Barbara Boxer: Blasts Bush RE: Diplomacy, Calls G.Warming "Climate Crisis"

[Tom Rinaldo]

What a pleasure to listen to twenty minutes of a real conversation with Senator Barbara Boxer. This woman is tough, but she also has a warm and absolutely genuine way about her. No posturing, just the truth. I so rarely get to hear her talk, beyond a rare 15 second snip, since I moved from California.

Boxer is the featured guest on the latest Clarkcast Pod cast released today. Her point about Global Warming should be picked up by all of us. Global warming sounds like a day spent lounging by a pool. It's a Climate Crisis!

You can get subscribe to the ClarkCasts at iTunes or direct download the mp3 here: http://www.securingamerica.com /

Transcript is here:
http://securingamerica.com/printready/boxer_clarkcast42306.htm

[Tom Rinaldo]

1. On a light note:

This exchange gave me a chuckle:


"Senator Barbara Boxer: You know, if you have a hurricane that's a certain level, you can handle it but once they get bigger and bigger and bigger, we know what happens - even with the Army corps not doing what they should have in Katrina.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And she's looking at me when she says “Army corps”…

Senator Barbara Boxer: No, I did not."


Why can't we have leaders who are real human beings rather than macho props?

[Adelante]

2. Also the hearing Wednesday

Very important is the Senate committee review this Wednesday on William Wehrum to be an Assistant Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. As Boxer says, this is a very bad guy. As Wes says, this is an enemy of environmental protection. He's a former big timber lobbyist and architect of the "Clear Skies" scam.

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. I think the Bush Junta has a slogan: "Let a Thousand Fires Burn!"

They are busy undermining every aspect of the prevailing social, economic, and political accord simultaneously. It's not only that they are rolling back progressive initiatives and agreements, it's that they are rolling back all the moderate ones also, undermining whatever common ground might once have existed for diverse but well meaning Americans to stand on.

There used to be a broad social consensus on preserving our environment. Yes there was lots of bickering at the edges over specific details, but there was common ground also. That is all being stripped mined away by the Bush Administration. I honestly believe that they see each controversial decision they make as an opportunity to make ten more, while people are distracted by the fall out from the first one.

[Jai4WKC08]

3. I've been waiting for this one

Thanks for the alert. I've subscribed thru iTunes, but I don't keep it open all the time, and that seems to be necessary for the file to download. Working on that now.

Clark and Boxer are such treasures for our party. I can't wait to hear them together again. I remember Senator Boxer attended one of his campaign events back in '03. I hope this is a sign she'll be in his corner next time around, assuming there a next time.

'Course, 2006 is more important for now. From what I hear, they're both busting their butts for us to win back Congress. And as pissed as I am at what Bill Maher said Friday about Democrats and environmentalism, he's 100% right that it's a winner for us and we need to get out front on it.

Altho this podcast was obviously taped earlier, Clark is CA today, doing a veterans forum in Stockton and three fund-raisers for '06 canidates. Then he hits NM tomorrow, also to raise money for a challenger to the Repub state AG. The guy sure gets around.

[Texas_Kat]

5. Committee Chairs

Winning back the House and Senate is not just about the number of votes, it's about the entire "power" structure in the Congress. More than anything else, Clark has emphasized the absolute necessity of gaining control over one or both Houses.

Senator Barbara Boxer: I'm on two committees that deal with the environment. It really is my signature issue in many ways as well as women's health but one committee is the Environment and Public Works Committee where I'm really about to become the senior Democrat and, if things go well in the elections…let me just say Diane Feinstein and I will become the two…the first two Democratic women to head major committees. It would really be good, so anyone listening out there that cares about

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's wonderful. Listen, you and Senator Feinstein both have very strong ideas, very progressive ideas.

Senator Barbara Boxer: She would become head of the rules committee and I'd become head of EPW.

[welshTerrier2]

6. "blasts bush"

yeah, it's good ... it's fine ... i agree with all of it and i'm glad the issue is being raised ... global warming is way beyond a crisis ...

but unfortunately, this is still "sleepy talk" ... Pelosi came close to engaging the real enemy in her discussion of the Medicare bill ...

the headline of the OP is exactly correct - Dems keep making bush the target ... it leaves the illusion that if we could just get him, and republicans, out of there, all the good stuff would start happening again ... to be sure, vast improvements over the republican idiocy and assaults on the environment would be lessened with the Dems in control ...

but ultimately, bush is a fly speck ... the real problem is not just bush and it's not just republicans ... the real problem is that for generations, we've allowed big money, big corporations and big oil to infest the halls of our government ... big oil dictates our foreign policy ... some argue it's "our dependence on imported oil" that "guides" our foreign policy; this dependence is an "indirect enemy" ... the real enemy are those who prevent us from enabling the alternatives and those who send our blood and treasure to war and realize record profits as a result ...

the game is greed; the name is imperialism and exploitation ... and the disguise is the pretense of meeting the nation's critical energy needs ...

until the Democrats engage this battle directly, no or little progress will be made ...

and there sure as hell is no time like the present ... Americans see the price tag of all this greed and corruption everyday at their local gas pumps ... my real belief is that this entire manufactured crisis may be a setup to let bush "step in" and tame those runaway oil companies ... just when we were all so sure he was in bed with big oil, he might just step in to save the day and help lower gas prices ... but that's wild speculation for another thread ...

Democrats are right to focus on bush's incompetence ... it's fine to point out that many bush appointees are overtly hostile to the environment ... but ultimately, the real enemy is the infestation of wealthy, powerful, greedy interests with way too much access to the Congress ... that's ground zero in the battle against global warming ... without targeting the real enemy, our little skirmishes will ultimately not succeed ...

none of the above, btw, is specifically directed at Clark, Pelosi or any other Democrat ... I see this as the Party's failure to engage the core issue ...

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. I essentially agree with you

and for that reason I support good progressive Democrats in Primaries, especially for relatively safe Democratic seats, when the goal is to force debate on issues that matter, and not much matters more than the issues you raise.

No encroaching tide recedes instantly, and the forces of concentrated wealth and greed have been encroaching on our Democracy for many decades, they must first be stopped before their retreat will begin. I may differ from this or that Democratic strategist on the play book or books that most likely will lead to Democratic control of one or more houses of Congress after November, but I see the wisdom of finding a strategy that will result in that. If Bash Bush are the best buzz words to use now for that end, then they have value in the larger picture. I look forward to progressives bringing pressure to bear on Democrats who, then being in the Majority, hold key Committee Chairmanships come 2007.

[Jai4WKC08]

9. I've been stewing about this post for a couple days

Something about it really really pisses me off.

Part of it is probably your "sleepy talk" characterization. C'mon, Wt2. This wasn't a stump speech. It was a conversation between two individuals. Two, I might add, who been among the most consistently courageous in standing up for Democratic values. And more importantly, no where in this discussion did they compromise those values in any way, shape or form. Their focus on the issue may have been more narrow than you would have preferred, but there's only so much you can cover in a 10 minute audio.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I can understand the frustration and anger at Dems who back off from progressive opinions when they are addressing a wider audience. I don't understand condemning them when they are trying to get a truly progressive message out to those same people.

I agree with you that Bush is not the problem, altho I think he's a big part of it. Or maybe I should say that all the forces that put him in office, especially for a second term, is the part. Point is, I would never discount the whole Big Oil political machinery that keeps Bush, and guys like Bush, in power.

I also agree that some Democrats are beholden to, "big money, big corporations and big oil." But there is NO doubt in my mind that if Democrats were in power, even with the guilty ones playing their roles, we would be a world ahead of where we are now as far as the environment is concerned. And for God's sake, if there were ever two Democrats who are not guilty, it would be these two. Your objection has merit, but it is ill-placed in this thread. Seems to me there is only the opportunity to post an objection because these two raised the issue--where are the threads about what other Democrats are saying in which you could similarly rant?

Boxer and Clark have both spoken out against greed and imperialism. They have both called many times for alternative energy, and the money to develop it. They have both condemned the secrecy within the Bush administration that has allowed many of the illegal decisions on energy and war to be made. They are both working very hard to win a Democratic Congress, which imo is the ONLY thing that will lead to progress, whether bigger issues are addressed or not.

I am SO tired of activists who are quicker to condemn the Democrats who are trying to make a difference than the Repubs who are doing the greatest damage, or the people in both parties who don't give a damn, just because they didn't say the precise thing, in the precise way, that the activist wanted to hear.

[Kolesar]

7. thank whomever typed that in for me to read ... eom