California Gubernatorial Options, 2010
by Oxz (Richard Martin Oxman)

This is a life and death matter. Not just for California. For the entire planet. [Jump to the sixth and seventh paragraphs below if you want to move expeditiously, beginning with the Sharma quote.] A matter of re-directing some of your energy immediately.

ALL politicians will be helpless to stop our horrid local and planetary momentum. If you don’t think our momentum is abominable then either stop reading now or request documentation/elaboration from me. It would be a pleasure to talk to anyone interested enough to contact me. For now, however, let’s first look at WHY ALL politicians in office (or on the horizon) are doomed to fail us.

To begin with, the vast majority of politicians — virtually all — are into a career track, usually on a very self-serving road, with a highly personal, as opposed to communal, perspective and agenda. Others are either incapable of cutting sufficient good deals with the majority gangsters, or they represent parties which are slated to be permanently marginalized.

That last point is one major reason why I trust that members of California’s Green Party and Peace and Freedom Party and Socialist Party will see fit to get behind OUR CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR IN 2010. I can guarantee that if our person gets into office as a result of our pooling our resources for the gubernatorial election — or as a result of simply encouraging members to vote for the TOSCA candidate in that one contest — all presently marginalized parties will have an infinitely greater honoring of their priorities than at any other time in history. [For TOSCA, see links at the very bottom.]

That said, ALL third parties all together only garnered less than a quarter of a million votes last time out for the gubernatorial election, and on that count we don’t actually need their votes. I do think it’s noteworthy, however, to underscore that even if we don’t receive their support… we will be, unquestionably, honoring the thrust and many top priorities of all three marginalized parties named above. Their stances on a great number of issues will be our stances, very much at odds with the platforms of both major parties. And all else aside — let’s face it — it’s time to move in solidarity together; we can’t afford to be split organizationally in the face of the filthy face of the powers that be.

India’s Devinder Sharma, one of those who (early on) gave his imprimatur for TOSCA, wrote an article recently which I ask you to glance at (http://www.zmag.org/zspace/commentaries/4029). Let me know if you have trouble; ZNet is fund-raising right now, and that might make accessing pieces problematic sometimes. Directly below is his punchline, though the whole article is definitely worthwhile.

“We know that each tonne of fright moved by plane uses 49 times as much energy as a ship. And a 2-minute take-off by a Boeing 747 Jumbo is equal to 2.4 million lawn movers running for 20 minutes. In the US alone, there are 7,000 planes in the sky at any given time, and their number will increase in the days to come. More than the emissions standards, what is therefore more crucial for the changing climate is the restriction needed to be imposed on global trade. We need to have trade reduction mechanism on the lines of mandatory emission cuts.”

Climate change is going to be discussed at Copenhagen (CoP15) without any reference to the absolute need to reduce global trade. In fact, corporate global trade is slated to be given additional billions as a result of CoP15, ratcheting up… guaranteeing our environmental doom.

Either Republican Whitman or Democrat Brown is going to be the next Governor of California. Unless we do something about it. Something following a new paradigm in the electoral arena. Neither one will speak against corporate trade. Either one is guaranteed to fuel our present horrid momentum. Whereas OUR GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA — represented by twelve unaffiliated, non-politician citizens working together on an equal decision-making basis — would be the one significant public official in the world (with truly noteworthy influence, possible international impact) helping one and all to self-educate, underscoring our challenges forcefully, creatively, repeatedly (daily)… giving specific advice on how to circumvent the control of the powers that be.

If either Whitman or Brown get in, pack your bags to travel to another universe.

And for those of you who don’t believe in the climate change scenarios featuring Doomsday, permit me to note that either Whitman or Brown would surely be THE GOVERNOR FROM HELL… in terms of gender issues, law and order issues, employment, education, health care, groundwater, air quality… and much more. Pure HELL.

Both are fervent supporters of our abominations abroad, our military arrogance, our exploitation, our contribution to genocide. Both believe in American Exceptionalism. And neither one believes in the possibility of nuclear annihilation. But with regard to local issues alone, you cannot vote for either one if you have a single progressive bone in your body. If you have any sense whatsoever of what demands urgent attention right here and now. If you care at all about our life changing for the better — and I don’t mean along Obama’s lines* — I urge you to get on board with us.

*Anyone still on The Obama Train is invited to simply review Paul Street’s articles at http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22319. Again, if you have trouble accessing anything on ZNet let me know.

That said, stay hypnotized by Obama, if you like. Don’t become a Chicken Little like me. Just do us all a favor and move in solidarity with TOSCA, so that we have a chance at a new world being possible. So that we can have a world worth living in.

Those who think that we can afford to simply “fight the good fight” without seriously trying to “take over” some of the reins immediately are mistaken. If you’re exclusively involved in planting seeds with talks, articles, petitions, demonstrations, arrests and the like you are mistaken. If you believe that we do not have to consider embracing a new paradigm for change you are mistaken. If you are investing any hope whatsoever in any career politicians you are making A HUGE MISTAKE.

But make no mistake about it, we have to stop putting most of our leftist energies into preaching to the choir, and begin to breach the choir. [Details upon request.]

Blessings in solidarity,
Richard tosca.2010[at]yahoo.com
P.S. http://oxtogrind.org/archive/364 is an introduction of sorts to TOSCA. http://oxtogrind.org/archive/336 provides a short list of endorsers/supporters. http://oxtogrind.org/archive/311 delineates some of the potential for UNILATERAL action by any Governor of California, some of the impact the office can have on international issues.