US Politics: Don't Panic - Organize

[Larry of the Lawn]

3 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

I have said this before.  Still:

 

Housing and automotive and things pertaining to them (construction, parts, all that) are major drivers of the US economy,  The US economy depends on suburbia (building and selling houses well away from where people work) and the automotive industry, which is still overwhelmingly dependent on gasoline.  Neither will survive the transition to a 'green economy' without major changes that will hurt a lot of people - costing jobs and shuttering businesses.   More, there is no single, comprehensive green energy substitute that will let society remain anywhere near 'as is' after the transition.   

 

That said, the transition will happen, probably largely unwillingly, and probably well before the end of the century.  

 

Or, to put it another way, you're correct, but your time scale is far too optimistic. 

 

The right wing sorts (well, some of them) do agree with parts of the Green Deal - even if they don't realize it - the parts pertaining to energy efficiency and clean water and even solar and wind power to an extent, but their concerns are 'socialism' and immediate job losses.

Damn, would be great to save the planet, but fuck, hasn't anyone thought about the businesses? About the JOBS?!

[lokisnow]

4 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

I have said this before.  Still:

 

Housing and automotive and things pertaining to them (construction, parts, all that) are major drivers of the US economy,  The US economy depends on suburbia (building and selling houses well away from where people work) and the automotive industry, which is still overwhelmingly dependent on gasoline.  Neither will survive the transition to a 'green economy' without major changes that will hurt a lot of people - costing jobs and shuttering businesses.   More, there is no single, comprehensive green energy substitute that will let society remain anywhere near 'as is' after the transition.   

you're not wrong about suburbia being dependent on gasoline, but there are a lot of things that can be done to both ameliorate that dependence and encourage urban infill instead of ex-urban sprawl. Neither would necessarily be job killers nor bad for business.

But, as I recall, your perspective is from Alaska, and there's quite a range between the realities of an alaskan suburb and an ex-urban suburb in a place like Los Angeles. The suburb I live in is 50 sq miles and has 1/2 the  population of Anchorage.  

Evolving a car centric suburban culture where the suburbs have 3000+ people per square mile density is a very different proposition from evolving a car centric suburban culture where the city has a 150 people per square mile density (and the suburbs are one to two orders of magnitude smaller than the suburbs of California I'm thinking of!).

Yeah, exiting a car centric philosophy will definitely be harder on places that claim they are urban cities but only have 150 people per square mile but that does not mean you can extrapolate the problems Anchorage might face to be certainties for other cities around the globe.

[The Anti-Targ]

15 years ago we didn't have 10's of thousands of people making substantial livings from posting videos on YouTube and putting selfies on instagram.

It's just narrow thinking to say that diminishing the size of the automotive and housing industries is going to ruin the US (or any other) economies. If the green new deal has a bunch of new things that need to happen, then there's going to be a lot of work in the medium term to put those things in place, and new industries and enterprises will spring up around them. If the US needs to replace it's fossil fuel energy production with non-greenhouse gas emitting energy production that is a shit load of jobs of various skill/educational levels that are needed to achieve it. And petrochemicals are used for a whole lot of things that don't pump carbon into the atmosphere.

Greening economies doesn't give people less to do, it just requires them to do different things to what they've been doing. Just because we have to stop farming so many cattle, doesn't mean we don't need to replace that form of protein with another less polluting from of protein. The world still needs to eat. And we don't have to eliminate all ruminant farming. Just limit it to land that's no good for growing anything other than grass. You can retire some animal farming land not suitable for any food crops for returning to wilderness, but you can't retire too much of that land, since we've still got to feed people.

[Martell Spy]

Harris unloads on pundits who say only a white man can beat Trump
The California senator says Democrats will make a big mistake if they accept conventional wisdom on what it takes to win the Rust Belt.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/06/how-kamala-harris-is-taking-on-the-2020-pundits-1305498

Quote

 

The California senator and 2020 Democratic hopeful believes the media narrative taking shape in the presidential race over who is best positioned to reclaim the Midwest for Democrats —essentially that only certain voters will back certain candidates, regardless of where they stand on issues — ignores big swathes of the electorate that she can excite, namely African Americans and women.

Harris made clear during a two-day swing through urban and suburban Detroit ending Monday that she thinks the talking heads who draw conclusions from their desks in Washington and New York are ill-informed at best.

“There has been a lot of conversation by pundits about ‘electability’ and ‘who can speak to the Midwest?’ But when they say that, they usually put the Midwest in a simplistic box and a narrow narrative, and too often their definition of the Midwest leaves people out,” Harris said in an opening salvo during the trip. “It leaves out people in this room who helped build cities like Detroit. It leaves out working women who are on their feet all day—many of them working without equal pay.”

 

 

[karaddin]

On 5/4/2019 at 3:03 AM, Mlle. Zabzie said:

...

I am really, really, really conflicted about this one and I think that the issues presented are very, very tricky.  

I get what you were saying in this post, but I think for something like a doctor it really comes down to "if your sincere religious beliefs are irreconcilably opposed to central tasks of a vital job which literally holds the power of life and death over others, then you should avoid going into that field". There are plenty of jobs where you won't face this kind of decision, if you can't put the needs of your patients ahead of your own beliefs you have no business being a doctor.

8 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

 Neither will survive the transition to a 'green economy' without major changes that will hurt a lot of people - costing jobs and shuttering businesses.  

The part I always get so frustrated about in this conversation is the economy and our society isn't going to survive without massive changes in catastrophic climate change either, so either we act with responsibility and accept major changes to our society now in order to pay our own debts, or we say fuck the future and carry on because we'll be dead before that debt comes due in western nations. And its the side of politics that is supposedly all about responsibility and family that refuses to consider the rest of the planet or their kids.

[ThinkerX]

3 hours ago, karaddin said:

The part I always get so frustrated about in this conversation is the economy and our society isn't going to survive without massive changes in catastrophic climate change either, so either we act with responsibility and accept major changes to our society now in order to pay our own debts, or we say fuck the future and carry on because we'll be dead before that debt comes due in western nations. And its the side of politics that is supposedly all about responsibility and family that refuses to consider the rest of the planet or their kids.

Believe you me, I argue this point with conservatives fairly often.  Again, some things (once properly presented) - they have no qualms with, energy efficiency, solar panels, maybe even electric cars.  But past those things, there's a sort of cultural/ideological 'wall,' a refusal to acknowledge how serious climate change is.  To Conservatives, the more serious changes are the literal end of everything they've worked for and they'll grab at any straw rather than face reality.  I had one tell me, sincerely, that 'God would not let climate change destroy the earth.'

 

  Right now, I'd say do the things they can agree with, find another approach for the rest.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

19 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

You left out the important fact: more than 370 at last count, from administrations as far back as the Eisenhower administration. That's one old dude!

It’s up to over 600 now, not that it matters.   

[sologdin]

tell me, sincerely, that 'God would not let climate change destroy the earth.'

weird, considering that scripture has a weather event in it. though i suppose they might read genesis 9 to preclude all further weather events.

[Fragile Bird]

3 minutes ago, sologdin said:

tell me, sincerely, that 'God would not let climate change destroy the earth.'

weird, considering that scripture has a weather event in it. though i suppose they might read genesis 9 to preclude all further weather events.

Nah, the covenant is not to destroy all life by flood again. Other forms of weather are still ok.

[Zorral]

 

Quote

God gave Noah the rainbow sign / No more water but fire next time" in Mary Don't You Weep, a Negro spiritual.

Elizabeth Warren says it out loud, in the Senate: Impeach. Now.

https://www.apnews.com/48dd7f423f40473a9562fca769104fcb

Quote

 

1 p.m.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren says the House should begin impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.

The Democratic presidential candidate went to the Senate floor on Tuesday to reiterate her call for impeachment hours after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared “case closed” on the Russia probe and potential obstruction by Trump.

 

Also, go after Barr, Bolton, etc.  Do it like The Others do it, keep beating the drums, indict, remove the primary cancer's enablers, and keep it up.  Because The Others sure as hell aren't stopping, no matter what.  Just for ex, see abortion and women's reproductive rights and health care, which they've pretty much destroyed for vast swathes of the US population.

[Fragile Bird]

Ok, you know that saying ‘sell in May and go away’?

Looks like it applies this year.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Ok, you know that saying ‘sell in May and go away’?

Looks like it applies this year.

Others may know, but I've never heard that saying and have no idea what it means. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Ok, you know that saying ‘sell in May and go away’?

Looks like it applies this year.

Good thing the market boot and rallied yesterday or else we'd be down nearly 1k in two days.

I wonder how all of this is playing out with the Chinese trade negotiators...

1 minute ago, Zorral said:

Others may know, but I've never heard that saying and have no idea what it means. 

Nor have I, but the context suggests there are times when you can predict when people will be buying and selling on the stock market. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

At what point does Trump ordering people to refuse to answer subpoenas become obstruction?  Lawyers and constitutional scholars, how does this play out?

[maarsen]

17 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Good thing the market boot and rallied yesterday or else we'd be down nearly 1k in two days.

I wonder how all of this is playing out with the Chinese trade negotiators...

Nor have I, but the context suggests there are times when you can predict when people will be buying and selling on the stock market. 

It used to mean that stockbrokers would go on vacation till September as not much would happen market wise. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

28 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

At what point does Trump ordering people to refuse to answer subpoenas become obstruction?  Lawyers and constitutional scholars, how does this play out?

I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that ultimately Trump and Barr can win on this if they're willing to push it to the extremes. Barr can ignore a Congressional subpoena, then ignore a court ordered subpoena, then ignore the charges levied by a court, and then Trump can pardon him for the federal crimes he's committed. I'm not exactly sure what happens after that, other then to say it opens another potential Constitutional crisis.

Thoughts, members of Westeros LLC?

@Mlle. Zabzie, @Ser Scot A Ellison, @Mudguard, @Whiskeyjack, @sperry

[lokisnow]

17 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that ultimately Trump and Barr can win on this if they're willing to push it to the extremes. Barr can ignore a Congressional subpoena, then ignore a court ordered subpoena, then ignore the charges levied by a court, and then Trump can pardon him for the federal crimes he's committed. I'm not exactly sure what happens after that, other then to say it opens another potential Constitutional crisis.

Thoughts, members of Westeros LLC?

@Mlle. Zabzie, @Ser Scot A Ellison, @Mudguard, @Whiskeyjack, @sperry

It’s not a constitutional crisis. It’s a norms-of-behavior crisis. Nothing remotely unconstitutional about Barr and Trump exploiting the lack of precision in the constitution, they are just violating the historic norm where everyone agrees to pretend the constitution Isn’t a garbage document pathetically easily to exploit for executive maximal advantage 

[sologdin]

constitutional crisis isn't really an attorneys' term; it's more for historians and political scientists.  

most attorneys will probably agree that art. II(2) grants the president the power to pardon offenses against US statutes, including the UCMJ--but not for impeachments. so they impeach barr and he's toast.

[Fragile Bird]

Donald Trump lost more money between 1985 and 1994 than any other individual taxpayer in the US, more than a billion dollars.

The New York Times has received portions of his tax returns, without schedules, from those years. That includes the year he ‘wrote’ The Art of the Deal.

[Fragile Bird]

I just saw a story a few weeks old about the impact of Trump’s 20% tariffs on washing machines.

As a result, Whirlpool added 200 jobs at it’s Ohio plant and Samsung  and LG opened plants in SC and Tennessee, another 1,600 jobs.

However, manufacturers then permanently raised prices on not only washing machines but dryers as well, since they usually sell together, averaging 12% or approximately $100.

As a result, Americans are paying $1.5 B more for washers and dryers. And those tariffs that are going to pay off the US deficit, said Trump? They generate $82 M a year.

And the cost of the new jobs, passed on to US consumers, is about $800,000 a job each year.

So much winning.