http://bit.ly/pGx4tN Party and Politics *

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PARTY-POLITICS*

• Jede Party ist politisch, auch ohne Transparente und Flugblätter.

• Politisch ist der Umgang der Leute miteinander: Gemeinschaftlich oder sind alle auf einem Ego-Trip?

• Politisch ist es, wenn alle ehrfürchtig zum DJ hinauf blicken und ihn bejubeln, was immer er auch macht.

• Politisch ist, ob es bei einer Party um die Community geht oder nur um Profit.

• Politisch ist auch das Verhältnis zur Natur bei einem Open-Air: Bleiben Müllberge zurück?

• Politisch sind Partys auf denen in Straßen, Supermärkten und Konzernzentralen für Veränderung getanzt wird.

• Und politisch sind Partys, die sich bewusst Kommerz, Konsum und Kontrolle widersetzen, um dadurch zu einem wirklichen Freiraum zu werden...


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PARTY-POLITICS*

• Every party is political. There needn’t be a banner hanging with a political demand anywhere.

• So, for example, the question of who makes money out of a party is political. Is it a single person that thrives on inflated admission charges? Or is it a group of people that are mainly concerned with a good party?

• Political is the handling of nature at an Open-Air event. Does one strive to use the place sensibly or are there piles of rubbish left behind?

• Political is how people interact with each other at a party. Is it collaborative or an Ego-trip?

• Of course a consciously organized party that becomes a free space and defies the guidelines of commerce and consumption and control is also political.

• Political is as well how drugs are handled on a party.

• For example it is also political if all reverentially look up to the DJ and acclaim whatever he may do.

• Political is more than the question whether a track has political lyrics. Policy is also more than the talk of ministers. Policy is the relationship between us. Policy is our daily action ...


Wolfgang Sterneck
http://bit.ly/qENwSU


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The Obama administration's recent record on environmental issues is uninspired, critics say. But the president faces more immediate problems with the economy and record-high unemployment.
To many environmentalists, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement this week that it would miss a deadline for setting greenhouse gas regulations for power plants and refineries is one more sign that the Obama administration is dragging its feet on a range of environmental issues.
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Whether or not that’s true, the economy – particularly record joblessness – seems to be trumping the environment these days.
Earlier this month, the White House asked the EPA to rewrite an air-quality rule on smog-producing ozone that critics warned would cost millions of jobs. The more pressing need now, President Obama said, is “reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover.”

The administration also seems increasingly likely to approve the Keystone XL pipeline to transport tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico – a prospect that has seen protesters arrested outside the White House. Meanwhile, Obama signed a budget bill that could reduce protections for wolves and wilderness in western states.
Writing in the current issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Jeff Goodell, author of "How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth's Climate," acknowledges that the president made a deal with automakers to double fuel-efficiency standards by 2025, increased spending for clean-energy research, and “made some impressive appointments to key positions,” including EPA chief Lisa Jackson and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu.
“But overall, Obama's record on the environment has been uninspired – and that's putting it kindly,” Mr. Goodell writes. “He hasn't stopped coal companies from blowing up mountaintops and devastating large regions of Appalachia. He caved in on tightening federal standards for ozone pollution, putting the lives of millions of Americans at risk. And the biggest tragedy: He has done almost nothing to rein in carbon pollution – or even to convince Americans that, in the long run, cooking the planet with coal and oil is a bad idea.”
Presidents can’t do everything at once, and the country again finds itself in a situation where “it’s the economy, stupid” is again the prevailing mantra. Regulating corporate and individual action – particularly for a problem that seems to the lay person to be way off in the future – has become even more difficult.
Most of Obama’s likely GOP opponents in the 2012 presidential election – even Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, who once backed strong efforts to address greenhouse gas-induced climate change – are in the camp of global warming skeptics (if not deniers).




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