Shame on Joe Lieberman for attacking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the unexpected victor over fourth-ranked U.S. House Democrat Joe Crowley in the primary election for Crowley's seat, as being "too lefty" for the Democrats and their November chances.
I have to admit that I do not have an unalloyed brief for Ocasio-Cortez. She's obviously a tremendous new talent, and knows how to touch on a lot of bread-and-butter issues in a way that Democrats used to do routinely, and seemingly have long since forgotten how to do. At the same time, she's a political rookie, and political rookies make political rookie mistakes, whether its about explaining how you will pay for your promises (as she did the other night in an interview with Trevor Noah), or in denouncing the Israeli shooting of Palestinian protesters at the opening of the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, doing the latter in an artless way that left her open to charges of anti-Semitism from those who live to make such charges to score cheap political points.
On cue, regarding the latter mishap, enter Joe Lieberman, stage right, carrying a dagger. He immediately pounced and demanded that all true Democrats do the "centrist" thing and vote for Crowley, still on the fall ballot on a third-party ticket. According to Joe, only by blatantly stabbing the party's nominee in the back can we all truly enable the party to "reach across the aisle and get things done." Republican things, to be sure, but things nevertheless.
You know, like the Iraq war, which Joe supported.
Or John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, which Joe supported to the extent of reaching across the aisle all the way to the GOP convention.
Or like his 2000 running mate on the Democratic ticket, Al Gore, who he stabbed in the back by publicly declaring that the Florida recount effort should be ended, even while the Gore campaign was still pursuing a recount.
In many respects, Joe is every bit as much of a narcissist as Donald Trump: so in love with his public image that he can't quite see the feet of clay upon which it rests. I met him at a fundraiser for his 2004 Presidential campaign (it's a long story, and I won't go into it here), and was decidedly unimpressed. He seem less like a person and more like a fribble.
A fribble who will not go aways. Please go, Joe. You've damaged democracy enough for the sake of your self-righteousness. It can't take any more of you, and neither can we.
Monday, July 30, 2018
Lord & Taylor, Debt Forgiveness, And Cash Repatriation.
I was saddened to learn about the soon-to-be closing of Lord & Taylor, in part because it was one of my mother's favorite New York department stores, and in part because it joins a long list of other now-departed Fifth Avenue retailers (Bonwit Teller and B. Altman, to name but two) that represented what was left of a more stylish, and much more personalized form of retailing that began in the 19th century, endured for much of the 20th century, and now seems to be definitively winding down to a close in the 21st. For us, the storied names of these shopping palaces are little more than nameplates. But, once upon a time, there were actual people behind the nameplates, people whose tastes and marketing skills, along with a highly competitive marketplace, gave those nameplates the value that at least some of them have managed to retain long after their namesakes have vanished from our midst.
It's easy to blame the disappearance of Lord & Taylor (actually, downsizing the number of outlets) on the prevalence of shopping via the Internet, which gives shoppers an unlimited amount of range and convenience. And there's no question that Internet shopping traffic has had a major adverse impact generally on traditional bricks-and-mortar retail outlets. For me, as for others, it would be somewhat hypocritical to complain about this too much. I lament the vanishing of traditional book stores, but I also buy books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. In many respects, the Internet is the proverbial better idea, and shopping is a major aspect of our lives that reflects that fact.
But it's not hypocritical to note that, in the pursuit of convenience, we've lost an important part of our social lives as well. Stores like Lord & Taylor used to be not just places to shop, but to spend time with family members and close friends. Most of these stores had restaurants, which became places to extend the social aspect of shopping. These days, you're lucky to find as much as a McDonald's in a Walmart (and "lucky" may depend on how you feel about fast food).
In any case, convenience plays a large role in the disappearance of the Lord & Taylor-type stores. Physical elegance and social contact mean less to modern shoppers than they once did; getting goods quickly, and as cheaply as possible, are what matter most. But there is another factor as well: debt. During the 1980s, when economic expansion was fueled not by tax cuts, as is commonly believed, but by massive amounts of public and private borrowing, the ownership of many former "carriage-trade" stores such as Lord & Taylor was consolidated through mergers that were funded by massive loans These loans, unfortunately for everyone, proved to be so large that they stores themselves could not generate enough revenues to service the debt and generate profits for the new owners.
This fact, combined with a reduction in the variety of merchandise available in each of the stores, slowly led to the closing of many of the individual stores, which by this point had become little more than nameplates. Once upon a time, you could reasonably guess where an item had been bought just by looking at it. But, as time passed, that was less and less true. Macy's no longer needed to tell Gimbel's anything; they were both selling the same merchandise--and, as a result, only one of them has survived to this day.
The problem of debt strangling our economy is by no means limited to retail. In addition to its other problems (climate change and the spread of autocracy), the world economy is forced to chow down on servicing a level of debt that now stands at $247 trillion. A level of debt that has its roots in the go-go '80s--when, economically (to borrow a Stephen Sondheim lyric from "Follies) everything was possible and nothing made sense (then or now). There is clearly no way out of this financial trap except debt forgiveness. What is needed now is an international conference to work out the terms of this, on a global basis. Perhaps that can actually happen, once everyone faces up to the need for it--and it may take a cataclysmic event for everyone to do so.
But what if we could do it? And what if it could be combined with incentives to repatriate currencies that have fled their home countries, seeking tax shelters oversees? (U.S. dollars, we're looking at you here.)
Maybe some of that forgiveness, combined with a little cash, could save what's left of the carriage-trade model, before it vanishes altogether. Maybe some of that cash could help to not only provide the Lord & Taylors of the world with much-needed capital, but also with new, aspiring merchants to find ways to combine Internet-age convenience with old-school social experience. Maybe, if we can liberate money from the tyranny of debt service, and get it to start moving at the same speed as the people who make, save, invest, and spend it, we really can bake a large enough economic pie for everyone.
Admittedly, this is just a dream. But maybe necessity will make it a reality. I hope it happens before we say goodbye to another Lord & Taylor.
It's easy to blame the disappearance of Lord & Taylor (actually, downsizing the number of outlets) on the prevalence of shopping via the Internet, which gives shoppers an unlimited amount of range and convenience. And there's no question that Internet shopping traffic has had a major adverse impact generally on traditional bricks-and-mortar retail outlets. For me, as for others, it would be somewhat hypocritical to complain about this too much. I lament the vanishing of traditional book stores, but I also buy books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. In many respects, the Internet is the proverbial better idea, and shopping is a major aspect of our lives that reflects that fact.
But it's not hypocritical to note that, in the pursuit of convenience, we've lost an important part of our social lives as well. Stores like Lord & Taylor used to be not just places to shop, but to spend time with family members and close friends. Most of these stores had restaurants, which became places to extend the social aspect of shopping. These days, you're lucky to find as much as a McDonald's in a Walmart (and "lucky" may depend on how you feel about fast food).
In any case, convenience plays a large role in the disappearance of the Lord & Taylor-type stores. Physical elegance and social contact mean less to modern shoppers than they once did; getting goods quickly, and as cheaply as possible, are what matter most. But there is another factor as well: debt. During the 1980s, when economic expansion was fueled not by tax cuts, as is commonly believed, but by massive amounts of public and private borrowing, the ownership of many former "carriage-trade" stores such as Lord & Taylor was consolidated through mergers that were funded by massive loans These loans, unfortunately for everyone, proved to be so large that they stores themselves could not generate enough revenues to service the debt and generate profits for the new owners.
This fact, combined with a reduction in the variety of merchandise available in each of the stores, slowly led to the closing of many of the individual stores, which by this point had become little more than nameplates. Once upon a time, you could reasonably guess where an item had been bought just by looking at it. But, as time passed, that was less and less true. Macy's no longer needed to tell Gimbel's anything; they were both selling the same merchandise--and, as a result, only one of them has survived to this day.
The problem of debt strangling our economy is by no means limited to retail. In addition to its other problems (climate change and the spread of autocracy), the world economy is forced to chow down on servicing a level of debt that now stands at $247 trillion. A level of debt that has its roots in the go-go '80s--when, economically (to borrow a Stephen Sondheim lyric from "Follies) everything was possible and nothing made sense (then or now). There is clearly no way out of this financial trap except debt forgiveness. What is needed now is an international conference to work out the terms of this, on a global basis. Perhaps that can actually happen, once everyone faces up to the need for it--and it may take a cataclysmic event for everyone to do so.
But what if we could do it? And what if it could be combined with incentives to repatriate currencies that have fled their home countries, seeking tax shelters oversees? (U.S. dollars, we're looking at you here.)
Maybe some of that forgiveness, combined with a little cash, could save what's left of the carriage-trade model, before it vanishes altogether. Maybe some of that cash could help to not only provide the Lord & Taylors of the world with much-needed capital, but also with new, aspiring merchants to find ways to combine Internet-age convenience with old-school social experience. Maybe, if we can liberate money from the tyranny of debt service, and get it to start moving at the same speed as the people who make, save, invest, and spend it, we really can bake a large enough economic pie for everyone.
Admittedly, this is just a dream. But maybe necessity will make it a reality. I hope it happens before we say goodbye to another Lord & Taylor.
America? Russia? Can You Tell Which Is Which?
And now, sadly, on to what is only the second-most important story of our time.
During the Cold War, and for a long time after its unofficial end in 1989, Americans could take pride not only in its "hard power," as defined by its military strength, but also in the "soft power" of its ideals, and its willingness to pursue making this ideals a reality. It's fairly safe to say that much of the social progress that has been made in this country, especially in the area of civil rights, came about as a consequence of that willingness, at least in part. How, after all, could we lecture the rest of the world about freedom and equality if we as a people ourselves were neither truly free or equal?
Unfortunately, that question is now a haunting one. Because, under the current occupant of the Oval Office, much of that social progress is not only beginning to unravel, but is seemingly being thrown into reverse. In truth, much of this reversal has been going in slow motion for quite a long time, beginning with the Reagan era. But those of us on the progressive side of the fence has always maintained the faith that democratic processes, and a commitment by all political sides to abide by them, would be enough to eventually set this country headed in the right direction.
In fact, the end of the Cold War itself seemed to validate that point of view. So did the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency, after a period of manufactured warfare and bankrupt economics. American ideals, during the Bush years, had been put to the ultimate test, and had proved to be enough to vanquish a serious attempt to thwart them.
But, as it turned out, the ultimate test was yet to come.
In 2016, the nation elected, and swore into office, a man whose victory had come about despite credible reasons to believe that a major foreign power, Russia (the functional successor to the Soviet Union) made massive, direct attempts to intervene in the outcome of the election and manipulate that outcome for its own benefit. And, although a few fingers were lifted against this horror in the form of demonstrations and legal challenges, the weight of public opinion leaned in the direction of those who believed that "our system" was strong enough to survive any attempt to thwart it.
For myself, however, and for many others, my weight shifted in the other direction.
I have long believed that the modern conservative movement, as launched in the post-World-War-II era, understands words like "freedom" and "democracy" in a very narrow sense. Specifically, the freedom to be a conservative, and to insist that democracy only be allow to promote conservative points of view. I have seen the truth of this in its willingness to promote right-wing dictatorships over legitimate democratic movements that were deemed to be "too leftist," in its insistence on "balanced" coverage from supposedly "liberal" media (while allowing the conservative counterparts to be as "unbalanced" as possible), and in its willing to promote an authoritarian perspective on faith under the twin guises of "tradition" and "religious freedom."
The tipping point, however, occurred for me even before Election Night 2016, courtesy of Mitch McCONnell, the Republican leader of the Senate. (I'll use his name, since a little manipulation allows me to tweak it in order to properly reflect his character, but will deny him the respect of pretending he leads a "majority.") Fresh from his successful denial of Merrick Garland the proper respect that a Supreme Court nominee deserves, in the hope that a Republican successor to Obama would get to fill a Court vacancy, McCONnell refused to cooperate with Obama's pre-election plan to share with the public what was then known about Russian plans to sabotage the election. He baldly stated his intention to denounce any such attempt as "partisan" in nature.
Sadly, Obama folded, as he did with the Garland nomination. That's on him, and I have no reservations about calling him out for it. In fact, Obama's penchant for folding in the face of Republican opposition, even when that opposition may have been little more than bluffing, is mirrored in a sad tendency by Democrats generally to put too much faith in the good intentions of the other side. That history, to some extent is recapped here. We have been constantly affronted with Republican disrespect for democracy, and then constantly been told, in the immortal words of Antonin Scalia, to "get over it." And, by doing so, we have enabled the present moment (myself included) to a far greater degree than any of is probably care to admit.
But make no mistake: McCONnell put Obama in that position with regard to the intelligence about the election. It was McCONnell who, faced once again with a choice between country and political chess, chose chess. Because that is what not only McCONnell, and the party that will follow him anywhere, do. They are not interested in building a better America, only in the acquisition of power, by any means. And let's be as clear as possible: they have not been stopped for a minute by the fact that the current President has a long history of association with Russia that makes plausible the possibility that he is not truly an American President, but a Russian asset.
How much plausibility should you give to that thought? Or, for that matter, to the idea that conservatives would chose conservatism over democracy? Take the words of a leading conservative, David Frum, who served in the Bush Administration: “If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.” Again, his words, not mine.
Or, don't take his words at all. Take a look at what is going on around us.
The banning of a reporter from the White House press pool, and the Presidential denunciation of reporters as "bad people."
The use of employer's rights to restrict freedom of speech for their employees, forcing people to choose between their beliefs and their ability to survive.
The restriction of the rights of the poor to public benefits, for no other reason than to assert who's "in charge.
The caging of human beings who are guilt of nothing more than the desire to flee unsafe countries, in conditions that cannot even be called decent.
The willingness of the current Administration to go to war not for the defense of the nation, but to use warfare as a public relations tool to pump up support for said Administration (here we go, "wagging the dog" again).
And finally, at least for now, the unwillingness of the current Congress to spend any money, or otherwise take any precautions whatsoever, to ensure that our elections are free from foreign--specifically, Russian--interference.
Is it any wonder that Putin wanted the current occupant of the Oval Office to be that occupant? He's getting exactly what he wants: a clone of his own country, one nominally led by a man who is easily susceptible to flattery. As has been pointed out recently, that's the hold that Putin, or anyone, can have over our "President," the only one that's really necessary. Flattery. Infinite amounts of it. That's how you hold on to a world-class narcissist. You don't need "pee tapes." You don't need "Playboy tapes." You don't need any tapes at all. You just need to keep petting him on the head and say "Good boychik. Good boychik. Now go do what I want."
And is it any wonder that Republican members of Congress spent the past Fourth of July not here, but in Russia, doing who-knows-what? It's enough to remind one of the chilling last lines of George Orwell's "Animal Farm," in which an idealistic rebellion by farm animals against a drunken farmer degenerates into an autocracy led by pigs, who increasing act like the animals former master. At the book's end, the pigs host and toast their human neighbors, while the rest of the farm animals look on in horror:
This is why it's essential to vote, and to get others to vote, this coming November. But, no matter what happens in this election (and a fair outcome is by no means certain, under these circumstances), it is not enough to vote. We must, sadly, fight the people we have long regarded as our fellow countrymen (and women) on whichever battlefield is necessary.
For they are no longer our fellows. They are the enemy. And, for the sake of true democracy, no quarter can be given.
During the Cold War, and for a long time after its unofficial end in 1989, Americans could take pride not only in its "hard power," as defined by its military strength, but also in the "soft power" of its ideals, and its willingness to pursue making this ideals a reality. It's fairly safe to say that much of the social progress that has been made in this country, especially in the area of civil rights, came about as a consequence of that willingness, at least in part. How, after all, could we lecture the rest of the world about freedom and equality if we as a people ourselves were neither truly free or equal?
Unfortunately, that question is now a haunting one. Because, under the current occupant of the Oval Office, much of that social progress is not only beginning to unravel, but is seemingly being thrown into reverse. In truth, much of this reversal has been going in slow motion for quite a long time, beginning with the Reagan era. But those of us on the progressive side of the fence has always maintained the faith that democratic processes, and a commitment by all political sides to abide by them, would be enough to eventually set this country headed in the right direction.
In fact, the end of the Cold War itself seemed to validate that point of view. So did the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency, after a period of manufactured warfare and bankrupt economics. American ideals, during the Bush years, had been put to the ultimate test, and had proved to be enough to vanquish a serious attempt to thwart them.
But, as it turned out, the ultimate test was yet to come.
In 2016, the nation elected, and swore into office, a man whose victory had come about despite credible reasons to believe that a major foreign power, Russia (the functional successor to the Soviet Union) made massive, direct attempts to intervene in the outcome of the election and manipulate that outcome for its own benefit. And, although a few fingers were lifted against this horror in the form of demonstrations and legal challenges, the weight of public opinion leaned in the direction of those who believed that "our system" was strong enough to survive any attempt to thwart it.
For myself, however, and for many others, my weight shifted in the other direction.
I have long believed that the modern conservative movement, as launched in the post-World-War-II era, understands words like "freedom" and "democracy" in a very narrow sense. Specifically, the freedom to be a conservative, and to insist that democracy only be allow to promote conservative points of view. I have seen the truth of this in its willingness to promote right-wing dictatorships over legitimate democratic movements that were deemed to be "too leftist," in its insistence on "balanced" coverage from supposedly "liberal" media (while allowing the conservative counterparts to be as "unbalanced" as possible), and in its willing to promote an authoritarian perspective on faith under the twin guises of "tradition" and "religious freedom."
The tipping point, however, occurred for me even before Election Night 2016, courtesy of Mitch McCONnell, the Republican leader of the Senate. (I'll use his name, since a little manipulation allows me to tweak it in order to properly reflect his character, but will deny him the respect of pretending he leads a "majority.") Fresh from his successful denial of Merrick Garland the proper respect that a Supreme Court nominee deserves, in the hope that a Republican successor to Obama would get to fill a Court vacancy, McCONnell refused to cooperate with Obama's pre-election plan to share with the public what was then known about Russian plans to sabotage the election. He baldly stated his intention to denounce any such attempt as "partisan" in nature.
Sadly, Obama folded, as he did with the Garland nomination. That's on him, and I have no reservations about calling him out for it. In fact, Obama's penchant for folding in the face of Republican opposition, even when that opposition may have been little more than bluffing, is mirrored in a sad tendency by Democrats generally to put too much faith in the good intentions of the other side. That history, to some extent is recapped here. We have been constantly affronted with Republican disrespect for democracy, and then constantly been told, in the immortal words of Antonin Scalia, to "get over it." And, by doing so, we have enabled the present moment (myself included) to a far greater degree than any of is probably care to admit.
But make no mistake: McCONnell put Obama in that position with regard to the intelligence about the election. It was McCONnell who, faced once again with a choice between country and political chess, chose chess. Because that is what not only McCONnell, and the party that will follow him anywhere, do. They are not interested in building a better America, only in the acquisition of power, by any means. And let's be as clear as possible: they have not been stopped for a minute by the fact that the current President has a long history of association with Russia that makes plausible the possibility that he is not truly an American President, but a Russian asset.
How much plausibility should you give to that thought? Or, for that matter, to the idea that conservatives would chose conservatism over democracy? Take the words of a leading conservative, David Frum, who served in the Bush Administration: “If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.” Again, his words, not mine.
Or, don't take his words at all. Take a look at what is going on around us.
The banning of a reporter from the White House press pool, and the Presidential denunciation of reporters as "bad people."
The use of employer's rights to restrict freedom of speech for their employees, forcing people to choose between their beliefs and their ability to survive.
The restriction of the rights of the poor to public benefits, for no other reason than to assert who's "in charge.
The caging of human beings who are guilt of nothing more than the desire to flee unsafe countries, in conditions that cannot even be called decent.
The willingness of the current Administration to go to war not for the defense of the nation, but to use warfare as a public relations tool to pump up support for said Administration (here we go, "wagging the dog" again).
And finally, at least for now, the unwillingness of the current Congress to spend any money, or otherwise take any precautions whatsoever, to ensure that our elections are free from foreign--specifically, Russian--interference.
Is it any wonder that Putin wanted the current occupant of the Oval Office to be that occupant? He's getting exactly what he wants: a clone of his own country, one nominally led by a man who is easily susceptible to flattery. As has been pointed out recently, that's the hold that Putin, or anyone, can have over our "President," the only one that's really necessary. Flattery. Infinite amounts of it. That's how you hold on to a world-class narcissist. You don't need "pee tapes." You don't need "Playboy tapes." You don't need any tapes at all. You just need to keep petting him on the head and say "Good boychik. Good boychik. Now go do what I want."
And is it any wonder that Republican members of Congress spent the past Fourth of July not here, but in Russia, doing who-knows-what? It's enough to remind one of the chilling last lines of George Orwell's "Animal Farm," in which an idealistic rebellion by farm animals against a drunken farmer degenerates into an autocracy led by pigs, who increasing act like the animals former master. At the book's end, the pigs host and toast their human neighbors, while the rest of the farm animals look on in horror:
Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.One wonders if a glimpse of that July 4th meeting would have produced a similar response to the viewer.
This is why it's essential to vote, and to get others to vote, this coming November. But, no matter what happens in this election (and a fair outcome is by no means certain, under these circumstances), it is not enough to vote. We must, sadly, fight the people we have long regarded as our fellow countrymen (and women) on whichever battlefield is necessary.
For they are no longer our fellows. They are the enemy. And, for the sake of true democracy, no quarter can be given.
In Not-So-Fake News, We're Either Burning Up Or Drowning
It may be hard to believe that having a potential traitor in the Oval Office is only the second-most important story right now in the world. And I'll get to that story, in due course. But, sadly, that is absolutely the case. Because the nature of the person in the Oval Office may not matter so much when there's a planet at stake.
Yes, I know, I write about this a great deal. But, since we don't have anyplace other than Earth on which to live at the moment, it might be worthwhile to stop from time to time, look around us, and see what's happening.
And it ain't pretty.
Resource depletion at a record rate, and increasing exponentially from year to year.
Coastal regions slowly sinking into the ocean, and likely never to return.
And if you don't live on the coast? No consolation there at all, folks. Chances are that, like Great Britain, you're burning up. Literally.
Go ahead and call me a creeping socialist for pointing out these articles to you. Two of them come from the New York Post, nobody's idea of a creeping-socialist newspaper. Yes, the third one comes from the New York Times, and you can flog the Times as much as you want. But when both papers are basically telling the same story about the world around us, I think that it has a lot more to do with the reality they're both seeing, and that their respective ideologies can't let them ignore.
Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no climate deniers anywhere the effects of climate change--there, I've said it--can be seen or felt. And, increasingly, those effects have no boundaries.
And just as those effects are crossing geographic lines, the response to them--the only response based on the facts, that is--is doing the same thing with political lines. Great Britain, of course, has (barely) a government led by the Conservative Party, a party whose members generally see eye-to-eye with their counterparts in the U.S., the Republicans. Here, from the Times article, is a single-sentence summation of that government's current take on climate: "The British government announced Thursday that adapting to a warming climate was now a matter of 'life and death.'” (Emphasis added, as if it needed to be.)
On the other hand, perhaps it does.
Because while this country was making some--some--real progress on this issue during the Obama administration, Obama's successor (who loves hearing his name, so I won't use it) has been going full-speed in the other direction, discouraging the development of renewable sources of energy, and wedding the country to resources that cannot be reproduced or duplicated, only replaced.
In so doing, he is preying on the fears of two groups: the owners of fossil-fuel industries, who fear that they will not be able to profitably adapt to an age of solar, wind, and geothermal power, and the employees of those industries (especially coal miners), who fear the loss of familiar jobs and doubt their own ability to adapt to employment in a world of renewables.
It should seem obvious that there are ways by which government at all levels could provide incentives in various forms to enable both investors and workers to successfully and painlessly make the transition from the extraction world of energy to the renewable one. Obama, of course, translated a number of these ideas into public policy when he was President. Hillary Clinton, the person who should be sitting in the Oval Office right now, was ready and willing to do the same and more.
But the current President does not actually care about solving problems. He only cares about political issues at all to the extent that they can be manipulated to promote his personal interests, both in his businesses and in his ability to reach a second term in office. And he always takes the divide-and-conquer approach to that manipulation. Thus, problems are never actually solved. They continue to fester, so that they can remain available for future misuse.
In short, he illustrates the difference between holding an office, and serving the people who have "elected" him to it. (I'll have more to say about the "election" part of the equation in a subsequent post.)
So, even though public opinion in the U.S. is--admittedly, very slowly--moving in the direction of accepting the reality and the danger of climate change, the reality and danger are growing at a faster rate than is the acceptance of its existence.
What can you do? Rather, what should you do, for everyone's sake?
Stop pretending the problem isn't real, if that's where you are. And stop pretending there is nothing we can do about the problem, if that's where you are. There are many things we can do to not only solve the problem but also, in the process, achieve a level of economic growth that could benefit more than just a handful of investors. I have said it before, and will continue saying it until either I or the temperature drops: it's possible to have an environment without an economy, but not an economy without an environment.
And, once you have stopped all of that pretending, one more thing remains: find out which candidates support policies that address the need to adapt to and overcome the effects of climate change, and only vote for those candidates.
It's our only planet. It's up to us to save it.
Get started doing that right now. Before we burn--or sink--together.
Yes, I know, I write about this a great deal. But, since we don't have anyplace other than Earth on which to live at the moment, it might be worthwhile to stop from time to time, look around us, and see what's happening.
And it ain't pretty.
Resource depletion at a record rate, and increasing exponentially from year to year.
Coastal regions slowly sinking into the ocean, and likely never to return.
And if you don't live on the coast? No consolation there at all, folks. Chances are that, like Great Britain, you're burning up. Literally.
Go ahead and call me a creeping socialist for pointing out these articles to you. Two of them come from the New York Post, nobody's idea of a creeping-socialist newspaper. Yes, the third one comes from the New York Times, and you can flog the Times as much as you want. But when both papers are basically telling the same story about the world around us, I think that it has a lot more to do with the reality they're both seeing, and that their respective ideologies can't let them ignore.
Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no climate deniers anywhere the effects of climate change--there, I've said it--can be seen or felt. And, increasingly, those effects have no boundaries.
And just as those effects are crossing geographic lines, the response to them--the only response based on the facts, that is--is doing the same thing with political lines. Great Britain, of course, has (barely) a government led by the Conservative Party, a party whose members generally see eye-to-eye with their counterparts in the U.S., the Republicans. Here, from the Times article, is a single-sentence summation of that government's current take on climate: "The British government announced Thursday that adapting to a warming climate was now a matter of 'life and death.'” (Emphasis added, as if it needed to be.)
On the other hand, perhaps it does.
Because while this country was making some--some--real progress on this issue during the Obama administration, Obama's successor (who loves hearing his name, so I won't use it) has been going full-speed in the other direction, discouraging the development of renewable sources of energy, and wedding the country to resources that cannot be reproduced or duplicated, only replaced.
In so doing, he is preying on the fears of two groups: the owners of fossil-fuel industries, who fear that they will not be able to profitably adapt to an age of solar, wind, and geothermal power, and the employees of those industries (especially coal miners), who fear the loss of familiar jobs and doubt their own ability to adapt to employment in a world of renewables.
It should seem obvious that there are ways by which government at all levels could provide incentives in various forms to enable both investors and workers to successfully and painlessly make the transition from the extraction world of energy to the renewable one. Obama, of course, translated a number of these ideas into public policy when he was President. Hillary Clinton, the person who should be sitting in the Oval Office right now, was ready and willing to do the same and more.
But the current President does not actually care about solving problems. He only cares about political issues at all to the extent that they can be manipulated to promote his personal interests, both in his businesses and in his ability to reach a second term in office. And he always takes the divide-and-conquer approach to that manipulation. Thus, problems are never actually solved. They continue to fester, so that they can remain available for future misuse.
In short, he illustrates the difference between holding an office, and serving the people who have "elected" him to it. (I'll have more to say about the "election" part of the equation in a subsequent post.)
So, even though public opinion in the U.S. is--admittedly, very slowly--moving in the direction of accepting the reality and the danger of climate change, the reality and danger are growing at a faster rate than is the acceptance of its existence.
What can you do? Rather, what should you do, for everyone's sake?
Stop pretending the problem isn't real, if that's where you are. And stop pretending there is nothing we can do about the problem, if that's where you are. There are many things we can do to not only solve the problem but also, in the process, achieve a level of economic growth that could benefit more than just a handful of investors. I have said it before, and will continue saying it until either I or the temperature drops: it's possible to have an environment without an economy, but not an economy without an environment.
And, once you have stopped all of that pretending, one more thing remains: find out which candidates support policies that address the need to adapt to and overcome the effects of climate change, and only vote for those candidates.
It's our only planet. It's up to us to save it.
Get started doing that right now. Before we burn--or sink--together.
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