In a week where presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama sold out the base to savage the 4th Amendment (and retroactively forgive Bush administration lawbreaking while spying on citizens), I was a little intrigued by some television commercials that, while not very explanatory, do feature some rather surprising coalitions between figureheads of both the right and the left.

The ads are also showing up in print media, the June 12 issue of Rolling Stone features Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson sitting together on a couch on Virginia Beach. Now, THAT is a rather unlikely pairing! So… what are they selling?

The blurb, a mere four sentences long, goes like this…

It’s American to disagree. It’s also American to come together in the face of a challenge. And few challenges are as urgent as global climate change. Take one minute to join us at wecansolveit.org and add your voice to millions of others. Together we can solve the climate crisis.

So of course I went right on over to the website to find that it’s the “next step” in ex-VP Al Gore’s project on global warming. There are presenters (trained by Al Gore), action alerts, news feed and proposed solutions that include such commonsense items as:

• Clean Energy Economy
• Personal Choices
• Adoption of Renewables
• Enhanced Energy Efficiency
and
• Innovative Leadership

Yet so far, what the project is mostly doing is soliciting donations and signing up participants. That’s a start, and something a lot more hopeful than anything this ugly Presidential race can offer at this point.

There’s lots of information at the site, so do yourself a favor and check out wecansolveit.org.

Politicians and corporations think very poorly of us, though they entirely depend on us for their elections and their profits. My deepest political dream at this point is to see a more people-oriented politics… a more citizens-first politics. And so far, in this regard, I’ve been happiest about the Obama campaign. Of course, they haven’t been forced into any tough political positions yet, where the kitchen sink might have to be ripped out… but honestly I think they are setting a good precedent at this point.

This is not an endorsement of Obama though. Just an endorsement of his high-road policy thus far.