□□BREAKING□□
— Sunrise Movement □ (@sunrisemvmt) August 22, 2019
□Our official statement on the DNC vote□
Stay tuned for more details & next steps forward. pic.twitter.com/PzHLITxV90
I would like to dedicate this entry to the late David Koch, capitalist royalty from my wife's hometown of Wichita, the Libertarian Party's 1980 nominee for vice president, and funder of multiple conservative-to-libertarian think tanks that churn out reams of climate-denier propaganda. The news of his death—from natural causes, not by guillotine—certainly doesn't sadden me, but I'm not exactly celebrating. His dying will not bring an end to the international neoliberal nightmare in which he and brother Charles have played a starring role.
A glance at Koch's wiki entry reminds us that, odious as he may have been on far too many issues, he continued to hold some libertarian positions that even Greens could appreciate.
Will the circumstances of the disbursement of his billions will be announced? Stay tuned.
*****
Last night I was one of dozens of Angry Tweeters after seeing the news about the Democratic National Committee's resolution to conduct a presidential debate dedicated to climate disruption. Here is my bit from last week concerning this matter. The Resolutions Committee voted 17-8 against the measure. I am less angry this morning, as the full picture emerges, but still ready & rarin' to rag on the chicken-shit Democratic leadership.
The Sunrise Movement reports that the resolution may still face a vote of the entire DNC, where it has a chance of passing. Sunrise remains cautiously optimistic, given that the Resolutions Committee did pass an amendment to the resolution which would allow two or more candidates to appear together in events that the DNC does not directly sanction—e.g., outside of the televised debates. The amendment was then voted down along with the resolution itself, so nothing has changed on that front.
As Sunrise's statement implies, the optimism stems from seeing people-power in action, from Sunrisers themselves exerting real and sustained pressure on policy-makers. You and I may believe that the Sunrisers are barking up a hearing-impaired tree, but I love that these teens and 20-somethings are learning first hand where the ropes are and how to pull them. So I remain optimistic about their dedication to this issue and, by extension, to every issue connected to it.
A glance at Koch's wiki entry reminds us that, odious as he may have been on far too many issues, he continued to hold some libertarian positions that even Greens could appreciate.
Will the circumstances of the disbursement of his billions will be announced? Stay tuned.
*****
Last night I was one of dozens of Angry Tweeters after seeing the news about the Democratic National Committee's resolution to conduct a presidential debate dedicated to climate disruption. Here is my bit from last week concerning this matter. The Resolutions Committee voted 17-8 against the measure. I am less angry this morning, as the full picture emerges, but still ready & rarin' to rag on the chicken-shit Democratic leadership.
The Sunrise Movement reports that the resolution may still face a vote of the entire DNC, where it has a chance of passing. Sunrise remains cautiously optimistic, given that the Resolutions Committee did pass an amendment to the resolution which would allow two or more candidates to appear together in events that the DNC does not directly sanction—e.g., outside of the televised debates. The amendment was then voted down along with the resolution itself, so nothing has changed on that front.
As Sunrise's statement implies, the optimism stems from seeing people-power in action, from Sunrisers themselves exerting real and sustained pressure on policy-makers. You and I may believe that the Sunrisers are barking up a hearing-impaired tree, but I love that these teens and 20-somethings are learning first hand where the ropes are and how to pull them. So I remain optimistic about their dedication to this issue and, by extension, to every issue connected to it.
Regarding that intersectionality, I truly dig this quote from Washing State Democratic Chair Tina Powdowlaski (hell, I even love her name):
"When it comes to the intersectional aspects of climate, it can be an issue that is tough for people to wrap their heads around. And so they don't, and they get afraid," she said. "What DNC chair Tom Perez ended up saying is that, you know, 'I would rather have reality TV-style debates where people are talking for one minute and then looking silly on TV, than having substantive discussion on the issue.'"
A piece that I saw on Common Dreams noted that committee members and National Chair Tom Perez were chary of how a debate on climate might drive away base voters. As I read the quote from the Huffington Post article, "...Top brass at the DNC opposed the climate debate from the get-go, fearing it could sow discord in the base and hamper the eventual nominee in the general election..." I remember thinking that the reference to the Democrats' "base" sounds like Demspeak for "corporate donors." (Republispeak has a cognate phrase, of course.)
No, Mr. Perez, you overpaid doofus. A climate debate is an opportunity to educate voters—those actually willing to watch the debate—on a very important complex of issues, and to discuss possible solutions in the time-frame that the discussion merits. It is an opportunity to distinguish your party from the GOP, where peer pressure to deny anthropogenic climate disruption is the prime directive.
This past Wednesday, Common Dreams reposted from The Intercept this impassioned open letter to the DNC from author Naomi Klein, who has written a thing or three about intersectionality. An excerpt:
No, Mr. Perez, you overpaid doofus. A climate debate is an opportunity to educate voters—those actually willing to watch the debate—on a very important complex of issues, and to discuss possible solutions in the time-frame that the discussion merits. It is an opportunity to distinguish your party from the GOP, where peer pressure to deny anthropogenic climate disruption is the prime directive.
This past Wednesday, Common Dreams reposted from The Intercept this impassioned open letter to the DNC from author Naomi Klein, who has written a thing or three about intersectionality. An excerpt:
First, you will hear that the rules on debates are already set. And, as DNC Chair Tom Perez has declared, the party “will not be holding entire debates on a single issue area.” But here’s the thing: Having a habitable Earth is not a “single issue”; it is the single precondition for every other issue’s existence. Humbling as it may be, our shared climate is the frame inside which all of our lives, causes, and struggles unfold.
More immediately, climate breakdown is already pouring fuel on every evil that humans are capable of conjuring, from deadly wars to femicide to unmasked white supremacy and colonialism. Indeed, President Donald Trump is currently throwing a tantrum because he is being denied what he perceives as the United States’s manifest destiny to purchase the Indigenous-governed territory of Greenland, which has become increasingly valuable because of the wealth made accessible by melting ice. In short, there is nothing singular about planetary breakdown — it encompasses, quite literally, everything.
RSS Feed