Have you heard? There’s a new Clinton campaign video out. Watch it here:

3 AM! Pantsuits! Phone! Victory!

The following is the full text of remarks made this afternoon by Robert Sussman, former Deputy Administrator of the EPA, at the Environmentalists for Obama Panel Discussion on February 29, 2008 taking place at the Moritz College of Law in Columbus, Ohio. Listen in to hear Sussman’s remarks for yourself, or read the transcript below:

Well, I’m the lead-off hitter today and what we’re going to do, each of us is going to speak for around ten or fifteen minutes if we can restrain ourselves, and then we’re going to throw it open for questions and dialogue with the audience. You’re not going to a have a lot of competition in asking questions, so don’t be shy about unloading on us.

I wanted to start off talking generally about Barack Obama as an environmental leader, and then talk about Barack’s positions on energy and climate change too. Very important issues that are on the front burner, would be on the front burner of any new administration. I ought to mention that I was a presidential appointee in the Clinton administration which was a fabulous and terrific experience, and I have certainly a lot of respect for Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, but I have not had any misgivings at all about supporting Barack Obama because I think he is the man of the moment. He is the man who speaks to what America needs right now, and has the potential to deliver for this country in a way that I think Mrs. Clinton for all of her abilities and talents just doesn’t. Barack Obama has positions on many issues, but the environment is very important to him. It always has been a signature issue of his, starting in his days in the Illinois legislature, where he not only was outspoken on a lot of issues but got a lot of things done. He’s been given the highest rating that a Senator can get from the League of Conservation voters on the basis of his voting record, and he got a 100% rating by the Illinois Environmental Council when he was in the Illinois legislature.

I think what Barack brings to these issues is not only a deep understanding but commitment and perseverence and I think a real determination to make some very substantial changes in how our country addresses energy and climate change. I have a lot of confidence that Barack Obama’s going to deliver because of his passion, because of his leadership abilities, and because of his innovative skills and success in bringing people together of all persuasions, getting them to talk to each other and getting them to commit to a common goal. That’s what we really need to do on energy and climate change, where the challenges are truly vast and difficult and yet the need for action is extremely urgent.

Why is there a need for action? We have, I think, two significant Achilles’ heels in this country. One is our dependence on fossil fuels for energy, which leads us to import a huge amount of oil from countries around the world, many of which are not sympathetic to the United States or politically stable. Our dependence on fossil fuels has also resulted in the United States until very recently being the #1 emitter in the world of greenhouse gases, which contribute to climate change. On both of those issues, we need to move the needle very dramatically. We need to take strong and far-reaching steps to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases, and we need to radically change our energy economy so that we are more efficient, we are less dependent on foreign oil, so that we create jobs in the energy sector here in the United States instead of creating jobs in the Middle East.

Barack Obama has a very comprehensive and I think visionary plan to get us where we need to go. I just want to highlight a couple of aspects of it and we can explore the issues in more detail if people have questions. First, on climate change: Barack Obama is committed to an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and that is the level of reduction that our scientists say that we need to avoid unacceptable increases in global temperatures. We need to be resolute. We need to have very strong goals and targets and we need to stick to those golden targets and that is I think what Barack Obama will do. He would put in place a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Basically, that’s a system in which there is a national limit on the amount of greenhouse gases that can be released into the atmosphere, and there are allowances or permits which would be traded by emitters in order to stay under that limit. As part of his cap-and-trade system, Barack would auction 100% of the emission allowances, and that’s based on the principle that releasing emissions into the atmosphere is not an entitlement. There’s no right to pollute, and people who emit should suffer economic consequences for emitting, and if they do they will have incentives to reduce their emissions to move to better and cleaner technologies. Barack has a long program to deal with global warming, and I think he has the understanding of the issue and the leadership skills to deliver on that program.

He also has a bold program to change our energy mix in this country. He’s proposing that we reduce consumption of gasoline by 30% by 2030, which would be a reduction of 10 million barrels a day from where we are today, and to achieve that reduction we’re going to need to do a number of things. We’re going to need to continue to increase the fuel efficiency of cars that are on the road. We’re going to need to accelerate development and deployment of new vehicle technologies like plug-in hybrids. We’re going to need to substitute renewable fuels which would produced here in the United States for petroleum, imported petroleum, in our transportation fuel mix. We’re going to need to increase energy efficiency in our economy. Barack has a goal of reducing energy intensity — another way of saying that is increasing energy efficiency — by 50% by 2030.

So these are large steps. They’re truly game-changing, but they are things that need to be done, not only for the environment, but for the strength of our economy and for our national security. I have a great deal of confidence that Barack will get us there, that he’ll be tough when he needs to be tough, but he’ll be open-minded. He’ll explain to people why these policies are so desperately important for our country, and he’ll build the constituencies that we need to make some of these dramatic changes.

Also available from this Irregular Times podcast series is a set of remarks from the same panel by Great Lakes water advocate Cameron Davis. Also available now are a transcript and audio record of remarks by Dan Martin, a specialist in the area of overlap between biodiversity and international sociopolitical crisis. After these three, we’ll add on an extra podcast at the end, with a transcript, containing back and forth discussion between Sussman, Davis, Martin and members of the audience.

The following are the remarks of Mark, a young man from suburban Worthington, Ohio at a rally in support of the candidacy of Barack Obama in Columbus on February 27, 2008. Mark reminds us all of the insufficiency of the informed rational actor of politics. Listen to a podcast of Mark’s remarks, or read the transcript below:

Mark: I’m Mark from Worthington, Ohio.

Jim: Oh, so you come from pretty close to here.

Mark: Yeah, I live pretty close to here, yeah.

Jim: Are you a student at Ohio State or just coming in?

Mark: I’m not. I’m out of high school. I’m taking a year off before I go to film school in New York.

Jim: Oh, that’s great. That sounds like it will be pretty cool. Why are you here today? What’s your current stand in the race? Are you registered to vote in Ohio?

Mark: I’m registered to vote. As of now, I’m pretty undecided. I’m pretty sure I’m going to vote Democrat either way, but I came to see what this candidate has to say and where he stands politically.

Jim: You’re deciding between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama then?

Mark: For the most part.

Jim: So what is it you might hear today that would make you swing for Barack Obama, and what is it you might hear today that would make you swing against Barack Obama?

Mark: I’m not sure exactly what would make me swing against Obama, but as it stands right now I think I wanted to see basically where he stands politically. Like everybody knows, he’s not the most experienced candidate on the ballot. So I mean I guess I wanted to see where he stands, where experience comes in, and what he has to say that is realistic, I guess.

Jim: Well, what would be realistic for you? What are the policies that are important to you? What are the issues that matter for you?

Mark: Issues that matter for me are definitely health care. I mean, I’m 19, I’m at my parent’s house, I definitely can’t afford health care right now. I want to hear how he stands on foreign policy. I used to live overseas and I want to know how he’s going to make the dollar strong again.

Jim: Where did you live?

Mark: Paris, France.

Jim: That’s interesting. Film school: that’s going to bring something into that, isn’t it?

Mark: Yes it is.

Jim: You’ve lived abroad. What’s your opinion about the United States and its standing in relation to the rest of the world, and what the next president has to do about that?

Mark: Uh, well, uh, in France the U.S. has never really had a big following other than Normandy, Normandy France, so not everybody is, actually very few people are really really for it. The new French president is pro-American, so that’s definitely starting to make a difference there. But I think uh, definitely, uh, the next president would have to be more of a diplomat. Uh, more, yeah, definitely more of a, I would almost say more of a Nixon diplomat.

Jim: Is there anything you might hear today that would make you say, “There is no way I am voting for this man”?

Mark: Um, yeah. Uh, if I hear that his, I guess if he has an extreme, extreme position, or if he were to say something just completely out the blue like how he’s thinking about making his theme song something by Ludacris, that would completely turn me off.

The following are the remarks of Thomas Leigh, an Ohio State University student from Georgia who attended at a rally in support of the candidacy of Barack Obama in Columbus, Ohio on February 27, 2008. Listen to a podcast of Thomas’ remarks, or read the transcript below:

Thomas: I’m Thomas Leigh from Decatur, Georgia, and I support Barack Obama because none of the other candidates have really promised to do anything other than what the last administration’s done so far as far as foreign policy. That’s why I’m voting for Barack Obama.

Jim: How long have you supported Barack Obama?

Thomas: I’d say, since, a couple months, you know, since he started to look viable, since he started to win, like, Iowa.

Jim: So it was Barack Obama winning that made you decide you would support him compared to the other candidates?

Thomas: Well, I wanted him to be the candidate, but I didn’t think he would be, you know, and at that point my support was just as much with whoever would be the Democratic candidate, but now that it’s sort of him versus Hillary I definitely want him.

Jim: So what makes him better than Hillary Clinton, to your mind?

Thomas: Um, it’s not that Hillary’s a bad candidate, it’s just that I feel like she’s more committed to, you know, pleasing those already in power. We’ve got Obama now trying to take a fresh approach to it, to at least try, you know, to be a good neighbor to the rest of the world. I feel that Hillary Clinton is more committed to the standoffish, you know, sort of thing we’ve been doing for the past 200 years, you know?

Jim: So is there a particular policy that Barack Obama has implemented while in the Senate that has been impressive to you?

Thomas: Well, definitely I like what he’s doing for the veterans. That needs to be done, because we ask a lot of them and the fact that we weren’t taking care of them was bad. That’s important to me. But as president he’ll have an opportunity to do a lot. I like his ideas, you know, than as a single Senator in the Senate he’s not able to do as much as he’ll be able to do as president. You know, these other candidates are saying, “He’s all talk.” But they’re not even saying it, you know. They don’t even promise to do something. They just flat out say we’re going to stay the course, attack Iran, whatever. I don’t even want to hear it because they, they aren’t even promising to do what I want him to do.

Jim: Are there, besides the foreign policy front, are there domestic policies that are important to you when you’re considering to vote for? Or is it foreign policy that you’re mostly interested in?

Thomas: Well, between him and Hillary it’s foreign policy. Of course, against the Republicans, you know, they aren’t going to care about the average person or, you know, anybody but the rich. So of course, you know, domestic policies, I’m for Barack.

Jim: Is there anything that would turn you away from Barack Obama as a candidate at this point?

Thomas: Probably not.

Jim: Fair enough. You’re from Decatur, Georgia. Are you an Ohio State student?

Thomas: Yes, I am.

Jim: And are you registered to vote in the state of Ohio?

Thomas: Uh, no.

Jim: Oh, OK, so you won’t be voting on March 4, then.

Thomas: No, no.

Yesterday I wrote that in her scheduled campaign activities, Hillary Clinton appears to be redirecting resources away from Columbus, Ohio. Another very practical sign of disparity here in Columbus comes in posters:

Barack Obama campaign posters exhorting Columbus residents to vote can be found all up and down High street and Broad street. I haven’t seen any such posters from the Clinton campaign. On a more door-to-door level, the Obama campaign has sent out e-mails and phone calls inviting people down to Obama HQ in Columbus to pick up lawn signs. The Clinton campaign hasn’t made such a communication.

Keep America Beautiful has sent out a press release announcing that it is going to “fight dirty” this year, in a campaign of spring cleaning from March 1st through the end of May. The Great American Cleanup, as this campaign is called, is described as an environmental effort, and I suppose that it is, in the larger sense of the term “environment”. The environment is, in a larger sense, just the world we have around us, and so in this sense, having a fresh coat of paint on a wall is a form of environmental activism.

But, is the Great American Cleanup green? Is it ecologically sound? Somewhat yes, somewhat no.

Keep America Beautiful declares a cleanup mission to “fight against dirty streets, waterways and public spaces by removing litter and illegal dump sites, greening up parks and other public spaces, holding recycling drives, painting out graffiti, hosting educational events, and more.”

Cleaning up waterways, recycling, and removing illegal “dump sites” are clearly in the ecological interest. Painting a wall to cover up graffiti, however, has no actual ecological value. It’s an aesthetic and cultural statement, but a tree can grow next to a wall with graffiti on it just as well as it can grow next to a wall without graffiti. Besides, the can of paint to cover up graffiti takes energy and resources to produce. Chemicals like turpentine or other brush cleaners end up making water supplies more dirty, not cleaner.

As for having a “fight against dirty streets”, I have to wonder what a clean street would actually look like. Ecologically, streets are inherently dirty.

It’s also important to think about what cleaning and “greening up” a park might entail. Planting trees and shrubs in a park has definite ecological value. However, some might consider taking a “weedy” area and replacing it with a lawn to be part of making a park more clean. Ecologically, doing so is actually harmful.

I’m not standing against Keep America Beautiful and its Great American Cleanup campaign. I do hope, however, that the people involved in these efforts give some extra thought to the distinction between clean and green, and make their clean campaign as green as possible.

Over the next day, I’ll be posting interviews with a series of people recorded at a large rally for Barack Obama here in Columbus, Ohio in which they express their political feelings from various orientations and with varying degrees of specificity. Tomorrow I’ll be attending an Environmentalists for Obama panel discussion at the Ohio State University School of Law, at which scientific and policy experts on the environment will discuss environmental challenges to the U.S. government and Obama’s approach to dealing with those problems. The day after tomorrow, I’ll drop by a one-mile Early Voting March to the Board of Elections organized by the Obama campaign. I look forward to sharing information from these events with you.

I’d like to cover Clinton campaign events in Columbus, Ohio as well. I’d like to, and I’ve long since signed up to receive notice of any events headed my way, but there haven’t been any Clinton events announced for this past calendar week or this upcoming weekend in the city of Columbus. Columbus is a large city, with a population size just under that of San Francisco. Why on Earth would the Clinton campaign be writing off votes in Columbus, Ohio in her effort to win the vote in the state of Ohio?

That’s not a rhetorical question, and there’s an answer. Hillary Clinton isn’t actually attempting to “win the vote” in the state of Ohio. The Clinton campaign is trying to win as many Ohio delegates as possible. Most (but not all) of the delegates to be won in the Ohio Primary vote of March 4, 2008 are to be apportioned according to the result of votes in separate Congressional districts. Here in the 15th Congressional District, for instance, 4 delegates will be awarded based on the vote in the 15th Congressional District. There are 18 Congressional Districts in all.

From a strategic point of view, if Hillary Clinton thinks she’s bound to lose the 15th District and other districts in and around the city of Columbus, bound to lose them in a big way, then it may make little sense for her to campaign here. It would be more worth her time to campaign in other districts where she thinks she has a shot. The fact that Hillary Clinton hasn’t scheduled campaign events in Columbus between now and March 4 could be taken as an indication that she thinks the contest in Columbus is already lost. That Clinton instead is focusing on cities like Chillicothe, Cincinnati and Dayton suggests her intent to win the vote in these areas instead.

I’m becoming increasingly aware that there are different sorts of Internet users. Those that I identify most with are text-based, looking for information through word searches, trying to piece together different sources to get a bigger picture of their world.

There are others, however, who are more social and exploratory. There are people who want to watch and listen instead of reading, people who regard the Internet more as a new kind of television, with social interactivity, than like a new kind magazine with interactive information.

Thinking of that different approach some people take to online media, I decided to follow up the article written yesterday by the Green Man about the plight of sawfish and the people of Bimini with a quick video summary, available here and on ITunes video podcast but also to upload elsewhere on social networking sites like Gather and YouTube.

The convergence of human and animal issues that takes place around the sawfish is just one example of how activism in one area can have an impact in many ways. Engage in a boycott of the Hilton hotel brands listed below, all connected to the company that decided to build the Bimini Bay Resort ecoblemish, and you’ll be taking action on environmental issues, local community issues, and issues of corporate accountability.

Do yourself and the sawfish a favor, and avoid the following hotels:

Conrad Hotels and Resorts
Doubletree
Embassy Suites
Hampton Inn
Hilton
Hilton Garden Inn
Homewood Suites
The Waldorf-Astoria

In a press conference this morning, George W. Bush refused to disclose the identity of those people and/or corporate entities that have been sending him money. The source of these monetary infusions, coming in the form of donations to Bush’s presidential library, have gone undisclosed and George W. Bush indicated to intention to make any identifications. Said the president this morning, “Some people like to give and don’t particularly like their names to be disclosed… so we’ll take that into consideration.”

Who are these people, and why do they want to keep their names private? What are they hiding? What is their interest in sending money to the President of the United States? If Bush gets his way, you will never know.

Right now, George W. Bush is giving a speech in which he says that America is in danger of terrorist attack unless the House of Representatives passes a law to give him the power to spy against Americans at will and gives legal amnesty to telecommunications corporations who helped George W. Bush break the law and violate the Constitution.

Catch the twists in that argument?

Bush’s argument is that that in order to protect you from foreign terrorists, he needs a law that gives him the power to spy against Americans.

Bush’s argument is that in order to protect you from foreign terrorists, corporations need to be protected from Americans who are angry that the corporations violated their constitutional rights and broke the promises the corporations made in customer privacy agreements.

Bush’s argument is that in order to protect America from foreign terrorists, the President needs the power to coerce American corporations into helping him break the law.

If George W. Bush is really trying to protect us from foreign terrorists, how come his targets are American?

The law that George W. Bush is pushing for, the FISA Amendments Act, is not about protecting Americans from terrorists. Think about it: When was the last time that there was any terrorist attack within the United States? It’s been almost seven years.

George W. Bush is arguing that you need to give up your constitutional rights to protect you from something that happened seven years ago.

Don’t forget the facts: The FISA Amendments Act would give George W. Bush the right to send spies to search through your home and office without any search warrant, and without any evidence that you are connected to any crime at all - terrorist or not. How is that protecting you from terrorists? Are you hiding any terrorists in your home?

The FISA Amendments Act would give George W. Bush the right to have his spies listen to your telephone calls whenever they want to, without any search warrant, and without any evidence to suggest that you are even suspected of being connected to terrorists. How is that protecting you from terrorists? Are you talking about terrorist plots on your telephone?

The FISA Amendments Act would give George W. Bush the right to read your email and track your activities on the Internet, without any search warrant, and do so without any search warrant, and without any evidence that you are even suspected of jaywalking, much less terrorist conspiracy. How is that protecting you from terrorists? Are you plotting a terrorist attack by email and on EBay?

George W. Bush is playing a con artist’s game with you. First, he tries to get you afraid. He says that terrorists could attack you at any time. Second, he comes up with a solution for the irrational fear he has inspired in you: Give him whatever he wants. Give him your freedom. Give him the powers of Big Brother. Convert the United States of America into a nation of omnipresent spying against its own citizens, a nightmare straight out of a George Orwell novel.

Of course, George W. Bush doesn’t really express his argument in those terms. He doesn’t mention the details of the FISA Amendments Act when he gives his speeches about the law. Bush never admits what the law would allow him to do.

Like a good demagogue, George W. Bush keeps his argument simple, leaving all the disturbing premises that his argument depends upon unspoken. George W. Bush just says that terrorists are trying to kill you, and that he needs the FISA Amendments Act to stop them.

Bush promises that he will only use the spy powers of the FISA Amendments Act against bad people.

Think about that for minute: Do you really think that George W. Bush can be trusted to keep that promise?

While waiting for Barack Obama to arrive at a February 27, 2008 rally in Columbus Ohio, Umar Moulta-Ali explained his reasons for supporting Obama as a presidential candidate. Click here to listen to Umar speak, or just read the text of his words below:

Umar: My name is Umar Moulta-Ali, originally from Brooklyn New York.

Jim: So why are you here today? Is there a particular candidate you’re supporting right now?

Umar: I haven’t decided yet completely. I’m definitely leaning more towards Barack Obama at this point, though.

Jim: What level of commitment would you say you have to Barack Obama at this point?

Umar: Probably 80-20 between the two.

Jim: OK, so I’m going to start by asking you why you have that 80 for Barack Obama and then we’ll talk about that 20 percent later on. What is it that attracts you to Barack Obama?

Umar: OK, well, let me give a little background to this. Truthfully, I think both candidates would be excellent choices for president. They’re both well-qualified with good experience. But in terms of what the country needs right now, I think Barack Obama definitely has the upper hand in terms of uniting the polarized parties, Democrats and Republicans. People tend to bicker about small, minor issues — about health care, foreign policy — and they kind of gloss over that we live in a system, that there’s a relative balance, that there’s a system of checks and balances: the legislature and judicial system and the executive. Shared powers. The presidential position is a relatively powerless position. They can’t even pass laws without the support of Congress. So what you need is somebody who is able to establish a consensus across political parties. Hillary Clinton, while she is a well-qualified candidate, a well-educated candidate, given her history I don’t think that she has the ability that Obama has to unite the two polarized parties that we have in the country today.

Jim: So your answer to me has been pretty procedural. From a policy point of view, is there a policy that makes Barack Obama preferable to Hillary Clinton, or do you find yourself pretty evenly split on policy grounds between the two?

Umar: One thing I do like about Obama is his proclamation that he would meet with leaders of so-called rogue states without preconditions. Now, Hillary Clinton has characterized this as something that might be deficient because you never know what might come out of a meeting with someone like Raul Castro now or Ahmedinejad in Iran, but based on the current policy that we have in place right now virtually ignoring the leaders of these states has definitely had no benefit to us either. So I definitely think there needs to be dialogue. Reagan did this as well in the 80s, and this was instrumental in deconstructing the Communist regime in the former USSR. I think nothing bad can come of conversation between two leaders of very powerful states.

Jim: You remarked about a 20 percent. What is this 20 percent that makes you feel reluctant about Barack Obama as a presidential candidate, and what would it take for that 20 percent to become 30 percent or 50 percent, or above that 50 percent margin that would make you say, “I’m going to vote for someone else”?

Umar: Um, that’s an interesting question. I don’t think that, I mean it’s not an 80-20 split in the fact that I would actually want to go to the polls and vote for Hillary. I think actually they’d be good as a team. I hope whoever becomes the Democratic nominee, eventually the nominee will consider the other for a vice presidential position or definitely for a cabinet position. There’s no specific policy. I guess it’s more of an emotive feeling that I have when I listen to each candidate speak. I mean, I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of people say this, Obama has a tendency, he has this very evangelistic delivery that kind of speaks to your soul in a way that Hillary just doesn’t possess. You know, it’s a personality characteristic. It’s nothing that somebody can actually learn. It’s just something that’s a part of them. It’s just a feeling that you have about somebody.

Jim: Is there something that Barack Obama has not said in this campaign yet that you hope you do hear from him today?

Umar: Something that he hasn’t said… This would apply to both candidates: this is specific to their stance on Iraq. They both want to pull our troops out. Now, I’m anti-Iraq-war or I would characterize myself as such. I believe it was bad foreign policy. However, we’re in there right now, and we’re providing a very necessary security force for the government. I’d like them to explain how they’re going to go about withdrawing troops, more in depth withdrawing troops within this sixty-day time period without having the entire region collapse into a black hole of terrorism.

That’s my primary issue. I know that for a lot of people the economy seems to be the most important issue, but I tend to be from the school that the economy goes through cycles, and right now we’re in a cycle as the result of poor economic choices that individuals have made for themselves. The market is eventually going to correct itself and it’s going to be on an upswing. I don’t believe there’s any policy that can be put forward at this very moment that’s going to be a panacea for the economy. It’s just something that the country’s going to have to work itself out of. People are going to have to get their credit in order. They’re going to have to curtail spending. There might have to be more attention paid to these globalization issues as well that have been sending a lot of jobs overseas without providing alternatives for people who live in the United States.

Jim: One last question, and I want to thank you for your time. Are you registered to vote in the state of Ohio and do you plan to vote?

Umar: Yeah, I’m registered to vote in the state of Ohio, and yeah, I definitely plan to vote.

I was happy to run across an article written recently by FrostFireZoo, a progressive exploration of pockets of human life found off the main course, about a fantastic design concept from a designer hired by Heineken. Back in 1963, they came out with the World Bottle. It was a square-shaped glass beer bottle that could, after it was drained, be used as a brick.

Those bottle bricks were a reminder to me that environmental responsibility doesn’t have to mean living an impoverished life. Ecoluxury only requires some imagination.

You don’t see those Heineken brick bottles any more - just as the glass bottles brought by the milkman have gone by the wayside, replaced by disposable plastic jugs and paper cartons. Why is it that as environmental problems have gotten worse, we’ve embraced a more disposable lifestyle. Why can’t we have bottles of milk brought to our doorstep in the morning, then picked up the next morning to be washed and reused?

One part of the answer is that Americans still don’t feel the negative consequences of garbage. It’s easy to exist in a world of disposable objects when there’s a flat rate for garbage disposal, and the garbage we dispose of goes somewhere far away where we never have to think of it again.

Another aspect of the problem is that economic realities push people to hurry through their lives, always rushing to try to get ahead. When we’ve got jobs that demand more of our time, because hourly wages have gone down or because our salaried positions are less secure, allowing corporate employers to insist on inhumane hours at work, we have to crunch our domestic activities into a few small hours.

Time to think about the objects we use, and time to think about how they can best be used again after we’re done with them, feels like a luxury we cannot afford. We feel as if we are buying time by getting things we can just throw away, somewhere, wherever they go.

The growing economic crisis can be an opportunity. The silver lining in the dark cloud of unemployment, foreclosures, and inflation is that many Americans will need to rediscover the spirit of the Great Depression, when people reused flour sacks to make house dresses, grew gardens for their food, and came together with the help of the government to build an infrastructure that took America forward.

For most Americans, it feels like a time to cut back. However, we have the know-how to replace some cutbacks with some intelligent re-use. Taking full advantage of the qualities of the items mass produced for our consumption can give the margins a little more slack. The opportunity for intelligent designers is wide open.

When I attended the speech of Barack Obama in Columbus, Ohio on February 27, I noticed the following sign on the opposite side of the arena:

Superman has supernatural powers. Barack Obama does not have supernatural powers. Superman stands above the laws of space and time. Barack Obama does not stand above the laws of space and time. Superman can do things that no human being is capable of. What Barack Obama does stands well within the range of human capability. Superman is ethically unquestionable. Barack Obama’s ethics deserve to be questioned. Superman is two-dimensional. Barack Obama is not two-dimensional. Superman is a fictional character. Barack Obama is not a fictional character. In these fictional stories, without Superman all is lost and humanity is incapable of saving itself. In current events, without Barack Obama all is not lost and humanity is entirely capable of saving itself.

Obama is not our Superman.

The following is a podcast recording of a speech given by Barack Obama in the St. John Basketball Arena on the campus of Ohio State University at 11:30 am on February 27, 2008. It begins at the moment Senator Obama enters the arena to the soundtrack of U2, and ends as I walk out of the arena after the speech with the sound of Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” playing in the background.

The following is a text transcript of the portion of Barack Obama’s speech following his many obligatory introductory thanks:

Well, we have had a wonderful few days campaigning all across Ohio. We had a terrific debate last night in Cleveland. We’ve got a couple of good strong Democrats on stage; looking forward, one of us, to a general election. It made me think about the work that has gone into this campaign. It’s now over a year old. It’s been more than a year since I stood on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, the city where Abraham Lincoln served for many years before he went to Washington, where I served before I became a United States Senator. I stood on the steps of this old state capitol and I announced this unlikely journey to change America.

And I have to say that at the time there were a lot of people who said, “Why are you running this time? You’re a relatively young man. Why are you running so soon? You can afford to wait.” That’s what they said. And I had to explain to them that I’m not running because of some long-held ambition. I know that people were looking through my Kindergarten papers, but that’s not why I decided to run. I’m not running because I think it’s somehow owed to me. I am running because of what Dr. King called “the fierce urgency of now,” because I believe that there is such a thing as being too late. That hour is almost upon us.

We are at a defining moment in our history. Our nation is at war. Our planet is in peril. The dream that so many generations have fought for is slowly slipping away. You see it everywhere you go: people are working harder just to get by. It’s harder to save. It’s harder to retire. People have never paid more for gas at the pump or for college education, paying their electricity bills. Our health care system is broken: we have 47 million people without health insurance, and if you’ve got health insurance you’ve seen your copayments and deductibles and premiums going up and up and up every single year. People are at risk of losing their homes. Our education system, despite the slogans, leaves millions of children behind, unable to complete in this new global economy. What I realized was that in such circumstances, we can’t afford to wait. We can’t wait to fix our schools. We cannot wait to fix our health care system. We cannot wait to deal with issues like global warming. We cannot wait to make college affordable. We cannot wait to bring to this war in Iraq to a close. We cannot wait. We cannot wait.

What I realized was that the size of these challenges had outstripped the capacity of a broken and divided politics to solve, and I was convinced that the American people were desperate, were hungry for a new direction, a new kind of politics; were interested in a politics that wasn’t about tearing each other down but was about lifting the country up. A politics that was not about spin and PR, but about was about straight talk and honesty and conversation with the American people.

In other words, I was betting on you. I was betting on you because — some of you know I now live in Chicago, but I didn’t originally grow up in Chicago. I moved there after college because I wanted to work at a grassroots level and I got a job as an organizer with a group of churches who were trying to deal with the devastation of steel plants that had closed. So for three years I worked setting up job training programs and trying to bring economic development to communities that had fallen on really hard times. And it was the best education I ever had, because it taught me that ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they’re given the chance. It taught me that change doesn’t happen from the top down; it happens from the bottom up. And so I continue to be convinced that Americans are a decent people and a generous people, willing to work hard and sacrifice on behalf of future generations. And if we could just get together and get beyond the divisions that have plagued us for so long, if we could come together black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, young, old, rich, poor: if we could come together to challenge the special interests that have come to dominate Washington, but also to challenge ourselves to be better, better parents, better neighbors, better citizens, then there would be no problem we could not solve and no destiny we could not fulfill. That was the bet that I was making over one year ago.

And after traveling all across this country, after visiting VFW halls and diners and schools and work sites, after talking to tens of thousands of people and shaking thousands of hands and kissing hundreds of babies and eating hundreds of chicken dinners, I am here to report to you Buckeyes that my bet has paid off. My faith in the American people has been vindicated because everywhere I go, people tell me, “Yes, we want a new direction. Yes, we want to move in a direction of change. Yes, we can. We are ready to stand up and turn the page and write a new chapter in American history.”

Yes, we can.

I haven’t seen this kind of enthusiasm in my lifetime, the interest people are paying to elections. They’re going to rallies and they’re watching debates and they’re reading position papers. Young people voting in record numbers, which reminds me: Everybody here, I want to make sure everybody here understands there will be early voting in Ohio, so everybody can leave this rally and go cast your ballot today. Don’t wait until March 4th. We want you to vote now. I won’t tell you who to vote for, but do go out and cast your ballot. And if I’m making any sense, then you might consider voting for me. You just might. I see that marching band: you guys are still high school, right? So the Seniors, you might be able to vote. If you’re not a Senior, go tell your parents to vote!

So there’s been enormous enthusiasm and record turnout in all these states. I would like to take all the credit for it. I would like to say I’m completely responsible, but let’s face it: part of the reason everybody’s so excited is we’re going to be selecting a president come November and no matter what else happens when you walk into that polling place, the name “George W. Bush” will not be on the ballot! We’re pretty excited about that: no Bush. No Bush. The name of my cousin Dick Cheney will not be on the ballot. People are excited about that also. You know, when the news came out that Cheney and I had a distant relation in common, that was embarrassing. When they do these genealogical surveys, you want to be related to somebody cool! Dick Cheney? That’s a letdown. But that’s OK: his name won’t be on the ballot, which means that the failed surveys of the last seven years — the Katrina, the wiretaps, the Scooter Libby Justice, the Brownie incompetence, the Karl Rove politics — all that will be over next year.

But that’s not the only reason that you’re here. You know, being against something? That’s easy. You’re here because you want to be for something. You want to feel like we can still solve big problems in this country, and we’ve got some big problems to solve. I was down in Cincinnati a few days ago. I had a meeting with four middle-aged women. They’re all about the age of my mother when she passed away, so they reminded me of her. Two of them were looking after aging parents. Two of them were looking after disabled children. Two of them were out of work. One of them was on medical leave. All of them were struggling with health care, with child care, with just paying the bills. All of them were not even thinking about trying to save for retirement because they could barely keep up right now. And one of the women said to me during the conversation, “I played by the rules. All of us have here. We always figured we’d live a middle-class life. We never expected we’d be where we are today. We never expected to find ourselves in this situation.”

I think that speaks for so much of America. A lot of people here, I bet, because everywhere I go I meet people who are struggling with health care, don’t have it or have gone into bankruptcy or dipping into their savings because someone got sick. All throughout Ohio I meet people who’ve worked twenty years in a plant and suddenly the job gets shipped overseas, the equipment gets unbolted and shipped out to Mexico or China. They lose not just their job but their health care, their pension. They’re trying to make ends meet on seven-buck-an-hour jobs at the local fast food joint. All across this state, all across this country I meet teachers who are having to dig into their own pockets to buy school supplies because the schools are underfunded. [Looking at a pointing woman] I guess you’re a teacher! So you know what I’m talking about. All across this country I meet people who are at risk of having their homes foreclosed, not because they did anything wrong but because they got deceived into some predatory loan because there was no oversight by the government over the last several years.

All across this country I meet veterans, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who are proud of their service and rightfully so, because they have done everything that’s been asked of them. They have performed magnificently in these recent conflicts. But you know, they think about the buddies they’ve left behind who are still there. They question the wisdom of a mission that has cost us so dearly in blood and treasure. Sometimes at the rope line after rallies like this one, I meet the parents of a fallen warrior. A mother in Green Bay gave me this bracelet for son Ryan who at the age of 20 was killed in a roadside bomb. I have to hug these parents as they weep silently. Those are the stories I’m hearing all across this country. Stories of hardship. Stories of struggle.

And so people desperately want to see something new. They want change. And I tell people that I would not be running if I weren’t confident that we could bring about this change, and that I could lead this country in a better direction. But I also tell people that I can’t do it by myself. Remember, change doesn’t happen from the top down. You have to believe. You have to demand and insist and work for and organize towards a different America. You have to be ready for change. And if you are ready for change then we can go and tell the lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over, because they have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drive out the voices of the American people while I am President of the United States of America.

If you are ready for change, then we can stop talking about the outrage of 47 million people without health insurance and start doing something about it. I’ve put forward a plan that says everybody will have the same health care if they want it that I have as a member of Congress, that you can’t be excluded for pre-existing conditions, we’ll negotiate with the drug companies for the cheapest available prices. If you’re 25 or younger you can stay on your parents’ health insurance. If you’ve got health insurance, we’re going to work with you to lower your premiums by $2500 per family per year. And we will not wait 20 years from now to do it or 10 years from now to do it. We will do it by the end of my first term as president of the United States of America.

If you’re ready for change, then we can start having an economy that’s fair again. You know, I believe in business. I believe in capitalism, the free market, entrepreneurship — I believe in all those things. Most Americans do. Nobody expects to get a free lunch. Everybody knows they’ve got to work hard. But when a CEO is making more in 10 minutes than ordinary workers make in an entire year, and the CEO is getting the tax break, and the workers are left with nothing, and if the company goes into bankruptcy, the workers lose their pension and the CEO is still getting a bonus and a golden parachute, something is wrong and something’s got to change. It’s not fair.

And so I’ve been very clear about my economic agenda. We are going to stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas. We’re going to give those tax breaks to companies that invest right here in Ohio and in the United States of America. We are going to make sure that we have a tax code that’s fair. We’re going to roll back those Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and give them to hard-working Americans who deserve it, making $75,000 a year or less. $1,000 to offset your payroll tax per family. If you’re a senior citizen making $50,000 a year or less, you shouldn’t have to pay taxes on your Social Security. We’re going to give an additional mortgage deduction to people who live in modest homes if you don’t itemize it on your payroll tax and save them a little bit of money and make it easier for them if interest rates go up. We’re going to put forward a home foreclosure prevention fund to help bridge the gap for people who’ve been making their payments but who through no fault of their own have found themselves at risk of losing their home. We are going to have trade deals that work for all of America. I believe in trade, but I want labor standards and environmental standards that don’t undercut U.S. workers. And I want safety standards so our kids aren’t chewing on toys with lead-based paint of them.

We’re going to invest in infrastructure. If we can spend $12 Billion a month in Iraq, we can spend some money right here in Ohio rebuilding our roads and bridges, putting people back to work and making our economy more competitive. And I won’t raise the minimum wage every ten years; I’ll raise it to keep pace with inflation because if you work in this country, you should not be poor, and that is a goal that I will set when I am president of the United States of America.

If you’re ready for change, we can start providing every child the best education this country has to offer from the day that child is born to the day that child graduates from college. You know, the problem is not that we don’t know what to do. The problem is that we just give lip service to caring about every child. Actually, we’re not thinking about every child. A child in the inner city of Cleveland? “Ah, that child doesn’t look like me. That’s somebody else’s problem.” A kid in the barrio in South Texas? “Well that kid’s the son of an immigrant. I’m not worried about him. That’s not my problem.” Young girl in Appalachia? “Well, you know, those folks, you know, they’re far away. It’s not our problem.” Let me tell you something: every child is our responsibility! Every child deserves a chance! Every child is our child. Every child. And so we are going to make sure that every child can get early childhood education so that they are prepared for school. And I won’t just talk about how great teachers are; I will reward them for their greatness by giving them higher salaries, and giving them more support.

And I want the highest standards in our classrooms. Young guys, you are going to have to compete with kids in China and India. There are no shortcuts. You’re going to have to work harder than you’ve ever worked in your lives. You’ve got to take school seriously. And so we’re going to have high standards. But I don’t want those high standards measured by just one high-stakes test because I don’t want teachers teaching to the test. I want our kids to learn art and music and science and literature and poetry and civics.

And I don’t know about you, but I want to make college affordable for everybody. So we’re going to have a $4,000 tuition credit, every student, every year. But students are going to have to give something back. You’re going to have to provide some community service. You’re going to have to work in a homeless shelter or veterans’ home