So, I notice a big talking point cornel west's campaign is pushing for 2024 is that the climate emergency is an emergency and Biden is worse than Trump due to gas drilling permits, and we can't wait for the two party system to fix it or we're cooked. I saw the idea pushed in that one video with the vanguard boys who vaush covered, and I also am seeing cornel west supporting accounts pushing this talking point online.
Now, let me just say that climate change is a VERY serious problem. So serious that maybe things are worse than I might think they are. BUT, I did noticed Bernie and then Hawkins pushed these kinds of talking points in 2020, and after analyzing various green new deal and climate proposals, I've kind of deemed these claims to be BS.
The fact is, the IPCC is pushed for a net zero standard by 2050, giving us up to 30 years (from 2020, now 27) to act. And while we should take action now, Biden's build back better and Yang's 2020 platform were both compliant with this standard, while costing 1/10 of what a typical green new deal program costs. Green new dealers often try to push for meeting the 2050 standard by 2030, which is extremely unrealistic and costs literally exponentially more. And leftists with marianne williamson and cornel west are pushing for this agenda.
But why would they do this? Well, some of it is saber rattling. The typical leftist case for their platform over a democrat is that the democrat isn't doing enough and we need more drastic action. So that's just typical campaigning.
On a more ideological level, it seems like the reason the left does this is because the green new deal is a trojan horse for their economic platform. Traditional leftists like jobs and infrastructure programs. They romanticize FDR, if not the jobs programs of actual communist countries, and push for so called job guarantees. The climate emergency is the pretext to pursue the job guarantee. This would put millions of people to work building infrastructure and promotes a more radical vision than biden offers on these subjects. In addition, the green new deal also allows for leftists to push visions of stuff that arent even related to climate change. Like housing programs. And while I like housing programs, and we need to build more housing and it's the most immediate answer to our housing crisis, putting it under the cover of a green new deal seems...dishonest. I like policies to ideally do what they say they do. Putting jobs programs and non climate infrastructure and housing programs in the climate plan seems dishonest.
To be fair, the watered down version of build back better we got was put in an "inflation reduction" bill in order to sell that.
But...I just feel like making people aware of this push for what it is, given my differing ideological goals with the left. The left is exaggerating the climate crisis in order to push it as a national emergency to push their "leftist agenda", which often times doesnt just include fixing the climate, but also jobs programs, and infrastructure projects, and housing, and blah blah blah. Some of which are good things, but dont deserve to be pushed in with the climate emergency.
My own stance on the climate is basically a "let's get the sausage made in the most efficient way" approach. And for me, I actually would PREFER build back better over a green new deal. Because I REALLY don't wanna spend $2-3 trillion a year on this when I can spend $200-300 billion. Keep in mind, I'd rather spend that money on UBI. And that's where MY agenda lies. I don't have the same ideas for the economy as most leftists. Even if I agree with them that we need to do more than centrists do, I'm mature enough to understand that more action doesn't mean better. Cornel West and the greens can saber rattle and one up biden until the cows come home but if I actually don't align with their priorities, then it doesn't help me vote for them.
If there's anything I think Biden wants to do right on, it's climate. He almost gave us a great climate plan in build back better, and that was only shut down because of idiots like joe manchin and kyrsten sinema. And even then the inflation reduction act still got us a decent part of the way there, even if that was anemic even by MY standards. But, yeah, Biden wanted to give us what we needed, it was the congress that refused. And west would have no better luck dealing with congress than biden is.
And before we end, let's discuss the oil thing. LIke it or not, we need oil now. We have energy needs. And even in a best case scenario, we aren't going to be full off of it until 2035 or so. We need to develop the tech to replace oil. We also need to keep the supply steady to avoid oil shocks like happened when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Americans get pissed when they can't get their cheap oil and gas. And there is a limited supply to go around. And yeah, we need more from the ground. Ideally, we want to get off of it ASAP so we can avoid having to drill for more, but what are we supposed to do? Not heat our houses in winter? Not drive? Have insane bills paying for the stuff that is painful for americans to deal with, causing them to vote republican? Also, we saw what happens when you pull the cart before the horse in germany. They had all of these green initiatives and shutting down nuclear plants, then russia attacked ukraine and suddenly they werent sure they could meet their energy needs through the winter. Turns out you still need fossil fuels, that's the sad reality of a modern economy for the time being. Leftists don't live in reality sometimes. They have these ideals, but then they lack practical implementation of ideals, and that can lead to disaster.
Anyway, if you're thinking of voting for cornel west, I just thought you should know all this. West has a decent platform, and on economics at least I do agree with it a lot more than I would with biden's, but Im not really huge on the green new deal, and given how hes pushing for it, and how my ideology diverges, I just felt like it was worth discussing the facts. if you still like West over Biden, by all means, vote West. i think he's a pretty decent candidate. But I feel like, given my human centered capitalist, pro UBI orientation, I thought it might merit discussion to explain how my own political ideology differs here.
For the record, I'm still largely agnostic between biden and west in the general. West meets more of my economic goals (outside of the climate), but in the big picture there are just some aspects of west i find...unflattering (see foreign policy and I am considering the spoiler effect this time). I'll decide what to do later on, but yeah. You can clearly see why I have a dilemma here.
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