On Thursday evening, JK addressed “a room of 200 guests at the fifth annual religious liberty dinner staged in the historic Caucus Room located in the Russell Senate office building.” John Smith of ANN filed a report about the event, noting “Senator John Kerry rallied behind a bill designed to protect the rights of people of faith, including Sabbath-keepers, in the workplace.”
“We all uphold the right to practice what we believe as a matter of religious freedom. The ability to be able to do that is a crucial part of our national identity; [it] is what we hold up to other nations and it’s what we take great pride in,” Kerry told the gathering.
“If this bill goes through,” Kerry said, “it will be a major success for religious liberty. I think it’s a hallmark of where we are as a nation—in codifying people’s ability to truly and freely practice their religions.”
[...]
Senator Kerry praised the efforts of the coalition of different religions and philosophies represented in the Caucus Room. He received enthusiastic applause when he said, “That is why I support so passionately the Workplace Religious Freedom Act and have done since I introduced it in 1996. It is time for us to get [it] through the United States Congress.”
“This effort is now supported by Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Sikh and other faith organizations and writing this into law is a bit of a balancing act. That balance can be found and should be found,” the 2004 presidential candidate continued.
Senator Kerry also took the opportunity to link his concerns about the environment with the evening’s religious freedom theme. “Every faith shares a commonality, a universality of principle. All share a fundamental respect for the earth itself, of creation and what it is.” He then quoted 1 Corinthians 10:26 to remind his audience that ‘The earth is the Lord’s, And everything in it.’
“Yes, we have dominion of it,” Kerry added, “but dominion assumes responsibility. Our capacity to think gives us a greater capacity …to make choices. God gave us responsibility to make those choices wisely and with love for our fellow human beings.”
He moved on to address man’s moral obligation in environmental matters, regardless of party affiliation. “It’s not left or right, liberal or conservative. It’s just plain common sense and it’s certainly in keeping with any responsible interpretation of …the scriptures, the Torah, [or] the Koran. [We must] do a better job of meeting our responsibilities to protect creation itself.”
That’s a point which JK has made repeatedly throughout interviews and Q&A sessions associated with the book tour for This Moment on Earth. Beachmom has a quote from a bloggers conference call with JK which underlines this same point, in her dailykos diary, “Moral leadership needed to stop global warming: Q & A with the Kerrys”.
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Best Buddies Bike Challenge
On Saturday (which wasn’t ideal weather for outdoor activities), JK biked 96 miles in the 2007 Volvo Best Buddies Challenge from the JFK library to Hyannisport. Team Kerry helped contribute to an overall total of $2,248,793. Check out the route. h/t to Wicked Smaht Thoughts blog for the route map.
Massachusetts Democratic Convention
From the bike event, JK zipped over to the Massachusetts Democratic Convention and gave a rip-roaring speech. Charley on the MTA put up some audio of JK’s speech and noted:
The red meat in Kerry’s speech happens about 2:30 through part 4. Delicious.
The Senator threw out gobs of red meat for the people. It was indeed, as Charley said, delicious. Damn all that fire and the man rode 90 miles in the same day.
Actually it was 96 miles but who’s counting?
sco at .08 acres has a nice roundup of blog coverage of the convention here.
Worldwide climate change is a serious issue. Environmental degradation is a serious issue. Energy independence is a serious issue. And when it comes to global security concerns, all these issues come together in very serious ways.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to assess scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. The IPCC’s series of extensively-researched reports on these problems has gotten a lot of press attention in recent months, and will continue to do so as more information is released.
In the meanwhile, though, the same scientific findings that are causing such well-publicized concern among biologists, physicians, energy specialists, and environmental scientists have also become the subject of intense debate within the UN Security Council, the US Congress and the national security establishment.
Last month a bipartisan, blue-ribbon panel of military and security experts released a study commissioned by the Center for Naval Analyses, a government-funded think tank, called the “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change” report. The Military Advisory Board that prepared this report includes a former Army chief of staff, commanders-in-chiefs of U.S. forces in global regions, a former shuttle astronaut and NASA administrator, and experts in planning, logistics, underwater operations and oceanography. One member also served as U.S. ambassador to China.
This blue-ribbon panel’s sobering assessment? Global warming “presents significant national security challenges to the United States,” which the nation must address or face serious consequences.
Senator Kerry, no stranger to military, environmental, or global security matters himself, obviously agrees with this panel of experts that global climate change does present a serious and credible threat to America’s national security and that of the world as a whole. When the report was released last month, he wrote to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden requesting a hearing on the urgent need to address the national security threats posed by global warming.
JK said that global warming could impact America’s national security by leading to large-scale migrations, increased border tensions, and the spread of disease and conflicts over food and water - all of which might lead to U.S. military involvement - and that this serious situation needed to be thoroughly reviewed by the SFRC with an eye to protecting America’s national interests in a time of global climate change.
This SFRC hearing on climate change and national security was recently convened and included testimony by Admiral Joseph Prueher, former Commander if Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, General Charles Wald, former deputy commander of the U.S. European Command, Air Force, and Vice Admiral Richard Truly, a former shuttle astronaut and administrator at NASA, who was also the first commander of the Naval Space Command. JK’s statements at that hearing were unequivocal:
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“When a dozen of our most respected former admirals and generals discuss emerging threats to our national security, we must listen,” Senator Kerry said. “We know we have a ten year window to address global climate change before it’s too late. But now, it’s abundantly clear that global warming is not just an environmental threat—it’s also a national security imperative. If we’re serious about our national security, we better get serious today about combating global warming.
“Climate change is likely to result in extreme weather events, drought, flooding and sea level rise. Thanks to our witnesses, we now better understand that these natural disasters are likely to result in political instability in the most volatile regions of the world.
“It is now more imperative than ever to reduce our oil consumption and target global climate change as a major security threat. This is going to become an increasingly urgent matter as we work to create a stable Middle East and a safe home front, and I pledge to work with my colleagues to pass sound energy policy and an economy wide cap and trade bill to reduce our nation’s growing greenhouse gas emissions.”
When the Military Advisory Board’s report was released, several of its members spoke out publicly about their concerns, including retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, who said that “We will pay for this one way or another. We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today … or we’ll pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives.”
According to retired General Gordon Sullivan, chairman of the Military Advisory Board and former Army chief of staff, “We found that climate instability will lead to instability in geopolitics and impact American military operations around the world… People are saying they want to be perfectly convinced about climate science projections. But speaking as a soldier, we never have 100 percent certainty. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.”
Retired Navy Vice Admiral Richard Truly said in an interview when the report was released, “Unlike the challenges that we are used to dealing with, these will come upon us extremely slowly, but come they will, and they will be grinding and inexorable.” Truly added that “maybe more challenging is that climate change will affect every nation, and all simultaneously. This is why we need to study this issue now, so that we’ll be prepared and not overwhelmed by the required scope of our response when the time comes.”
In the same interview, retired Admiral T. Joseph Lopez said that “Climate change can provide the conditions that will extend the war on terror. Rising ocean water levels, droughts, violent weather, ruined national economies—those are the kinds of stresses we’ll see more of under climate change. ... In the long term, we want to address the underlying conditions that terrorists seek to exploit,” Admiral Lopez said. “But climate change will prolong those conditions. It makes them worse.”
Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, who is one of the authors, noted he had been “a little bit of a skeptic” when the study group began meeting in September. But, after being briefed by top climate scientists and observing changes in his native New England, Sullivan said he was now convinced that global warming presents a grave challenge to the country’s military preparedness.
“The trends are not good, and if I just sat around in my former life as a soldier, if I just waited around for someone to walk in and say, ‘This is with a hundred percent certainty,’ I’d be waiting forever,” he said.
Part of the sense of urgency, the generals said in interviews last week, stems from the fact that changing climatic conditions will make it harder for weak nation-states to address their citizens’ basic needs. The report notes, for example, that 40 percent of the world’s population gets at least half its drinking water from the summer melt of mountain glaciers that are rapidly disappearing.
“Many developing nations do not have the government and social infrastructures in place to cope with the type of stressors that could be brought about by global climate change,” the report states. “When a government can no longer deliver services to its people, ensure domestic order, and protect the nation’s borders from invasion, conditions are ripe for turmoil, extremism and terrorism to fill the vacuum.”
The study states that conflicts in regions such as Darfur and Somalia stemmed initially from a lack of resources, something that will only worsen with global warming.
Climate change is different from traditional military threats, according to report author Vice Adm. Richard H. Truly, because it’s not like “some hot spot we’re trying to handle.”
“It’s going to happen to every country and every person in the whole world at the same time,” Truly said.
The report also notes that some military bases probably will be compromised by climate change. Diego Garcia, an atoll in the southern Indian Ocean that U.S. and British forces use as a logistic hub for their Middle East operations, lies just a few feet above sea level. “Although the consequences to military readiness are not insurmountable, the loss of some forward bases would require longer range lift and strike capabilities and would increase the military’s energy needs,” the study says.
The military has contemplated the implications of climate change before: In 2004 it released a study of possible catastrophic global warming that was commissioned by Andrew Marshall, who directs the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment; four years earlier the Defense Department issued a report titled “Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Ozone Protection.”
It’s not just JK who’s paying serious attention to these serious issues, and it’s not just a matter of keeping one’s fingers crossed and hoping for the best. Intelligence planning needs to be done, but technological solutions can be developed and may even spur economic growth in the applicable markets as they come on line.
Senators Dick Durbin and Chuck Hagel have proposed a bill, the Global Climate Change Security Oversight Act, that would require all US intelligence agencies (including the CIA, the NSA, the Pentagon, and the FBI) to conduct a comprehensive review of potential security threats related to climate change around the world, particularly for countries and regions that are of economic or military interest to the United States. Rep. Ed Markey, chairman of the newly formed House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, is also proposing companion legislation that would fund climate change plans by the Department of Defense.
In a speech April 16 to BritishAmerican Business Inc., a trans-Atlantic business organization, British Foreign Secretary Beckett praised the growing actions of US business executives and state politicians in addressing climate change, including California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who along with British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced plans last year to work toward a possible joint emissions-trading market.
Ms. Beckett also told the business executives that clean technology is going to create a “massive” market opportunities:
“Those who move into that market first – first to design, first to patent, first to sell, first to invest, first to build a brand – have an unparalleled chance to make money.”
As a decorated combat veteran himself, JK has always stood firm when it comes to supporting the troops. As an influential Senator, he authored the Military Family Bill of Rights legislation and has continued to fight for proper treatment of active-duty troops, returning veterans, and their families on a wide range of issues from proper medical treatment for wounded service members to fair military pay raises. As Chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, he’s also standing up for the economic welfare of military personnel at home as well as in the field.
As PRNewswire reported, earlier this week JK sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Defense Secretary Robert Gates demanding details on the agency’s continual shortfalls in meeting federally-mandated procurement goals for service-disabled veteran-owned businesses.
“America’s service-disabled veteran entrepreneurs have selflessly sacrificed for our nation,” JK said at the time. “The very least their government can do is ensure a level playing field exists for them to compete for lucrative federal contracts, especially with the Department of Defense. Secretary Gates needs to clear the air and affirm once and for all the Defense Department is accountable to federal law.”
Despite a 1999 law establishing the government-wide 3 percent contracting goal with service-disabled veteran-owned businesses, the Defense Department has never met this standard. The agency accounts for roughly 70 percent of all government procurement spending, yet its repeated inability to meet service-disabled veteran contracting goals makes it all but impossible for the federal government as a whole to meet the 3 percent goal.
JK expressed concern about reports that Defense Department personnel are telling veterans that the agency is not beholden to the 3 percent contracting goal, and called on Gates to shed immediate light on the situation.
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Following are excerpts from the letter JK sent to Secretary Gates last week:
Dear Secretary Gates:
I am writing concerning the Department of Defense’s policy with respect to contracting with service-disabled veteran owned businesses (SDVOBs). Although Congress enacted a government-wide procurement goal of three percent for service-disabled veteran owned businesses, every year since that law has been in place the Department of Defense has failed to meet that contracting goal. In light of the honorable sacrifices that service-disabled veterans have made for our country, I urge you to do everything in your power to meet and exceed the three percent goal required by law.
As you know, in 1999, Congress enacted Public Law 106-50 which set the government-wide procurement goal of three percent with SDVOBs. The law also called on each agency to determine the “maximum practicable opportunity” for these firms (Title 15 Chapter 14A section 644 (g) (1)).
The Department of Defense accounts for nearly 70 percent of all federal procurement spending, totaling an estimated $219 billion in FY2005. Given that reality, it is virtually impossible for the entire federal government to meet the law’s three percent goal for SDVOBs without the Department of Defense. However, in 2005, the Department of Defense awarded a mere .499 percent of contracts to service-disabled owned firms. It is hard to believe that less than one half of one percent of all defense contracts is the “maximum practicable opportunity” for the Defense Department to do business with SDVOBs.
I am especially disturbed by reports that Department of Defense personnel are telling veterans that the agency is not bound by the three percent goal for contracting with SDVOBs. Given these reports and the lack of progress in meeting the SDVOB goal, I would like an immediate explanation of the Department’s policy for contracting with SDVOBs. Please provide a clear statement as to whether the agency intends to meet the three percent contracting goal. If the Department of Defense is not attempting to meet the three percent contracting goal, has the agency formally established its own contracting goal for service-disabled veterans? And if so, what is that goal? Specifically, what is the Department of Defense doing to improve its record on contracting with service-disabled veteran owned businesses?
In another matter, on January 31, the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship held a hearing entitled, “Assessing Federal Small Business Assistance Programs for Veterans and Reservists.” One of the witnesses at that hearing was Ms. Linda Oliver, Interim Acting Director of the Office of Small Business. A number of Senators submitted questions to Ms. Oliver to answer in writing for the record, but it has been over three months, and we still have not received her responses. Enclosed, please find a copy of those questions. I respectfully request responses to them within one week of the receipt of this letter.
Thank you for your attention to this matter of critical importance to me as a veteran, and to the millions of service-disabled veterans who continue to honorably serve their country by contributing to the economy as successful entrepreneurs.
Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. Some are heroes on the field of battle, like the troops serving our country in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some are heroes in the face of crisis, like police and firefighters and EMT’s. Some of them are environmental heroes, like Cheryl Osimo and Dr. Julia Brody and others who we’ve written about in this space before.
"Cambodia is like broken glass," says Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia. "Without justice, we cannot put the pieces together." Putting the pieces together is the mission of the man who made himself the keeper of Cambodia's darkest memories.
Standing up to powerful forces that feared reopening the past, Chhang has documented the three years, eight months and 20 days of cruelty that claimed the lives of 1.7 million Cambodians under Pol Pot's genocidal Khmer Rouge. Six hundred thousand pages of documents, maps of 20,000 mass graves and 4,000 transcribed interviews with former Khmer Rouge soldiers are testimony to Chhang's conviction that there is no future without making peace with the past. They will provide the evidence at a long-delayed tribunal on the genocide, which it is hoped will finally start this year.
Confronting painful history is never easy. But for Chhang, 46, it is personal. Under Pol Pot, his sister was accused of stealing rice. A soldier slashed open her stomach to prove her guilt. Her stomach was empty. She died a slow and horrible death. This is one of the unspeakable acts that have gone not only unpunished but unexplained.
The tribunal will allow the world to hear the architects of these crimes speak about why they inflicted such suffering. In pain revisited, there will be a chance for a nation's healing -- and in Youk Chhang, a hero confronting the past's villains.
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Those who read that Time issue when it was first published probably found themselves wondering who Youk Chhang was, and why John Kerry was chosen by the editors to write about him.
The first questions were answered often over the course of the following week or two, as the results of Chhang's tireless activities to document that terrible period in Cambodian history finally made it into mainstream press here in the west. But Chhang's quiet heroism, and his direct connection to those outside Cambodia who were to become part of his quest to make the truth about that those terrible years part of the official history books, was also documented in articles such as this one that was published in the Christian Science Monitor in July of 2006:
The man who tracked Cambodia's war crimes
Youk Chhang has come a long way since the day he stood outside the Texas A&M campus in College Station waving a cardboard sign that read "Stop the Cambodian Killing." Back then - it was 1987 -- if Chhang could convince just three people to listen to what he had to say about the crimes of the former Khmer Rouge regime, he was having a good day.
"They felt sorry for me," Chhang says, from behind his desk in Phnom Penh. "They said 'look at this skinny Cambodian refugee.' But I felt in my gut I had to do something."
His life's work has come to fruition with the swearing in this month of 17 Cambodian and 10 international judges to form the Khmer Rouge tribunal. As the investigative phase gets under way, the judges are expected to begin indicting the surviving leaders - one of whom died Friday - for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians during the 1975-1979 Pol Pot regime.
Much of the investigative work will rely upon documents compiled by Chhang, who went from protesting outside universities to studying genocide documentation inside their gates. The Cambodian-American heads the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DCC) in Phnom Penh, an internationally funded nongovernmental organization that has spent years compiling evidence on the Khmer Rouge's internal workings.
Chhang's work with the DCC has been of inestimable value. As Time magazine's Asian edition noted previously in its 2005 "60 Years of Asian Heroes" edition, "For more than a decade, Youk Chhang has been Cambodia's conscience. If today there is a real possibility of bringing at least some of the former Khmer Rouge leaders before the international tribunal that will begin hearings next year, he, more than anyone, is responsible." It has not been a simple process getting to this point, though. As writer Tom Fawthrop pointed out in this recent piece for The Guardian UK's website,
It has taken decades to set up an international tribunal investigating Khmer Rouge war crimes and the process remains fraught.
The Khmer Rouge nightmare that terrorised Cambodia during the 1970s ended nearly 30 years ago. In Rwanda and Sierra Leone, the wheels of justice turned quickly, with tribunals investigating events that kicked off within a few years of the mass killing.
For Cambodians, it has been an agonisingly long wait for justice. Since the Khmer Rouge tribunal was finally established in Phnom Penh in 2006, they have been kept waiting again, with legal squabbles over rules of evidence delaying the indictment stage, when some senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge would be formally charged under international law with crimes against humanity and genocide.
This hybrid tribunal, with international and Cambodian judges sitting together as co-prosecutors, was also adopted by the Sierra Leone tribunal. A special UN mission is in charge of legal assistance to the tribunal.
So there's no question that Youk Chhang is a hero, someone who has worked for many years against long odds to bring justice to millions of murdered Cambodians who cannot speak up for themselves. After decades of struggle, his efforts are finally bearing fruit in the form of long-delayed official tribunals investigating the causes and creators of such terrible systemic genocide against innocent civilians. The wheels of justice may turn slowly, but turn they do; and thanks to the tireless advocacy of Youk Chhang, they are finally turning in Cambodia after all these years.
But how does John Kerry fit into this picture? As veteran JK blogger ProSense pointed out in a typically well-researched post to Democratic Underground, it was "Senator John Kerry who brokered the U.N.'s Cambodian-genocide tribunal. ... Senator Kerry entered the negotiations at a time when there were concerns about the country’s corrupt legal system, the talks were on the verge of collapse and a judicial power struggle over who would lead the trial was ongoing. Senator Kerry stepped in to offer a compromise, establishing a framework for the tribunal, known as The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)."
We strongly recommend reading ProSense's exhaustively-detailed report on what she refers to as the Kerry-Brokered Cambodia Tribunal, not just for the information about Youk Chhang and the Khmer Rouge tribunal itself but for the entire panoply of historical events surrounding it. JK did have a key role to play in that process, as one of the many sources she cited noted while laying out a timeline for the events in Cambodia:
In 1997, at the suggestion of the U.N. Special Representative of the Secretary General to Cambodia, Thomas Hammarberg, the co-Prime Ministers of Cambodia requested assistance from the U.N. in establishing a tribunal. David Scheffer went to Cambodia to design a proposal acceptable to the Cambodian government. The U.N. appointed a Commission of Experts which in 1999 recommended establishment of an international tribunal outside Cambodia.
Years of negotiations followed. The U.N. Office of Legal Affairs tried to impose a U.N.- run tribunal. Cambodia insisted that the tribunal be majority Cambodian, under Cambodian law. At the suggestion of U.S. Senator John Kerry, who went to Cambodia, agreement was reached in 2001 on a mixed tribunal with a Cambodian majority, but requiring super-majority agreement by international judges for all decisions. Administration would be shared by Cambodian and U.N. officials, prosecutors, and investigating judges. The maximum penalty would be life in prison. The Cambodian National Assembly passed a law to establish the tribunal on those terms.
Yes, Youk Chhang is a genuine hero, both for the Cambodian people and for the world community at large. He deserves all our gratitude for standing up on behalf of those who can no longer stand up for themselves. And JK deserves our gratitude as well for being part of the process that will finally help to finally put their souls at peace, and for making sure that heroes like Youk Chhang get the recognition they deserve.
Behind the scenes in Washington, a bipartisan coalition of foreign policy experts, issue advocates, military professionals, and political leaders of all persuasions has quietly been coalescing into a newly-announced organization that is dedicated to changing America’s relationship with the world.
The American Security Project has been in the planning and construction stages for a while now, but it made its formal public debut with a high-profile presentation and press conference at the National Press Club yesterday. The most newsworthy elements of its announcement had to do with the results of a nationwide survey it conducted regarding public attitudes on national security:
The results of the survey reveal a country that is tired of war, concerned about the country’s loss of moral authority, and receptive to new approaches to national security, stressing multilateralism over a go-it-alone approach.
Americans believe we are losing the ‘war on terror’ by a 51 to 34 percent margin and losing the war in Iraq by an even greater 62 to 27 percent margin. A plurality of the public, 44 percent, believe we are losing in Afghanistan, compared to 38 percent who believe we are winning. A majority, 57 percent, believe we are slipping backwards in Afghanistan.
However, even in light of the war fatigue, this survey also demonstrates that Americans remain committed to participation in world affairs. By a nearly 2:1 ratio, most support U.S. engagement through multilateral actions and international organizations.
Nearly two thirds of all those surveyed, 62 percent, believe that America’s moral authority in the world has declined since 2001. A remarkable 93 percent believe that declining moral authority is a serious challenge to American national security—a belief that extends across all demographics and political affiliations.
Americans remain concerned about the risks of future terrorist attacks. Of those surveyed, 49 percent believe the war in Iraq has increased the likelihood of an attack against the United States. Even more striking, 72 percent of Americans believe there will be another terrorist attack inside the United States within the next two years.
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The American Security Project’s mission is to bring people together in new ways to create a new awareness of global policy and security issues as it affects individuals everywhere, as this press release notes:
ASP is a non-profit initiative organized around the belief that honest public discussion of national security requires a better-informed citizenry—one that understands the dangers and opportunities of the twenty-first century and the spectrum of available responses.
ASP exists to help Americans, from opinion leaders to the general public, understand how national security issues directly relate to them. Challenges will be explained in plain language. Threats will be described to spur constructive action, not to incite fear. Models for leadership will be devised for future needs. Principled solutions will be developed and communicated across broad platforms.
America needs a new national security vision for this new era and a dialogue at home that is as robust as it is realistic.
While the American Security Project may be a relatively new player on the national scene, the people behind it are anything but newbies when it comes to the serious business of protecting America's interests in a rapidly-changing world:
The Honorable Gary Hart, Chairman Senator Hart served the State of Colorado in the U.S. Senate and was a member of the Committee on Armed Services during his tenure.
The Honorable Richard L. Armitage
Richard L. Armitage is President of Armitage International.
Lael Brainard
Dr. Brainard is Vice President and Director of the Global Economy Development Center and holds the Bernard L. Schwartz Chair in International Economics at the Brookings Institution.
Brigadier General Stephen A. Cheney, USMC (Ret.)
Brigadier General Cheney is the President of the Marine Military Academy in Harlingen, Texas.
Lieutenant General Daniel Christman, USA (Ret.)
Lieutenant General Christman is Senior Vice President for International Affairs at the United States Chamber of Commerce.
Gregory B. Craig
Mr. Craig is a Partner at Williams and Connolly LLP.
Nelson Cunningham
Mr. Cunningham is Managing Partner of Kissinger McLarty Associates.
Vice Admiral Lee Gunn, USN (Ret.)
Vice Admiral Gunn is the President of the Institute of Public Research at The CNA Corporation, a non-profit corporation in Virginia.
Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy, USA (Ret.)
Lieutenant General Kennedy is the first, and thus far only, woman to achieve the rank of three-star general in the United States Army.
The Honorable John Kerry
Senator Kerry was the Democratic nominee for President in 2004 and represents the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States Senate.
The Honorable George Mitchell
Senator Mitchell is Partner and Chairman of the Global Board of DLA Piper, Rudnick, Gray, Cary.
Susan E. Rice
Dr. Rice is Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution.
The Honorable Warren B. Rudman
Senator Rudman represented the state of New Hampshire for two terms in the United States Senate.
David Thorne
Mr. Thorne is currently Founder and Director of Adviser Investment Management, Inc.
General Anthony Zinni, USMC (Ret.)
General Zinni is President of International Operations for M.I.C. Industries.
If some of those names look familiar to you, that’s because they certainly should. There are a variety of well-known and very well-qualified individuals making up this initiative, as the above list of its Board of Directors indicates. And if some of those one-sentence bios look surprising to you, perhaps they shouldn’t. A truly high-level think tank and policy center that purports to be bipartisan certainly ought to be able to include members of the conservative Brookings Institution, career military officers, current and former senior officers of government from both parties, and well-established representatives of the private sector if it is to have credibility on the global stage.
And credibility is something that the American Security Project definitely does have. While it’s only officially gone public this month, it’s already been active behind the scenes since it was first in the planning and creation stages. And as this report on its public debut this week from DefenseNews.com indicates, the key players behind the ASP have no intention of letting it keep a low profile during these crucial moments in history.
Sen. John Kerry and retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni blasted the Bush administration’s handling of U.S. foreign policy, calling May 16 for a new approach under which America would work more closely with other nations and place greater emphasis on “strategic thinking.”
Calling Washington’s current foreign policy plans “ill-defined and ill-directed,” Kerry said U.S. leaders should start a “new dialogue” on America’s actions and role in world affairs, he said.
U.S. officials need to “re-value strategic thinking” and craft policies that are clear and “understandable to the American people,” said Zinni, a former chief of U.S. Central Command.
Those in Washington now crafting American foreign policy have “over-politicized things … and only deal in the here and now,” Zinni said, taking a thinly-veiled swipe at the Bush administration and Congress. He called for a resurgence of leaders who “saw the broader picture,” such as Army Gen. George Marshall, who was chief of the American World War II effort. He also had stints leading the Departments of Defense and State.
The duo’s comments came during a briefing in Washington that was billed as the formal launch of a new think tank, dubbed the American Security Project.
The foreign policy debate in Washington has degenerated into nothing more than a “mud-slinging and gun-slinging affair,” said Kerry. He also said the nation must move away from “lowest-common-denominator politics,” which the senator said can too often “lead to rash actions.”
The new organization was the brainchild of Kerry over a year ago, said former Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo, the new organization’s chairman. Kerry said the group took a year to formally launch the think tank because he did not want the event to be linked to anything the Democratic nominee for president in 2004 “may or may not do” in the 2008 race for the White House.
One of the goals of the American Security Project will be determining where the American people stand on security-related issues and to “spur constructive action, not incite fear,” according to a May 9 statement announcing the group’s launch.
Saying many Washington think tanks seem to use high-brow language to “talk to themselves,” Kerry said the project will attempt to explain complex challenges “in English.” Members of the new organization are planning a 20-city U.S. tour aimed at sparking a debate about how America should best use its power and influence around the globe.
Mr. Hart announced the launch of the American Security Project in his ongoing blog at the Huffington Post this week. Kerry online media director Brian Young also discussed it in his Daily Kos diary, paying special note to the ASP’s intention to invite and encourage direct participation from the netroots community as it moves forward with its public-policy research and advocacy activities. The ASP also offers news updates and policy notifications by email via a citizen signup option on its website.
All things considered, not only is the emergence of the American Security Project a welcome new force for rational public and security policy on the national scene, it promises to be a valuable venue for average citizens to make their voices heard in Washington on the most critical issues facing our country and the world today.
Today is another big day on the step by step, vote by vote fight to set a new course in Iraq. We’ve come a long, long way from the days where Russ Feingold and I could only get 13 votes to set a deadline to redeploy American troops from Iraq and make Iraqis stand up for their own country.
But we still have a long way to go. And this is one of those “we’ve just begun to fight” moments.
I’m a cosponsor of the Feingold-Reid amendment that will be offered today that will use the power of the purse to force the President to take a new path in Iraq – if this Administration won’t change the mission in Iraq, Congress will change the mission on our own. We still face large obstacles in our path, but we are starting to break down the roadblocks that stand in the way.
Two weeks ago, I created a special campaign with our friends at ActBlue, the Roadblock Republicans campaign, to try to convince Republican colleagues to join us in pushing for a change of course.
Some people don’t think that’s the way things should be done in the Senate, but this isn’t personal, it’s about changing a deadly course that has cost us lives and made us less safe. Every day we delay is another day down the wrong path.
Hundreds of you responded to that campaign, donating to the funds set up by ActBlue, and writing messages to the Senators telling them what you’ve done. I just wanted to share a few of those messages (more can be found on my site):
My daughter is on permanent disability from her service. I thought your defeat might help other service families so I contributed to the campaign to get you defeated.
My son is an Army Ranger Medic, recently returned from Iraq and will once again go back in July to fight this awful unnecessary war. Keeping our sons and daughters in Iraq is wrong and I ask you to reconsider your position. Bring them home now!
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I was a Republican. Now I’m registered Independent.
I have given up on this Administration showing any signs of integrity or any willingness to do the will of the American people. The incidents of unfair play, sheer corruption, and the willingness to do anything for political gain or advantage have just been too much.
But I still hold out hope that the Republican members of the legislative branch will begin to recognize this administration for what it is and will begin to respond to the will of us American people. Call me an optimist…
Please take this message for it’s intent. The Republican Party has lost its way. Please come back.
Dear Senator:
Senator John Kerry is leading the charge against you and your fellow “Roadblock Republicans” – I couldn’t be more proud to join him in pushing ahead with an agenda that makes America strong and proud again. President Bush is leading this country to ruin – and those, like you, who enable him must be voted out of office.
Please reconsider your blind support for Bush and his failed Iraq war policies.
Thank you.
And your messages (these and others) are making a difference. You can start to see the strains this is putting on the GOP. ThinkProgress did a great job a few days ago rounding up some quotes. Here’s just one:
The heated meeting between the GOP moderates and Bush continued to reverberate through Capitol Hill yesterday, after several Republican conservatives told reporters that they shared the moderates’ fears that the war is wrecking the party. “There is no liberal-conservative divide on Iraq,” said one House GOP conservative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of angering the White House further. [Washington Post, 5/11/07]
I don’t care about the future of the Republican Party; I care about the safety of our troops and the strength of our security – but if political pressure will bring these Republicans to a place of common sense and conscience in standing up to their President, then that’s what it takes.
So today we vote again. I’m proudly standing up and declaring my support for the Feingold-Reid amendment. And I urge all of you to contact your Senators and let them know how you feel on this most important issue.
This fight is not going to be over until we get a new course in Iraq. I promise you that.
As noted in a previous blog entry, on Saturday we had the pleasure and the privilege of joining JK & THK, a few hundred bookstore guests, and a double handful of local media types for a “This Moment on Earth” book event in greater Pittsburgh, PA.
While we’ve written often in this space about the book, its contents, and other stops on the ongoing series of TMOE Tour appearances by JK and THK, today we’d like to follow up on the previous post by talking about the other people who were in the room on Saturday, too.
Certainly, JK and THK wanted to spend some time talking to local folks about their book - more specifically, talking about the issues and especially the people that they wrote about in their book - and the local folks also wanted a chance to see, hear, and get their copies of TMOE signed by JK and THK. So that’s why the event took place. But it’s not really what the event was about.
Yes, TMOE was the cause and the Kerrys were the catalyst. But the real message of the day wasn’t just about the book, or even about the book’s authors. The real message was all about the Pittsburgh people who participated in the occasion, as attendees and staffers and bloggers and reporters, and about what made their shared experience on Saturday so special for each of them in turn.
(video by GlobalVillage)
First, a recap from the bloggers’ point of view—regular JK blog contributors GlobalVillage and wisteria were there for the occasion, as were representatives of Pittsburgh’s sizable contingent of intrepid political/environmental/cultural bloggers. The Fox Chapel Barnes & Noble store’s management and staff graciously set aside extra space for the bloggers in the media section of the already-crowded seating area, and they were also provided with the same level of access to JK and THK that the more traditional media representatives were.
The idea of treating bloggers as legitimate media representatives is not as uncommon now as it was even just a few years ago. Nowadays we think nothing of seeing big-name bloggers morphing into news-show celebrities or writing bylined op-ed columns in Time magazine. (For that matter, nowadays we think nothing of seeing news-show celebrities and Time magazine columnists morphing into bloggers, too.)
But it’s not just big-name bloggers who are part of the TMOE experience. At every stop on this JK/THK book tour, bloggers of all kinds have been invited and encouraged to participate. Some of them have well-known blogs on a national level, some have blogs that are recognized on a regional level, some have relatively low-circulation blogs, and some don’t even have blogs of their own at all (preferring to write for shared group blogs and for the bigger blogsites like DU, dKos, and FDL instead.)
This extra level of inclusiveness is not accidental. It’s not a calculated public-relations move on the part of back-room media consultants, either. It’s just the way things are when it comes to JK, THK, and their personal connection to their cyberspace constituencies. They have a great deal of respect, not to mention genuine affection, for the diverse blogging community that they view as being part of their extended Kerry family.
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That sense of personal connection to the online community was clearly evident during this Saturday’s event, when JK and THK insisted on making time in their packed schedule to sit down with bloggers for a special one-on-one interview. And sit down they certainly did, as GlobalVillage described in her DU thread about the day’s happenings:
I wasn’t the least bit surprised that the Senator offered the only three chairs in the room to Teresa and the two women bloggers in the group, and made do with a cardboard box. The conversation was as informal as the setting, as the Senator answered a question from one of the bloggers about how to deal with pseudo science and climate change deniers. Senator Kerry noted that the real science around climate change is peer reviewed and that anything put out by the flat earthers isn’t. When Inhofe’s name was called out by someone in the group, the Senator referred to him as the “leader of the Flat Earth Conference”.
Sadly, there’s no good way to sequester what Inhofe spews, so voting him out of office is about the only solution.
Dayvoe, the Pittsburgh-area blogger who asked that particular question, also got a chance to write about the experience on his 2 Political Junkies blog:
We were graciously given a few minutes of the Kerry’s time before the book event to ask a question or two. As I was the tallest of the bloggers there, it seemed only natural for me to go first. I asked when dealing with environmental questions, how does one deal with the large amount of pseudoscience masquerading as science?
Senator Kerry pointed out that all the science in his book is fully annotated, that there are 928 peer reviewed studies that all point out that human beings are actively contributing to global climate change. Peer-review, he added, is the system used by the scientific community whereby a study is submitted anonymously to a separate group of scientists (ergo “peer”) for the methodology and data to be checked. The point being, of course, that if it makes it into a peer-reviewed journal, the science is solid.
Of the studies that disagree, he said, none are published in peer-reviewed journals. The evidence is so overwhelming that one would have to a member of the “flat-Earth caucus (Senator Inhofe, presiding)” in order to believe otherwise.
Not to be outdone, however, GV then trumped her text-based blogging colleague dayvoe by posting a video recording of that very answer to her YouTube channel (a recording in which you can see the easy intimacy that JK and THK always exude when they’re meeting with their blogging constituents, not to mention the matter-of-fact cardboard-box casualness that GV mentioned in her description of the seating arrangements).
Perhaps sensing a challenge, members of the local broadcast media managed to step up and claim equal space with the bloggers at this event. WPXI covered it with video footage in their evening news broadcast on Saturday, but KDKA took it to the next level with streaming web-video presentations of two clips from their evening and morning broadcasts and also with the full uncut videotape of their one-on-one interview with JK and THK, all of which can be viewed on the KDKA website here.
As we noted in our earlier post, the room itself was packed full of people eager to hear what JK and THK had to say on Saturday. There were two hundred folding chairs carefully laid out down a long narrow space between the bookshelves in the center of the store, with the first few rows reserved for media representatives and to bloggers respectively. Admittance to the event was free of charge, of course, but due to the limited seating space available those who wished to stay for the discussion and the book signing were asked to arrive early and were given a brightly-colored wristband with a number matching that on the chair that was assigned to them for the duration.
At the close of the Q&A session, the store staff directed the attendees row by row to step between the bookshelves to their left and queue up for a return loop past the table where JK and THK were signing their copies of the books as they passed by on their way to the front of the store. It was a well-planned and well-executed strategy, and it worked quite well to keep things moving along without everything getting clogged up tighter than rush-hour traffic on the Beltway.
There were a few inevitable interruptions in the steady flow of movement, though. Part of that was caused by the bloggers ourselves, as we tried to pack up our laptops and get out of the tightly-packed seating rows as adeptly as possible. As I pointed out in the previous post and at greater length in this comment on DU afterwards, it was very gracious of the bookstore’s management and staff to accommodate the relatively late-breaking addition of a half-dozen bloggers to their seating plan when they already knew that their store would be filled to its maximum practical capacity by those wanting to come see and hear JK and THK speak in their hometown:
They have a store that’s not exactly ideally laid out for high-attendance book events such as this one, but Susan Hillman (the Customer Relations Manager for that particular BN branch store) and the rest of her staff had everything carefully planned out in advance to handle the expected extra traffic in a timely and expeditious manner.
The store and its staff did a beautiful job of setting things up so that everyone who attended the event had the best experience possible. Everyone there with BN - which included people from other stores and extra volunteers they brought in for the event - were very professional, very friendly, and very pleased to have the chance to be part of this particular happening. They made everything work as well for we pesky bloggers as possible, just as we did everything we could to make their lives as easy as possible given the circumstances.
I understand they did excellent business as a result of their hosting this unusually high-profile book signing event; and that is great news, because they definitely deserve the success they earned with it. Everyone involved with the event on B&N’s end, from store staff to add-on employees & volunteers, deserve all the props we can give them for what they did on that day and for how well they did it. Without them, none of it would have come off anywhere near as it did for all concerned.
A different kind of challenge to the traffic plan was caused by the attendees themselves, though. Rather than just grabbing their books and heading out to their cars, they tended to linger around after the event was over so that they could continue to discuss the issues that were brought up in the book and in the Kerrys’ remarks. People who had asked questions during the Q&A were given additional answers by other attendees, and those who didn’t have time to ask their questions during the event itself got a chance to ask them afterwards in small clusters of exited, involved individuals. It was an informal but no less significant impromptu symposium cum conference cum classroom, and those in attendance were clearly excited to be a part of it.
Several groups of well-qualified, well-informed environmental activists took advantage of the opportunity to keep exchanging information and resources with each other even after the book part of the event was long over. Documentary filmmakers and global-climate scientists eagerly networked with clean-coal specialists and activists bushing to change the way our government regulates the industries and corporations that have been allowed to ignore the consequences of their actions for too many years now.
The same thing has happened at each of the other stops on this TMOE Tour. In every city, it’s not just a book-signing moment or a chance for people to shake hands with a well-known author and then go on their separate ways. It’s an invigorating, eye-opening experience that brings people together and helps them forge new connections and alliances with those who feel the same way they do about saving our planet before it’s too late. It’s about people realizing that they really can take correction action themselves rather than passively awaiting their fates.
And that is, after all, the whole reason that JK and THK wrote the book in the first place. So it’s good to see how effectively their message is getting across each time they get a chance to talk to people in their own personal, impassioned ways. Pittsburgh blogger and photographer spork_incident described the net experience up quite well in the post he wrote for his A Spork in the Drawer blog the next morning:
Summarizing their book, the Senator said: “This book is, really, an optimistic book. It should make you angry for five minutes, ten minutes, we hope, and then transfer that into the inspiration that comes out of the stories of all the people we write about and the great things they’ve accomplished. Average citizens who’ve made changes and who fought the government to get the accountability and enforcement that they deserve and the law says they should have.”
What separates this book from Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ is the focus on everyday people who have practical solutions to the environmental problems facing us. “I was involved in the first Earth Day in 1970.
Twenty million people came out and said, ‘We’re gonna change things.’ They created the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, and even the Environmental Protection Agency was signed into existence by Richard Nixon in 1972 because of that effort. We made the environment a voting issue.”
Mrs. Kerry summed it up best: “This book is a reaffirmation of the quality of thinking and conversation that the American people shared with us on the road.”
One more note about Mother’s Day. One of the JK blogging community, aRoseforJK, pointed out a story that appeared in The Berkshire Eagle.
It seems that someone chose to steal a flag that honored a Marine from his mother’s property. The Berkshire Eagle reported the theft in their story, “Theft of patriotism”.
When Jessica Swail’s son, Pfc. Mitchell Keil, left for boot camp last year, she hung a Marine Corps flag next to the U.S. flag in front of her house.
Next to it, she mounted a metal plaque that proclaimed, “This property protected by the U.S. Marines.”
Last Friday, she discovered that both the Marine flag and plaque had been stolen.
“That is something I look at every time I come in the driveway,” Swail said. “It’s a reminder of him. I just cannot believe someone took it.”
Keil, 19, a 2006 Wahconah Regional High School graduate, is based at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. He’ll soon be leaving for desert training, with an assignment to Iraq expected to follow, Swail said.
“I don’t believe in the war, but I have to support my Marine — I’m so proud of him,” Swail said.
She reported the theft to the police right away. "There's nothing they can do, I know that," she said. "I just wanted it on the record."
There are some people who chose to do something to try to put it right. And The Berkshire Eagle followed up on that part of the story a couple days later in “Marine mom comforted”.
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Later in the day, Louis Robesch, commander of the Marine Corps League of Pittsfield, gave her a new Marine Corps flag — a gesture Swail said proved most meaningful to her.
And yesterday afternoon, Brigid M. O’Rourke, press secretary for U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry, paid Swail a visit. At Kerry’s request, O’Rourke presented Swail with another Marine Corps flag, one that had flown over the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., as well as a new plaque.
A short time later, Kerry telephoned Swail.
“He said he read the story in The Berkshire Eagle and he was outraged,” she said tearfully after their conversation. “I didn’t expect people to give me things. I just wanted people to know someone stole my flag.”
Swail said she was honored by the senator’s gesture and would rehang the flag — although higher in the tree this time. “It’s been an emotional day,” she said.
The plaque Kerry sent was worded slightly differently from the original: “This property is protected by the U.S. Marines, in honor of PFC. Mitchell Keil’s service to our country and a Mother’s Love.”
To those who took the time to set matters right for Ms. Swail, thanks.
But even more heartfelt thanks go to all our troops and their moms. Printed words seem so inadequate but they’re what we have. Thank you all.
UPDATE: And here’s an update from a Marine’s mom that I quoted in “The Reasons Why” last Wednesday. In short, while she and her daughter-in-law were preparing to go to the memorial services for members of her son’s unit last Friday, she got word that there had been another IED explosion and her son was injured. She tells us about the call in her post “And the Beat Goes On”. But then she went on to write one of the most powerful pieces on Mothers Day that I’ve read, “Toughest Love of All”.
Yesterday we mentioned that we’d been part of the most recent “This Moment on Earth” book event in Pittsburgh. There have been some good followup discussions of that event on this site and elsewhere, as noted in the ongoing comments and updates to that previous post. Tomorrow we’ll be doing a more detailed retrospective of the event and a roundup of related blog posts in this space.
Today, though, is Mother’s Day. And since it seems like much of the blogosphere is taking time today to pause and reflect on the various levels of meaning that the occasion has for individuals everywhere - including the fact that the genesis of Mother’s Day itself is actually not just an artificially concocted greeting-card and gift-selling excuse, but a genuine cry for peace on earth - it seems appropriate to stop and list Mother Earth as one the mothers that we know and love and need to take proper care of on this day dedicated to their kind.
I’d originally written the following essay for another website back on March 30 of this year, after participating in one of the first blogger conference calls with John and Teresa Heinz Kerry for the “This Moment on Earth” book tour. Since Mother Earth is the ultimate mother of us all, and since recycling is a very earth-friendly activity, then bringing that essay back to share here seems like a very friendly thing to do for Mom on her special day.
So… have you hugged your Mother yet today?
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You know, it’s not every day that a guy gets to start off a blog entry by saying, “Well, so I just got off the phone with John and Teresa Kerry, and this is what they said to tell you…”
But I did in fact just get off the phone with John and Teresa Kerry, and this is what they said to tell you (paraphrased into my own words, of course, I can only scribble notes with a phone held to my ear so fast…)
—Preserving our planet is not an intellectual exercise. It is an ethical issue, a moral imperative, a calling, an obligation. If you are a person of faith, then that should inform your actions here on the Earth that we inhabit. Even if you do not profess a particular form of faith, your ethics and your own morality as a human being call you to be a steward of the world around you. It’s the right thing to do, on all levels.
—The Earth that we inhabit is one interconnected entity, and we are all part of it. The Amazon rain forests have thrived for countless millenniae despite their growing in an average of only six inches of earth because of the complex system of plants, animals, and so forth that thrive by living together there. We need to act to preserve those rain forests; we also need to act to preserve each other, because we are the environment and the environment is us.
—The environment per se may be bigger than each of us are ourselves, but it is still approachable and accessible to all of us on an individual level. Signing global treaties and passing pro-environment legislation is one thing, but what really makes a difference is what average everyday people (like you, and you, and you, not to mention me and the guy over there talking on his cell phone) can do when they care enough to take action in their own backyards.
—Yes, the science behind all the warnings we’re getting about climate change these days is daunting. But admitting that is not just a pointless cry for help. We can, we should, and we are changing things for the better every day now, and what that means is that we could and should do even more every chance we get.
Well, there ya go. And that’s what the real message that John and Teresa wanted me to share with you today is:
—Hope, not fear.
—Belief, not bewilderment.
—Action, not avoidance.
“Bless the beasts and children” is not just a bible-school quote or a bumper-sticker catch phrase, y’all. It’s an encouragement, a call to service, a request for assistance, a cry for help, a mantra to be mumbled and a demand to be shouted from the ramparts.
The Earth is your mother, and your mother needs your help. How can you possibly say no to that?
(Oh, yeah, and lest we forget why I was on the phone with John and Teresa Kerry in the first place…)
Today we’re posting from scenic Pittsburgh, PA, where we’re joining John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry at the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Waterworks Mall for the latest stop on the TMOE Tour. There’s been a lot of buzz building in Steeltown about this event, so we’re expecting quite a turnout today. (THK and JK being Pittsburgh residents themselves, the locals are always happy to have them drop by and say hello whenever they can get away from Washington for a weekend.)
Local news media will be covering the event, of course, but so will several Pittsburgh area bloggers who are here to participate in a special Q&A session with JK and THK before the main event begins. Veteran Kerrybloggers GlobalVillage and wisteria are in town for the occasion as well. So we’ll have plenty of good material to keep updating this blog entry with as the day goes by—including on-the-spot live coverage as it happens. Stay tuned!
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As you can see in the photos from GV’s DU thread about this event, the Barnes & Noble store in Fox Chapel was packed very full of people for this event. Their traffic planning was excellent, though, their staff was uniformly impressive, and they deserve all the props I gave them in this comment, and then some. (Thanks, y’all!)
This was not accidental, by the way - both JK and THK are very appreciative of their loyal blogging community, as they are of all their online supporters, and that’s why their staff and the publishers of their book have made a particular point of ensuring blogger access at all the TMOE events. (Thanks, Vince! Thanks, Whitney!) Even though they were crunched for time, the Kerrys insisted on setting aside some special time for bloggers at this event - as this video grab that GV posted of of the duly-noted box-vs-chair JK stockroom interview indicates.
Well-known Pittsburgh blogger Dayvoe of ‘2 Political Junkies’ was present for that stockroom interview, and he not only dashed off a few cellphone camera pix from the event for his co-blogger Maria to post in real time here, he followed it up with a full report written in his inimitably personal style here as well.
Unlike Dayvoe, fellow Pittsburgh blogger spork_incident is a photographer first and a writer second. He posted the first few snaps of his Saturday experience with us on his ‘A Spork in the Drawer’ blog here and then followed it up with a more detailed report here.
Not to be outdone, members of the local Pittsburgh media apparently decided that they really needed to step up and claim equal space with the bloggers at this event. The Post-Gazette newspaper sent a print reporter and WPXI covered it with video footage in their evening news broadcast on Saturday, but KDKA seems to have lapped the pack with its web-based streaming video presentation of not only two clips from their evening and morning broadcasts but with the full uncut videotape of their one-on-one interview with JK and THK, all of which can be viewed on their television station’s website here.
The most important stories from the event, though, the most meaningful moments and the things that made it so much more special than your average run-of-the-mill book-signing session, were the unplanned but not entirely unanticipated interactions between the people who were there attending the event. They don’t have bully pulpits or broadcast microphones or even basic blogs, but the energy they brought to the room was palpable.
Some of the people who came to the Barnes & Noble store yesterday were there just to get their books signed by somebody special. But most of them were not. And they stayed around for a long time after the event just cross-connecting with each other (much to the inconvenience of the bookstore staff who had to reset the room back to its normal configuration, but they were very understanding and for that we are most grateful) and you could sense the energy crackling back and forth as they exchanged information and built new coalitions of environmentally-activist individuals right there on the spot.
Which, is, of course, the whole reason that John and Teresa Heinz Kerry wrote “This Moment on Earth” in the first place… and is also the subject of an upcoming followup post about “This Moment in Pittsburgh—II”
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