A leak in the Gulf that's taken 100 days to plug
spilled away our country's faith in off-shore drilling,
spreading new concerns & new ideas about energy policy.

A leak in the media about Afghanistan
may be even harder for the military to plug,
& as it gushes new evidence about the war
may spread new concerns & ideas about our mission.

Meanwhile, an economy that continues to leak jobs
won't be plugged by half-measures or deficit-mongering.
Can the Obama Administration stop that leak
before it gushes away our faith in our President?

We can stamp & fume and damn the leaks.
Or we can respond, work & dam the leaks.

Either way, a little leak can lead to big change.

There will be no leaks coming from our liberal libation
as we share ideas, hopes, frustrations & insights
with fellow like-minded lefties over a a drink or two
at your local progressive social club.

DRINKING LIBERALLY
Find - or start - a chapter near you.

Nearly two years after the titans of Wall Street
brought our economy careening & crashing,
Washington actually passed financial reform.

It should've been inevitable but was near impossible
as the sluggish centrists & sellouts of the Senate
seemed to serve Wall Street over Main Street
& as the industry of excess lobbied for its life.

And while there's no doubt the financial industry
will find ways to evade any authority,
to grab with greed & rebel against regulation,
for this moment, at least, we made it happen.

The people won.

In the face of new measure, will Wall Street reform?
Or with new exotic investments, will it simply re-form?

That may be up to us.
Passing reform is one step.
Now let's make it stick.

Come out tonight to toast the new reforms
& share ideas on strengthening them
as you share a drink or two & a night of fun
with your local progressive social club.

DRINKING LIBERALLY
Find - or start - a chapter near you.

The Senate must have been watching the World Cup
& taking notes on how to do business.

Soccer players constantly run, run, run --
& Senators are constantly running for re-election
while running away from any tough choices..

The athletes play as much defense as offense
& the Senators are often in defensive mode,
obstructing reforms, deflecting progress.

And in both soccer matches & the Senate,
not a whole lot is accomplished,
so everyone's ecstatic when one goal is achieved.

Yet, soccer starts are beloved around the world...
while Senators are distrusted in all corners of the country.
That's because soccer players are doing their damn jobs.

Why can't the Senate learn that tip from the World Cup?

Now, if only we could drown our Inhofe
with some in-Senate vuvuzelas...

World Cup may be over, but refill your cup
with liberal libations as we discuss & debate
at your local progressive social club.

DRINKING LIBERALLY
Find - or start - a chapter near you.

If you're at all familiar with what we do here at Living Liberally, this excerpt from Matt Lambash's Weekly Standard coverstory (that's right, the conservative magazine) should not surprise you:

As [Living Liberally founder Justin] Krebs writes, Drinking Liberally “has never been about drinking .  .  . it’s about progressive politics in a social setting.” It’s about all of us being “in this together.” It’s not just about “how you vote on Election Day.” It’s about “how you vote with your wallet every day.” It’s not just about “what you chant at a rally, but what you laugh at or rock out to on your iPod.” It’s about saying “it’s about” a lot, and then saying something real meaningful afterwards. Like this: “Living like a liberal is never just about making politics personal, but about making personal politics public.” It’s about alliteration.

As Lambash puts in plain terms, the goal of Living Liberally as a whole has been empower our every day activities by giving the more purpose and meaning. Indeed, despite the mocking tone this article takes, that's the task laid before readers of Krebs' new book, 538 Ways to Live, Work and Play Like a Liberal.

Luckily for us, Lambash decides to celebrate America's independence this past 4th of July weekend by summoning the bravery to put himself to the test. As a born again Liberal, he sheds his conservative garb and gives in to his most vulnerable "liberal tendencies, all of which are on Krebs’s list," before attempting to make at least some of the changes prescribed by each of the sections of Justin's book. And if you can wade through all the cliche, sarcasm and derision crammed between the margins, you may even discover Lambash inadvertantly celebrating some aspects of the Liberal lifestyle and enjoying a little liberal-living in spite of himself.

But the burning question remains: will our conservative protagonist survive this epic transformation? Check out this 'playful' piece at the Weekly Standard to get a glimpse for yourself. Then, grab a copy of Kreb's book 538 Ways to Live, Work and Play Like a Liberal to see what changes can be made in your own life.

You can help Justin promote 538 Ways by contributing to his book tour, here.

If correctly identifying your problems is the first step to solving them, I'm afraid we'll all be peeling tar balls off our heels before we get a handle on the BP blowout.

"Please stop calling it a leak!" Bill KcKibben pleaded at the Slow Money conference in Shelburne, Vermont last month. A leak, after all, suggests a kind of dribble. A spill sounds like something you might mop up with a towel.

"We've punched a hole in the bottom of the ocean," McKibben added. "Is a knife wound a 'blood leak?'"

We're hitting some fundamental limits, he added, citing the 'thousand year' storms that seem to come every four or five years now, and the fact that we're facing the hottest year on record, so far (and that was before the heat wave that hit the whole Eastern seaboard this past week).

Yes, we need to plug that hole in the ocean floor before the entire Gulf becomes one gigantic dead zone. But there's an onshore contaminant threatening our future, too, and it's called fast money.

Fast money spews from the wells of Wall Street and spatters the globe from Beijing to Bangalore to Bentonville. It creates land-based dead zones filled with underwater mortgages and sinking businesses. Fast money "does violence to the web of relations on which the health of communities and bioregions depend," according to Slow Money founder Woody Tasch.

Tasch shares Bill McKibben's fervent belief that you can't have a truly sound economy unless you practice sound ecology. The subtitle of Tasch's book, Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money, says it all: investing as if food, farms, and fertility mattered.

But don't expect Tasch to declare war on Wall Street. In a statement to the six hundred or so farmers, philanthropists, investors, eco-preneurs and real food rabble rousers (like me) who came to historic Shelburne Farms for Slow Money's second annual conference, Tasch explained why he's not going to pick that fight--or any fight, for that matter:

All of us here, today, recognize that we live in an economy and culture that is addicted to oil. We know that our system of industrial agriculture is, in Joan Gussow's words, "floating on a sea of oil." We recognize the irony that the Gulf oil spill is occurring in what is already a dead zone due to agricultural run-off carried down the Mississippi River.

We recognize, too, the temptation to become Tea-Party-like in our anger and frustration. It is tempting to wage war against BP or Goldman Sachs or McDonalds or Monsanto. But waging such wars makes about as much sense as trying to inject Slow Money into the gusher of fast money, hoping it will somehow "top kill" it...

...let's remember that you can launch a war, but you cannot launch peace. You can launch money into an investment portfolio, but you cannot launch peace of mind. You can launch chemicals into the soil, but you cannot launch fertility. Peace, health and fertility can only be found through what Wendell Berry calls "millions of small acts of care and restraint."

Peace. Health. Fertility. Too bad our current notions of how to keep America secure and prosperous have brought us just the opposite: war, disease, barren seas and soil.

And how do you sell the virtues of "small acts of care and restraint" to a nation that prides itself on living large and thinking big?

Except that we really don't think big, anymore, when we think at all. We have a shockingly defeatist, "can't do" attitude when it comes to tackling our current crises. Hence the mindset that we can't afford a moratorium on deepwater drilling because it will cost even more jobs than BP's disastrous deepwater drilling has already destroyed. We need the oil and the jobs, come hell or high, oily water. As Tasch wrote in his book:

It is not surprising that we find ourselves, today, captive to markets that are themselves captive to the enormous momentum of the economic growth that they have made possible.

What is surprising, however, is the degree of our reticence, our impotence, our unwillingness--in the face of the collision course between unlimited economic growth and the limits of culture and the biosphere to absorb our accelerating levels of extraction, consumption, and pollution--to dare to imagine another way.

The Slow Money conference showcased the socially responsible investors, sustainable agriculture proponents, and ecologically savvy entrepreneurs who have not only dared to imagine another way, but are actively pursuing it.

No, I'm not going to claim that all our problems will be solved by backing the manufacture of such locavore luxuries as organic kale chips and granola bars, or artisanal grass-fed sausage sticks, or (my personal favorite) a chia-based beverage that was delicious in a viscous way.

But I was impressed and inspired by the presentations from a variety of innovators: Midwestern Bio Ag, Terra Green Biologics, and Marrone Bio Innovations, who've found environmentally safe ways to boost soil fertility and control pests; City Fresh Foods, Peoples' Community Market, and Home Town Farms, who are improving their communities' access to fresh, healthy food; and Farmland LP and the Carrot Project, dedicated to fostering the growth of sustainably farmed land. And as a dedicated DIYer, I was delighted to learn about a totally non-toxic but super durable varnish from Vermont Natural Coatings that is made from whey, a by-product of the local cheese industry.

Together, these trail blazers, among others, made a compelling case that nurturing the kinds of small, regionally based businesses that they exemplify could not only create jobs and revitalize our economy, but also address what Bill McKibben called our "social deficit...the ecological and psychic wounds that we've inflicted on ourselves."

As McKibben noted, anything that's "too big to fail" is, by definition, too big, period. That goes not only for our financial system, but every other system we rely on, including our food and energy systems.

How many more fast money blowouts can we afford? Slow Money, on the other hand, is about growing things, not blowing things up, whether it's in pursuit of the coal beneath a mountaintop or the oil at the bottom of the sea.

McKibben ended his keynote by saying that we need to "take very drastic action, now." Is it time to put a cap on capitalism? You can help bring our economy back down to earth literally, now, by signing on to the Slow Money Soil Trust.

A record heat-wave brings brown-outs & black-outs
& reminds us that DC hasn't touched energy reform
even after the open wound in the Gulf
opened an opportunity to reconsider energy policy.

As the temperature rises, so do tempers
of Americans angry at the Wall Street racket,
yet the Senate keeps cooling down reform efforts
with a watered down bill that still hasn't passed.

We're sunstroked as the thermometer tops 100,
& we're burnt & broke from unemployment at 10%,
yet we'll keep sweating as House conservatives
block an extension of unemployment benefits.

The heat was on to deal with serious issues --
& Senate Republicans simply said "No."

Then everyone went on vacation.

I don't blame them for escaping the DC heat.
But if they can't take the heat of doing their job
maybe they should stay out of the kitchen for good.
Or maybe voters should keep them out this November.

Beat the heat with cool drinks & warm company
as you refresh yourself with conversation & community
at your local progressive social club.

DRINKING LIBERALLY
Find - or start - a chapter near you.

By Bec Zajac

Okay, I’m going to admit it--my dirty little secret, something I’ve been struggling with for a long time that I just can’t hide anymore: I like romantic comedies. I really do. I see them early. I see them often. I get excited when I hear there’s a new one coming out. And when Sandra Bullock won an Academy Award, goddamnit, I even cried a little!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to defend all that’s problematic about films in the “romcom genre”. And believe me, I know there’s a lot: they reinforce gender stereotypes, they promote hetero-normative paradigms, they idolize marriage; and, yes, I agree, every time J-Lo does another movie, a baby angel loses its wings.

But even with all its problems, for some reason, the romantic comedy keeps drawing me back in. Even though, after seeing one I tread a fine line between feeling warm and fuzzy inside, and seething with rage and self-hatred, I keep taking that chance. So lately, I’ve asked myself: Why? Why the hell do I keep seeing these terrible, sexist movies over and over again?

More After the Jump....

We find ourselves so dependent on oil
that even after disaster strikes in the gulf,
drilling goes on, behavior doesn't change
& the country's addiction continues.

Our nation's capital is so thick with lobbyists
that even when we're passing financial reforms,
they're the ones re-writing the legislation.

Our elected reps are so reliant on money
that Big Donors such as the defense industry
keep their contracts flowing for oversea wars.
despite Big Voters' wish to change course.

And despite the Tea Party rhetoric,
our Founders weren't starting a revolution
against immigrants or for corporate rights.

They were looking to create a vibrant democracy,
independent of the corrupting influences
of foreign powers, corporate interests & monarchy.

Our elected leaders & Supreme Court Justices
could use a history lesson this 4th of July.

Too bad Texas is rewriting history books
& there's no money for teachers anyway...

Yet around the country, the spirit is alive
as we celebrate a happy Independence Day.

Toast our country's birthday & talk national news
as you raise your spirits, your voice & a pint
at your local progressive social club.

DRINKING LIBERALLY
Find - or start - a chapter near you.