together.  Democrats, Republicans, Tea Partiers, Independents, all of us share a love of the North State.  All of us have neighbors, relatives, sons and daughters, who, if they elect to stay here, are broke, poor, and desperate.  

And meanwhile California is desperate for water.  And right now, we have it.  Right now, California is desperate for energy, and we have it in the abundant sunshine and open spaces, plus the wind energy capacity that is virtually untapped.  And we should not forget the hydro-electric power that is still not fully tapped.  

So, let's admit the problem we have, and start cooperating.  Democrats up here need to moderate their rhetoric, conservatives need to face political reality, and we need to unite behind what brought us together before, utilize our abundant natural resources to enhance our standing in the state:   Responsibly protect our natural resources, but don't wall them off behind endless environmental laws. 

The power grid is already here to a certain extent because of the existing hyro-electric system.  

But this will require government, on a big scale.  And in this area, conservatives will have to take a deep breath and compromise.  Government is not all bad, especially that which brings big money to the area.

And finally, we need to elect moderates to office, who will work with both sides, who will stop the big government bashing and start acting in our best interests, which happen to coincide with the state and nation's best interest: alternative sources of electricity, and that precious water!!!!!