The Republican Party is doing its best to recreate a meme using Democratic New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Saul Alinsky, for those of you who have forgotten, came after the failed attempt to link Barack Obama to terrorism by yelling Bill Ayers during his 2008 campaign, Alinsky was the 2012 thing in Obama’s past to fear. Alinsky was a native Chicagoan and is widely credited with being the father of modern community organizing. Like screaming socialism at Ms. Cortez accompanied by a furrowed brow and pursed lips, Alinsky becomes a bogey-man because his name sounded both fascist and ironically Jewish. That was enough for the know-nothing Republican Party, he became the latest catchphrase for the anti-Obama crowd. Instead of “pal-ing around with terrorist” he was pal-ing around with the philosophy of Saul Alinsky.
It did not matter that Obama was 10 years old when Alinsky died. Rush Limbaugh using the title of an LA times article Obama the “Magic Negro” conflated the nuance of the article and labeled Obama as Alinsky’s clone, radical, dangerous and un-American. Republicans are good at conflation. Obamacare supposedly promoted ‘death panels’ because it allowed for humane discussions within families and their doctors to make end-of-life decisions. That brings us to Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez she has become the red, in this case, a brown menace to the Republican faithful, and they think they have hit upon a winning strategy, oppose saving the planet.
The concept of a Green New Deal makes perfect sense, the discussion should be on how to pay for it not that AOC is a ‘socialist’ bent on destroying capitalism. Unfortunately, the attention span of the American voter is short and good sound bites win the day. I am willing to bet most people opposed to the Green New Deal are the same people who opposed the Affordable Care Act because ignorance breeds contempt and the Republican party has no intention of spaying or neutering their base. The following is the basis of the GND:
We will:
- Invest in sustainable businesses including cooperatives and non-profits by providing grants and loans with an emphasis on small, locally-based companies that keep the wealth created by local labor circulating in the community rather than being drained off to enrich absentee investors.
- Move to 100% clean energy by 2030. Invest in clean energy technologies that are ready to go now. Redirect research funds from fossil fuels and other dead-end industries toward research in wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal energy. We will invest in research in sustainable, nontoxic materials and closed-loop cycles that eliminate waste and pollution, as well as organic agriculture, permaculture, and sustainable forestry.
- Create a Commission for Economic Democracy to provide publicity, training, education, and direct financing for cooperative development and for democratic reforms to make government agencies, private associations, and business enterprises more participatory. We will strengthen democracy via participatory budgeting and institutions that encourage local initiative and democratic decision-making.
- Establish a Renewable Energy Administration on the scale of FDR’s hugely successful Rural Electrification Administration, launched in 1935, that brought electrical power to rural America, 95 percent of which had no power. Emulated by many other countries, this initiative provided technical support, financing, and coordination to more than 900 municipal cooperatives, many of which still exist. The Green New Deal would update this model with eco-friendly energy sources.
- End unemployment in America once and for all by guaranteeing a job at a living wage for every American willing and able to work. A Full Employment Program will create up to 20 million jobs, both directly and indirectly, by implementing a nationally-funded, locally-controlled, direct employment initiative replacing unemployment offices with local employment offices. The government will be the employer of last resort, offering jobs meeting community-identified needs in the public and non-profit sectors to take up any slack in private for-profit sector employment. These will include jobs in sustainable energy and energy efficiency retrofitting, mass transit and “complete streets” that promote safe bike and pedestrian traffic, regional food systems based on sustainable organic agriculture, clean manufacturing, infrastructure, and public services (education, youth programs, child care, senior care, etc). Communities will use a process of broad stakeholder input and democratic decision making to fairly design and implement these programs.
Nine years after the institution of the Affordable Care Act and in spite of lies and misleading information it is more popular than ever. Ocasio-Cortez’s progressive youth apparently scares Republicans. Is the Republican Party afraid of Democratic socialism or Democratic youthful success?
In episode 136 of the old Rifleman series, set in the 1870s, Lucas McCain’s young son Mark had an idea, "Say Pa. About that dishwashing box idea. I've been thinkin' about it. Suppose we had a little windmill. We could attach a shaft to a-rockin' chair and every time the windmill turned the rocker would go back and forth and rock all the dishes clean." An automatic dishwasher what a crazy…hmmm? Youth is impetuous but not always wrong.
Vote in 2020 for Change.