The Digger

The move by House Democrats to kill the Green New Deal, while thoroughly predictable, illustrates this political conundrum at work. The  rich control  the American political system and they are rich in large measure because they have been able to force the environmental consequences of industrial production onto everyone but themselves. Environmental resolution is about rebalancing social power. Environmental destruction is in this sense an aspect of class warfare. Source:  Democrats Killed the Green New Deal , by Rob Urie

Where is the call for the New Peace Deal that would free up hundreds of billions from the overblown military budget to invest in green infrastructure? by Medea Benjamin, Alice Slater I n the spirit of a new year and a new Congress, 2019 may well be our best and last opportunity to steer our ship of state away from the twin planetary perils of environmental chaos and militarism, charting a course towards an earth-affirming 21st century.  The environmental crisis was laid bare by the sobering December report of the UN Climate panel: If the world fails to mobilize within the next 12 years on the level of a moon shot, and gear up to change our energy usage from toxic fossil, nuclear and industrial biomass fuels to the already known solutions for employing solar, wind, hydro, geothermal energy and efficiency, we will destroy all life on earth as we know it. The existential question is whether our elected officials, with the reins of power, are going to sit by helplessly as our pl...

There is nothing “progressive” about the Ocasio-Cortez-promoted “New Green Deal,” which is little more than an industry-driven, neoliberal solution that will not solve issues like climate change and poverty but instead empower their underlying cause: U.S. oligarchy. Excerpt: "For someone who has campaigned on upending the status quo and challenging the establishment, Ocasio-Cortez and the “Green New Deal” tied so closely to her name sure have won a lot of support from the establishment, and quickly too. While that phenomenon has been touted as evidence that progressive agendas are finally “winning” on Capitol Hill, one need look no further than the text of the Green New Deal on Ocasio-Cortez’s own website to realize that the real reason this plan has gained so much establishment support so quickly is that it is an oligarch-driven corporate answer to climate change and inequality and a wishlist for the neoliberals who still control the core of the Democratic Party."   ...

Link:   Green New Deal Advocates Should Address Militarism  — by Medea Benjamin, Alice Slater Excerpt: " Where is the call for the New Peace Deal that would free up hundreds of billions from the overblown military budget to invest in green infrastructure? Where is the call to close a majority of our nation’s over 800 military bases overseas, bases that are relics of World War II and are basically useless for military purposes? Where is the call for seriously addressing the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons? [...] Environmentalists need to contest the Pentagon’s staggering global footprint. The US military is the world’s largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels and the largest source of greenhouse gasses, contributing about 5 percent of global warming emissions. Almost 900 of the EPA’s 1,300 Superfund sites are abandoned military bases, weapons-production facilities or weapons-testing sites. The former Hanford nuclear weapons facility in Washingto...