"AOC's chief of staff comments just killed the Green New Deal" Washington Examiner

"Chakrabarti had an unexpected disclosure. “The interesting thing about the Green New Deal,” he said, “is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all.” Ricketts greeted this startling notion with an attentive poker face. “Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Chakrabarti continued. “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

The Green New Deal has always rested on deception. Ocasio-Cortez and her backers have argued that we are facing catastrophic emergency and that if we don't act immediately the looming devastation will be unavoidable. But at the same time, the plan is a wish list of ideas that American socialists would be pushing regardless of the climate issue, and they are in no way necessary to address the global emergency: free college, more union jobs, free healthcare for all, economic security, and "guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States."

The resolution on the Green New Deal, by the way, was co-sponsored by six 2020 presidential candidates: Sens. Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Amy Klobuchar.

Ocasio-Cortez and her allies are of course free to make the case for why the U.S. should move toward a socialist economy. But they don't get to use the pretext of a global emergency to do so. You can make a case that scientists have warned of disastrous consequences without action to curb carbon emissions, and try to shame those who are blocking action. But it's another thing to define "serious action on climate change" as requiring people to embrace AOC's economic vision."  Byron York

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It doesn't get better this.  The clown admits that what he and AOC want is to kill capitalism and create  a commend economy.   pl

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/aocs-chief-of-staff-just-killed-the-green-new-deal

Comments

[b]

"free college, more union jobs, free healthcare for all, economic security, and guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security"

These are all points aimed at and/or achieved throughout the last 50 years in many western Europe countries. None of these countries had or has "commend economy".

[Ray R]

I find that BTB (i.e. "Bucky the Bartender") is fulfilling the role she was auditioned and selected to play by Justice Democrats (i.e. George Soros Inc.). She is a virtual air head but dutifully regurgitates the lines she is being fed by her masters. By the way, Justice Dems also sponsored Omar and Pressley - - two other stalwart members of the Libtard Party.

[srw]

I looked up "socialism" and the definition that came up is; "a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole."
What AOC and company sounds like proposing is a "Scandinavian social welfare state". You can argue whether it's feasible or good for the US but the last time I saw pure socialism was just before the Soviet Union imploded (not counting the Hermit Kingdom).

[different clue]

Well, now I feel better about never having gotten around to reading the Green New Deal document.

It wasn't from personal "lack of diligence". It was for personal "conservation of time".

[turcopolier]

b

Most of us here do not wish to submit to government in the way you Europeans have.

[Eric Newhill]

B,
These guys want to almost instantly destroy $trillions in equity and wages in the healthcare, energy sectors and other sectors, as well as eliminate the growing dominance of the US in energy production. This isn't just changing the US economy. It is destroying it - and for what? Most Americans enjoy great prosperity and freedom. And the hope that something better emerges from the ashes? Sometimes I think these people aren't just goofy, but are actual paid enemies of America.

But this revelation by doofus Chakrabarti is most certainly the last nail in the coffin for the democrat party, which was already doing a great job of alienating every day Americans. Trump is going to win in a landslide.

[Barbara Ann]

Beware socialists bearing planet-saving schemes? At least Marx and Engels were honest in their manifesto.

This revelation of what many already suspected will do untold harm to those scientists genuinely trying to warn us of the impact of anthropogenic climate change. The very last thing these people need is people like AOC and her band of subversive revolutionaries hijacking the issue for their political ends. If I were a climate scientist, I'd be real pissed right now. The GND just became the poster child for the conspiracy theories of 'climate change deniers'. That's quite an achievement Congresswoman.

[Divadab]

The problem is in many sectors of our economy which are controlled by cartels, we already have a command economy - but commanded by the cartel owners. Ask any farmer on Monsanto’s system or Butterballs system- as examples- the farmer is tied to the corporation as a sharecropper : he must buy all his work inputs from the corporation ; operate exactly according to their procedures ; and he can only sell into a cartelized market where he is a price taker. Yes there are still independents but they have to get big to survive . And a competent farmer in the corporate systèm will make a good living - he will be, as a colleague who started out as a farm boy but got a good job with a huge processor : “farmers are the bottom of the food chain”.

The cartels command via capturing the agencies which are supposed to regulate them and run them to the benefit of their profits. Why else are prescription drugs in the USA the most expensive in the world? Because the pharmaceutical cartel commands it!

Marx said capitalism would destroy itself and this systematic corruption of the government , which is supposed to work for all citizens, in order to benefit the profits of the very few, will do just that. Do these corporatists (they are Not capitalists! Greedy rent-.seekers, rather) not see the consequences of their unregulated greed? Do they want to prove Marx right? So they can have another airplane?

Command economies do not work, whoever’s doing the commanding. Except in wartime.

[John Minehan]

“'Do you guys think of it as a climate thing' Chakrabarti continued. 'Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.'”

Chakrabarti's point is a bit more subtle than you present. In his view, the climate problems that are emerging are a function of how the economy is organized and if you want to avoid a potentially existential crisis, you need, at minimum, to re-think how the economy is organized.

I think his point is not that the "Green New Deal" is a sham, but rather that economic reform and a sustainable environmental dispensation are inextricably linked.

Is he right? I'm not sure. But it also appears there are issues with the current economic assumptions that need to be addressed. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/21/death-of-neoliberalism-crisis-in-western-politics

Let's see what happens . . . .

[John Minehan]

All of them have more of a "command economy" than the United States and none have created the wealth that the US has since 1980 and most cannot sustain these things (to the degree they have achieved them) under current conditions.

[John Minehan]

The more valid issue is that Scandinavian Socialism, when it worked, required a level of local control and decentralization that AOC and Sanders do not appear to be advocating for.

If you want to make the US into the image and likeness of another state, you might want to understand that model first.

[Fred]

How's the EU economy doing, need a couple million hard working Mexicans? You don't have that diversity yet so better get Merkel to "shake a leg" before she's voted out of office.

[Fred]

Has anyone announced their candidacy in her congressional district yet?

[John Merryman]

Unfortunately Capitalism is doing a fine job of killing itself, as finance has mutated from the efficient transfer of value, to the manufacture of money as an end itself. Bankers used to understand they served a function to society, in order to have the degrees of control they have(try getting a loan, if you think otherwise). Now its just matter of growing the money supply, in order to have more chips in the casino.

[AreJay]

It appears the threat of "climate change" is what the left sees as the reason everyone will agree to give the government more control of the economy, so they have no qualms about repeatedly pushing that reason, as ridiculous as it is.

It sort of reminds me of Paul Wolfowitz' statement about WMDs and the lead up to the Iraq War in 2003. He said that the WMD reason was the one everyone could agree on, so they pushed that reason hard and heavy, no matter what the intel said.

I guess when you want something bad enough, you can't let the truth get in the way.

[elaine]

Ray, Alexandra Rojas, the executive director of The Justice Democrats,
is now on CNN as a contributor. She's articulate & attractive so likely
she'll get a lot more air time spewing The J.D's current version of the
old Frankfurt School propaganda

[Eric Shaffer]

Well if that true. Congrats your more versed then he is. You said it more intelligently and more explianitive then he did.

[b]

Pat

Haven't you all your life been a member of one of the largest socialized system of the world, the U.S. military? It offers cradle to grave socialism for its members and their families who submit to their government in a far more obedient way than most Europeans would do.

It is curious how that fits to a quasi libertarian view of economic issues.

[Error404]

"The clown admits that what he and AOC want is to kill capitalism and create a commend economy."

Sorry, true capitalism - as opposed to oligarchic crony-capitalism - died long ago in the US, largely murdered in its sleep by the right with the aid of the fake left. As for your understandable objections to a 'command economy', what would you call the FOMC deciding the price of the most important commodity in any supposedly capitalist economy (i.e., money)? The US is already ruled by a monetary Gosplan subservient to a cabal of kleptocrats. Perhaps it's simply time for a change, despite the undoubted flaws in what AOC and her ilk are proposing and how they are promoting it.

[turcopolier]

b

My submission to the monastic socialism necessary to run the military was a personal sacrifice that I do not want to see for my society as a whole.

[Barbara Ann]

John Minehan

"it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all”. I can't imagine a less subtle admission that the "Green" credentials were simply added as the excuse chosen to scare an electorate into voting for the GND's socialist agenda.

If we do need to save the World, I'm sure as hell the solution will come from an approach where we put the problem first, not the solution.

[Bill H]

Well said, sir. What too few in society realize is that the real sacrifice of those who serve is less that some of them lose their lives but that all of them choose to surrender a significant degree of their freedom. Most people who say, "thank you for your service" have no idea what they are thanking the serviceman for.

[fredw]

When I was a young college student long ago, every basic economics textbook had a section explaining how an agriculture system of small self-directed farmers was grossly superior to the Soviet corporatization of collective farms, how it produced incredible surpluses while communist countries could barely feed themselves, how millions of independent decisions produced results superior to those of any centralized plan. Today we have an agriculture nearly as centralized (though not nearly as coercive) as the collective farms. We still produce surpluses on demand, so of course the story is that this, rather than independent decision making, represents the glory of free-market capitalism.

The official story was always a bit of a con. Our congressman had the (to me) remarkable ability to modulate seamlessly from deploring socialist systems of choosing winners and losers into proclaiming the absolute necessity of agricultural price supports. Subsidizing production beyond demand of course had nothing to do with the marvelous efficiency that created incredible quantities of milk, cheese, and wheat.

Today the independent farmers have lost control (and in many cases abandoned the farms). The official story glorifies the success of free market capitalism while going light on the free market part of the concept. Official stories always celebrate the participants who have the power. That is not to say that the official story is wrong, exactly, only that it is biased and that we can't just accept the biases at face value. Infringements on the concept of free markets may be deplorable, but they are also part and parcel of the system that we have. A little honesty about that would go a long ways toward clarifying the possible solutions to some problems.

Appeals to absolute principals are generally a path to disaster. Human affairs are run with compromises that steer between bad effects of one absolute principle and equally bad effects of the opposite (often equally plausible) absolute principle. Aristotle made that case 2500 years ago, and all of history since has confirmed him.

[Betsy Ross]

I used to be in climate science. This is a vast multi-disciplinary field and no one in it comes close to understanding the full body of knowledge of ALL constituent sub-fields, radiative transfer, stratospheric chemistry, ocean dynamics, etc, and the critical details on how they are implemented into numerical models. You work in your area and trust that everyone who is working in the other areas is on the trail of truth.

I overheard two colleagues discussing some climatic observational data that conflicted with 'the narrative'. One said something like "It doesn't matter if we are wrong, the economic/political changes we are pushing need to be implemented ANYWAY." They were quite willing to be Ahmed Chalabi 'heroes in error'. It was a red pill moment.

Please note that most climate scientists are on the trail of truth. We just cannot assume that any given individual is and if someone is pushing radical societal transformation, look for ulterior motive, especially money. The internationalist financialists (globalists) stand to gain the most, but their Marxist handmaidens in the academy are more than happy to cooperate for a slice of the pie as long as the destruction of Western Civilization is the result.

The climate IS changing. (So what? The climate is ALWAYS changing.) Climate change as a threat to Western Civilization is not even in the noise compared to the deeply hostile and utterly unassimilable hordes now flooding into the West. Climate change is a Ben Franklin stage 3 area of study along with "painting, poetry, and music." Our forebears let the wrong people into our civilization, so we are back to stage 1. God help us all.

https://foundersquotes.com/founding-fathers-quote/i-must-study-politics-and-war-that-my-sons-may-have-liberty-to-study-mathematics-and-philosophy/

[divadab]

Sir - the disciplined self-sacrifice of the warrior is essential to the survival of any civilization. Hedonistic hothouse flowers are useless in any existential struggle. If the people become soft and weak, they will lose to the hard and hungry men.

I should add that the disciplined self-sacrifice of men is required to defend civilization, speaking as a gentle man, not a warrior other than as an effort of will.