Tom Hayden's Blog, page 5

Brown to Sign Historic Divestment Law This Week

Governor Jerry Brown has agreed to sign historic legislation divesting California from coal this week, ending King Coal’s long dominance as a power source for California.

Two close observers say that Brown has agreed with environmental leaders to do so. A third source says that Brown is likely to sign the bill but nothing is final until he wields his pen. Environmentalists ignored the legislation which one described as “a left flank on the 350 passage.” Based on a student campaign to “divest and invest in clean power”, I drafted and took the bill to Sen. Kevin De Leon at the beginning of session. He fortunately agreed and the bill drew the strong support of Tom Steyer. It passed both houses before any of the 350 bills were passed and amended. This victory for the divestment movement with have great significance in itself, and also b a precedent for identical initiatives across the land. This is exactly how the divestment campaigns began on South Africa and Big Tobacco. Stay tuned.

Days of Miracles and Wonder

We are living in a time of miracles and wonder

Don't cry baby, don't cry

It was a dry wind and it swept across the desert and it curled into the circle of birth

and the dead sand falling on the children and the mothers and the fathers - Paul Simon

Our world is being shaken by protest, resistance and repression that we have not experienced since 1968 or 1936, or the late 19th century. It is too much for any of us to assimilate at once, so I recommend that everyone set aside their pre-existing assumptions, and for starters, read every story in the NY Times everyday, or I might say read between the lines. Facebook and Twitter are not enough. I have read the daily Times for fifty years, from the days it promoted the Vietnam War to its disclosure of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, from its catering to climate-deniers to its virtual war against them in recent years. If you have time, read Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein, but start your day by carefully reading through the Times.

Bernie Sanders Reflection

Personally and polititically I have been a Bernie supporter for a long time. I come from PDA where Bernie spoke at Tim Carpenter’s funeral; I introduced him at his first LA/PDA even despite my stroke. I think his platform is  excellent and poplular. He is on track to win two primaries and form at least a Progressive Bloc at the Democratic convention. Things might well keep breaking his way. As to the label “socialist”, let’s not forget that we aleady have elected someone named Barack Hussein Obama, though that was a big liability. So who can say what lies ahead for now?

Julian Bond, Our First Obama

Julian Bond speaking on May 2, 2015 at the MLK Memorial in Washington D.C., commemorating the the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam Peace Movement. (Photo: Ted Lieverman, 2015.)Julian Bond was one of the most prominent and personable leaders who rose out of the student civil rights movement of 1960, the year he was first arrested in an Atlanta sit-in.

I first met him in a living room of his family home, a setting filled with books and intense conversation about the choices awaiting a new generation turning twenty. Above all was the personal question - what to risk in order to stop the brutal, numbing advance of Jim Crow over black lives.

Julian was at the center of the handful that formed the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, with its two prongs of direct action and voter registration in the black belt. A "blood oath" was taken among the tiny vanguard to win voting rights in five years or die trying. Deaths did occur but the voting rights protections were achieved; a historic breakthrough that lasted 50 years before it’s undermining by the recent revival of "the New Jim Crow" regime.

Julian was a threat to the segregationist order from the moment he appeared during the sit-ins. He instinctively knew that the vote would require a new generation of leaders for which to vote. He was elected to the Georgia state house in 1965. His seating was refused, not only because he was black but also because he and SNCC opposed the Vietnam War and the draft, the first young civil rights leaders to do so.

Democracy prevailed when the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ordered Georgia to restore his democratic election. It was a huge victory for the movement, including the anti-Vietnam war movement as well. Dissent from the war by Muhammad Ali and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would follow, and a spreading dissent against Vietnam by people of color in the armed services on many bases and brigs. 

Not only did Julian open a path from protest to politics, he soon became the magnet for all those seeking new national leadership. During the tumultuous democratic convention of 1968, he became a popular vice presidential candidate. Eventually he passed on the option, partly because he was too young, but the myth was born that a "new generation of leadership" was on the rise.

Julian served two decades in the Georgia legislature, lost a close congressional race to his old friend from SNCC, John Lewis, but held a leading role in the national NAACP for decades to come. He was on the leading edge of every social movement to the moment of his death.

Despite heart issues, he responded positively to an invitation to speak in Washington at the 50 anniversary of the first national protest march against the war in Vietnam. On May 2nd nearly 1,000 people held vigil under azure blue skies, rolling clouds, and the imposing Martin Luther King Jr. memorial monument to hear Julian give his final speech. It was unforgettable.

The message to be communicated was that civil rights, equality and peace are indivisible. Julian Bond wanted his audience to keep the memory that he, like his friend dr. King and many others thought of themselves in the passage of time, not only students, scholars or civil rights leaders, but as peace and justice leaders who gave their lives to a cause worth living and dying for.

Praise and glory to Horace Julian Bond for the days he spent among us.

[image error]Joan Mulholland, Ron Dellums, Tom Hayden and Julian Bond this May in Washington D.C. to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam Peace Movement. (Photo: Barbara Williams, 2015)

Climbing A Final Summit

[image error]Something about a mountain draws people toward the heights. It’s daunting, dangerous, requiring one step, or misstep, after another, like any arduous path to a new level, a plateau of reform. When you make it, there’s something majestic in the peaks. The experience is all there in Kerouac’s Dharma Bums.  That’s why I spoke at the Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics on July 9, in mile-high Boulder, Colorado, and again at the Tattered Cover in Denver. Building a social movement through ups and downs is a similar to the process described by Aldo Leopold in “thinking like a mountain."

Pope Francis suddenly ranks ahead of Governor Jerry Brown among those assembling for this year’s climate summit. The influence of the Pope and his encyclical may greatly sway the California Governor as they share their thoughts together. Their synergy will have an important effect on President Barack Obama - and to a lesser extent Speaker of the House John Boehner and the Republican Congress, in their meetings this September. Pope Francis, President Obama, Gov. Brown and, of course, Speaker Boehner and the Congress are rooted in the realm of the powers and principalities.

Tom Hayden and Brentwood Homeowners Get Bulldozed by City Hall

The Sullivan Canyon stream with bulldozer on top. (Photo by Tom Hayden, 2014)Originally Published by CITYWATCHLA - Iconic 1960s student protest leader and Leftist intellectual Tom Hayden is plotting his next revolution, this time in leafy, serene Brentwood, at an outdoor table at Starbucks. Hayden is on the phone, digging into his deep Rolodex to solicit the help of a hot-shot Beverly Hills real estate agent in his fight to block construction of two giant mansions in bucolic, lost-in-time Sullivan Canyon, not far from where Hayden is now sitting.

Bioneers Radio Game-Changing Climate Leadership: What Happens In California Doesn’t Stay in California

TOM HAYDEN, VIEN TRUONG and WADE CROWFOOT

As the world’s eighth largest economy, California is emerging as the potential game-changer for global climate leadership. Using strategic alliances and smart policies that integrate ecology, economy and justice, these climate leaders show how: Tom Hayden, lifelong activist and former California State Senator; Vien Truong, Environmental Equity Director, Greenlining Institute; Wade Crowfoot, Senior Advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown.

Praised Be!

Today's papal encyclical, "Praised Be", may be the most important religious teaching to be released in decades.

The question is whether its study unleashes a creative leap forward in human understanding of the environment, or a further round of sectarian religious conflicts.

The encyclical reinvigorates the doctrine of liberation theology, which began in the late 1960's as an affirmation of the global poor and was dismantled finally by the church elite and Reagan conservatives. The current revival of the doctrine was dramatically revealed on May 23 by the Pope's beatification of the martyred archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador.

Already a threat to the military oligarchs of Latin America, liberation theology is now expanding to a new embrace of climate justice in the face of global warming.

The doctrine has powerful political overtones because it accepts the science of climate change and refutes the conservative assumption of climate denial.

A powerful sentiment is rising which asserts that the road to social justice for the poor is also the way to reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, which threaten the stability of the planet.

But the argument is ultimately less political than theological or spiritual. At its heart the document suggests that creation as a whole is sacred, not a backdrop for human-centered political economy. To damage or threaten creation is a sin, not simply an adverse environmental effect.

The first challenge for environmentalists, social justice advocates, and people of faith may well be immersion in discussion and reflection of the new worldview being suggested by Pope Francis. Only after such deep immersion will social action follow.

Pope Francis has tipped global consciousness towards engagement in the United Nations sponsored climate talks in Paris this December. With a global "green bloc" of nations rooted in Latin America, the papal initiative could well lead towards a negotiated reduction of both poverty and pollution in time to stave off the worst possibilities of extreme climate change.

That historic reform will need the idealism and power of a global social movement on a level rarely seen.

DWP Stalling on Solar Rooftops

Tom Hayden on his roof with the solar panels he had installed but which have not been connected due to delays by DWP. (Photo: Barbara Williams, 2015)May 15, 2015

Mayor Eric Garcetti

City Hall

Los Angeles

Dear Mr. Mayor, 

Regrettably, I have concluded that the Department of Water and Power (DWP) is undermining your heralded solar rooftops program. The DWP is in the dark about solar energy.

The personal experience of our family is the starting point of my perspective. Several brand-new solar collectors have been sitting on our rooftop awaiting their interconnection with the DWP system. The DWP has stalled, and will stall, for many months. Few customers will sign up for this program when they learn of the delays. It pains me to note the slow crawl of the rooftop program; back in 1979, when I chaired the governor's SolarCal Council, our first grant was to a rooftop solar program in San Bernardino directed by an African-American, Valerie Pope, with an apprenticeship program an installations by at-risk youth. My dreams have clearly stalled since that bright beginning.

Why do I believe this policy is deliberate? For one thing, top DWP officials, including Marcie Edwards, frequently express their skepticism towards rooftop solar installations. If my figures are accurate, the DWP has reached only one percent of the twenty percent solar goal mandated under SB 1 (2006), which you personally endorsed. The DWP promised 280 mw of net-metered solar rooftops by 2016. But as of December 31, 2014, they were claiming only 170 mw of installed solar, mostly large applications. 

The DWP seems to measure "progress" based on the amount of ratepayer money it spends on its solar programs, not the actual number of solar rooftops or the percentage of renewable energy installed. The New York Times accurately noted on February 12, 2014 that "distributed" solar rooftop installations are an existential threat to the centralized utility model. It's great to develop large commercial projects, but LA residents need to see and feel the benefits on their roofs and in their bills. 

Your otherwise admirable 2015 Sustainability City pLAn fails to address this serious undermining of the city and state's solar mandates. The pLAn asserts that LA "has the most installed solar power of any city in the US" without mentioning the failure to install rooftop solar. On p. 24, the document projects goals of cumulative total megawatts of 900-1,500 mw of local solar power by 2025 and 1,500-1,800 mw by 2035. Sounds impressive until one notes on the same page that the city currently has "enough rooftop space to hold 5,500 mw of solar power. That's a token goal compared to our potential, and it continues to ignore the percentage of solar installations on homeowner rooftops.

I request a DWP printout of the actual number of rooftop installations on a year-by-year basis since the statewide "million solar rooftops" began after the passage of SB 1.

The pLAn document indicates the gravity of the problem by setting an inexplicitly distant 2017 goal - that's two full years - to "reduce residential solar PV interconnection wait time to less than two weeks." (p. 24) Note that this is an aspirational goal (a "near-term outcome"), not an enforceable policy with consumer protections.

By it’s stalling on rooftop solar installations, LA tarnishes its environmental leadership and places a drag on achieving California's statewide climate goals. Think of how many potential citizen-customers are eager to install rooftop solar collectors, producing their own energy while lowering and stabilizing their own rates. Compare this with the state's "million electric cars" program, which makes it possible to purchase one of a variety of zero-emission vehicles in days, not months. Many of these vehicles are very affordable; assuming the savings on gasoline purchases combined with existing tax credit and rebate programs. The only difference is the resistance of the DWP, which is reminiscent of the resistance of the gas-guzzling automobile lobby in Detroit decades ago.

Mr. Mayor, you have every reason to stand up to the DWP in the name of consumers and your own pledges to groups like Environment California who have championed these programs.  The DWP acts like a rogue agency, and is far behind many investor-owned utilities in implementing the million-solar rooftops program. I look forward to discussing this defiance of your pledge to carry out basic management of city agencies carry LA's solar banner in the global climate talks. 

With great respect,

TOM HAYDEN

Pope Francis Calls for Climate Justice

The coming climate encyclical of Pope Francis, coupled with his visit to Washington D.C., might ensure a global agreement in Paris this December and transform environmentalism into a movement based on social justice. The Pope's message also might ignite a greater spiritual awakening and an opportunity to challenge the foundations of a global order which forces billions of people to survive amidst poverty and pollution.