number 33 spring/summer • 2016 first issue of volume xiii Newsstand $3ºº green horiZon Magazine . AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL PUBLISHED BY THE GREEN HORIZON FOUNDATION . Presidential Politics USA within a broken system 2016 ELECTION Six (related) ways to think about it: Art Goodtimes, Jonathan Martin, Michelle Whittaker Genevieve Marcus, Steve Welzer, John Rensenbrink AHEAD ALSO INSIDE: Letters Fasci-nation/fascism — Charles Keil Re-think MONEY and think DEMOCRACY— Howard Switzer Review of Mark Satin’s New Age Politics — Rhoda Gilman Independence for Puerto Rico — Olga I.Sanabria Davilla Indigenous People and the Environment — Romi Elnagar Plea for a Benign God — David Krosschell The Zika Threat — Richard Lawson . table of contents FASCINATING FASCISM Fascination/Fascism ................2 CHARLES KIEL CHARLES KEIL we are fascinated when The Donald turns The Green Horizon Team ............2 down Fox because Megyn got all bundled when you’re borrowing on the future in up with women and started to pull away Wicked Wild Politics and Cultural Counterpoint ..............3 order to destroy any possible future, the veil...the fig leaf...the cod piece JOHN RENSENBRINK you in bad shape to reveal the naked emperor & wizard when you’re following your followers to of ooze suddenly, it seemed to me, know what to say at the next rally, Dr. chalktalk was talkin’ Hitler this Building from the Bottom Up ........4 ART GOODTIMES your leadership sinks to the lowest CD morning as MC @ WAMC, saying is that Common Denominator, is that cud-it=b “fascism”? now we got Review of Jonathan Martin’s Compost Dish or is it Community Bloomberg trying to save Wall St. and a Empowering Progressive Third Parties ......................5 Dread (Collective Dopiness, Certificate big chunk of his own ill-gotten gains by STEVE WELZER of Deepshit) reviving corpse-state: {dark dictum} The only two basic words derive from American Heritage Dictionary of the Beyond Re-districting Reform ........7 bhasko- in the lingo of our Proto- English Language: MICHELLE WHITTAKER Indo-Euro ancestors, FASCISM and 1. A philosophy or system of government Yes, Petra Kelly was Right, But .......9 FASCINATION or is it fasci-nation that advocates or exercises a dictatorship GENEVIEVE MARCUS 1. bundle (as of rods, twigs, or straw), of the extreme right, typically through also crowd of people: FASCES, the merging of state and business Bernie Sanders, the Greens, and the New FASCICLE, FASCINE, FASCISM leadership, together with an ideology of Anti-capitalism ...................12 STEVE WELZER [I’m not worried about 2. Latin for belligerent nationalism. {full stop} band, fillet, bandage: FASCIA, FESS. ] 2. Capitol F. The governmental system What a Year (Already!) ............16 3. Probably Latin fascinum, fascinus, an of Italy from 1922 to 1943. and on they JOHN RENSENBRINK amulet in the shape of a phallus, hence a go with Italian words for it soon the bewitching: FASCINATE now this, of American lingo will redefine every single Money, Power, and Politics .........18 course, is quite fascinating one straw, twig, rod, lingam HOWARD SWITZER Review of Mark Satin’s 40th Anniversary Edition of New Age Politics .........20 CHARLIE KEIL RHODA GILMAN is author of Urban Blues (1966); Tiv Song (1979); Polka Happiness w. A.V. Keil and Dick Blau (1992); My Music w. S. Crafts and D. Cavicchi (1993); Music Grooves with S. Independence for Puerto Rico .......21 Feld (1994); Bright Balkan Morning w. A.V. Keil, R. Blau and S. Feld (2002); Born to OLGA I. SANABRIA DAVILLA Groove with Pat Campbell on the web (2006). Charles retired from teaching in 1999 and has been morphing into an instrument playing poet who gardens sloppily. Indigenous People and the Environment ..............24 ROMI ELNAGAR . A Plea for a Benign God ...........27 THE TEAM DAVID KROSSCHELL PUBLISHED BY THE GREEN HORIZON FOUNDATION • SPRING/SUMMER, 2016 • VOLUME THIRTEEN #33 Responding to the Zika Virus Threat .. 30 EDITORS: GRAPHIC DESIGN: Sharon Pieniak RICHARD LAWSON John Rensenbrink: [email protected] www.bluecatmedia.com Steve Welzer: [email protected] LOGO DESIGN: Sean Hill LETTERS .........................33 MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF GREEN HORIZON FOUNDATION: EDITORIAL ASSISTANCE: JODY GRAGE, B. SIDNEY SMITH, TIM WILLARD Ted Becker, Alabama Carla Rensenbrink LINDA CREE, SUZANNE YAKOWITZ-DRAGAN Linda Cree, Michigan MEMBERSHIP & BOOKKEEPING: Greg Gerritt, Rhode Island Liz Rensenbrink Sustainers 2015-16 ................35 Rhoda Gilman, Minnesota MEMBERSHIP & MARKETING Ellen LaConte, North Carolina MANAGER, HARDCOPY: Darryl! Moch, Washington, D.C. Charlene Swift John Rensenbrink, Maine Inquiries, submissions, MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER, WEBSITE: Liz Rensenbrink, Maine donations, letters: Brielle Welzer Check out our website for articles Sam Smith, Maine GHM, PO Box 476 WEBMASTER: Steve Welzer, New Jersey Topsham, ME 04086 USA www.Green-Horizon.org Evie Leder Donations via PayPal are welcome. Thank you! Green Horizon Magazine is indexed in the Alternative Press Index, which is available from: Alternative Press Center, PO Box 33109, Baltimore, MD 21218 2 green horizon magazine spring/summer • 2016 . ABOUT THIS ISSUE Wicked Wild Politics and Cultural Counterpoint I suggest taking the following route for reading this issue: thoroughly about how to navigate the cascading waters of this there are two sections. The first is all about politics, especially year’s presidential election. Much is at stake. the presidential race, its discontents and its excruciating yet But your journey through the pages of this issue has only intriguing possibilities. The second gives you a variety of articles started! Howard Switzer dazzles with his searing analysis of the on critical matters that are not about politics, but in a way control of MONEY by the few (the 1% actually). Follow his impinge on it. The first comprises seven articles. The second a argument that it must give way to control by all the people if series of eye-stopping expositions. democracy—and our survival—is to have a real chance. Rhoda The first set, on politics, starts with Art Goodtimes who gives Gilman, member of Green Horizon Board, recalls to our minds you good reasons for thinking that a third party like the Greens an influential book by Mark Satin,New Age Politics. Though should avoid presidential politics like the plague and should written forty years ago, and re-issued now in a new format concentrate instead on local elections and local offices. The next and introduction, it’s a crystal ball of what was to come. As if article is a review of an important book just off the press by in synch with these articles, Olga I. Sanabria Davilla, propels Jonathan Martin and reviewed by my co-editor Steve Welzer. our attention to the awesome and awful case of the imprisoned The book stresses the crucial importance for a third party like people of Peurto Rico oppressed and dominated by the MONEY the Greens—echoing Goodtimes—to concentrate on local, powers of the United States. Olga, a third brilliant newcomer to grass roots elections. The third article is by a brilliant newcomer the pages of Green Horizon in this issue, tells us what has got to to our pages, Michelle Whittaker. She is a colleague of Rob be good news for many, if not most, of us who don’t know what Richie at Fairvote. She emphasizes how critical it is to put a is really happening in her beautiful country. Her good news is powerful priority on changing the election rules, for it’s these that a vigorous and sturdy independence movement is alive and rules that make it extremely difficult for the people at large to fighting bravely for freedom in Puerto Rico. have a voice in politics and, as a leading example, for a third party In a related way, people all over the world are fighting for their like the Greens to even have a chance to win office, especially for environment, for their life-ways, with intrepid resistance and Governor, Congress, U.S. Senate and President. She indicates patience. Romi Elnagar has once again in our pages chronicled with solid logic that until these rules are changed, running for with passion that fight by indigenous people. The fight is also office is like a noble but foolish Don Quixote venturing to assault really a fight for an earth, a planet, that can yet, and can still (in the forbidding castles of the mighty. spite of all!), shelter and provide a good and beautiful life for all Genevieve Marcus, another brilliant newcomer to our pages, people free of bloodsuckers and demented dominators. picks up on Green Horizon’s continuing exploration of a politics Then for a change of pace, read what David Krosschell tells (including especially presidential politics) that strives beyond the us, and warns us, about our fabulous technologies. AI (Artificial . conventional left and right dichotomy. She asks “what does that Intelligence) is upon us in many hitherto unexpected ways—to mean, to be ‘out-in-front’, as Petra Kelly has famously put it?” such a degree that we do not really know what is in store for our Steve Welzer then takes you to an analysis of socialism, including life on this earth. Is it for a better and better life or a worse and Bernie’s socialism. He gently but with steel in his voice reminds us worse life? David poses the question, not answering it, as is his that we need to think beyond both socialism and capitalism if we ironic wont. But the warning is clear. are to meet the global crisis—the three interrelated and shocking Another seemingly exotic matter is the sudden appearance of threats of climate change, economic catastrophe, and out of the Zika threat. Richard Lawson, physician and leading member control militaristic governments. The sheer depth and immediacy of the Green Party of England and Wales, provides us with of this three-in-one crisis continues to be un-accountably ignored information and advice.