The New Order

Image by Toban Black via Flickr

Yeah, it sounds like conspiracy ranting.

However, the substitution of the new class system for the badly-bruised American dream is undeniable.

In Esquire:

We Are Not All Created Equal

Stephen Marche lays it out without flinching:

There are some truths so hard to face, so ugly and so at odds with how we imagine the world should be, that nobody can accept them. Here’s one: It is obvious that a class system has arrived in America — a recent study of the thirty-four countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that only Italy and Great Britain have less social mobility. But nobody wants to admit: If your daddy was rich, you’re gonna stay rich, and if your daddy was poor, you’re gonna stay poor. Every instinct in the American gut, every institution, every national symbol, runs on the idea that anybody can make it; the only limits are your own limits. Which is an amazing idea, a gift to the world — just no longer true. Culturally, and in their daily lives, Americans continue to glide through a ghostly land of opportunity they can’t bear to tell themselves isn’t real. It’s the most dangerous lie the country tells itself.

Income inequality is alarmingly real, and the eradication of any opportunity in this country is something to scream about:

The Occupiers blame the financial industry. Both are really mourning the arrival of a new social order, one not defined by opportunity but by preexisting structures of wealth. At least the ranters are mourning. Those who are not screaming or in drum circles mostly pretend that the change isn’t happening.

For my part, I blame the collusion between corporations and government.

However, the effect of a stagnant class system is clear. There can be no effective democracy.

Read Marche’s piece, it’s a furious call to recognize reality.

Marche ends with a bleak assessment:

…it is hard to imagine even any temporary regression back to the days of the swelling American middle class. The forces of inequality are simply too powerful and the forces against inequality too weak. But at least we can end the hypocrisy. In ten years, the next generation will no longer have the faintest illusion that the United States is a country with equality of opportunity. The least they’re entitled to is some honesty about why.

I hope he’s wrong, but I fear he isn’t.

-Chris

Related articles

• Something Cool We Saw Online: “Our” New Shirt (esquire.com)
• David Brin’s Take on Income Inequality (wcward57.wordpress.com)
• Santorum: ‘I’m For Income Inequality’ (thinkprogress.org)
• OECD Countries With The Widest Gap Between Rich And Poor (huffingtonpost.com)
• Another Solution To Income Inequality? The Progressive Consumption Tax (huffingtonpost.com)

Case Study: Anti-Science Prevents Necessary Action

Here’s a fascinating but sad story being reported by Mother Jones, The Washington Post and Alternet:

“We Don’t Need None of That Smart-Growth Communism”

and

Virginia residents oppose preparations for climate-related sea-level rise

and

How Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories May Pose a Genuine Threat to Humanity

In summary:

The Middle Peninsula of Virginia, particularly Hampton Roads, will likely sink in coming decades. The area is vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

The Washington Post explains:

Outside of greater New Orleans, Hampton Roads is at the biggest risk from sea-level rise of any area its size in the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The water has risen so much that Naval Station Norfolk is replacing 14 piers at $60 million each to keep ship-repair facilities high and dry.

Enter the Tea Party:

When planners redesignated property as a future flood zone, activists said officials were acting on a hoax. They argued in meetings and on Web sites that local planners are unwitting agents of Agenda 21, a United Nations environmental action plan adopted in 1992 that the activists see as a shadowy global conspiracy to grab land and redistribute wealth in the United States.

The Tea Partiers first unleashed their fury at a February meeting to launch an oyster farming concern in Virginia’s Mathews County.

Throughout the spring and summer, they shouted down planners (most of whom had likely never heard of the Agenda 21 document) and got so riled up that planners started calling for police to be present at the meetings and hired consultants to help keep meetings moving and productive.

According to Tea Party lore, the notion of sustainability is part of the evil UN plot (Agenda 21 being the governing document) to install Socialism in America.

Really.

As reported by Mother Jones, the Virginia uprising is part of a national movement against Agenda 21, the 18 year-old document that advocates sustainable growth:

In the tea partiers’ dystopian vision, the increased density favored by planners to allow for better mass transit become compulsory “human habitation zones.” They warn of Americans being forcibly moved from their suburban dream homes into urban “hobbit homes” and required to give up their cars and instead—gasp!—take the bus to work. The enemies in this fight are hidden behind bland trade-association names like the American Planning Association or ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability).

The Tea Party intimidation has made local planners afraid of retribution by state legislators looking to curry Tea Party favor.

Consider the case of long-time municipal planner Lewis L. Lawrence:

“My professional credentials have been challenged,” said Lawrence, who holds degrees in municipal planning and provides professional and technical planning advice to municipalities throughout the peninsula. He said he has heard whispers behind his back after meetings: “I’ve been brainwashed. I’ve been called a dupe for the U.N.”

And the kooks seem to be winning:

Shereen Hughes, a former planning commissioner in James City County, worried that some officials are giving ground to fearmongers. The uprising against smart growth “is ridiculous” and “a conspiracy theory,” she said.

But it’s effective. Planners aren’t saying this is wrong, Hughes said, because “most are afraid they won’t have a job if they’re too vocal about this issue.” Tea party members have political allies who “might stand up” against planners who complain, Hughes said.

Lawrence is more gracious than I would be:

Lawrence, a native of Gloucester County, bristled at being accused of undermining the constitutional rights of Virginians.

“It’s driving public policy sideways,” Lawrence said. “It’s not advancing it. It’s not going backward. The voice of a minority is trying to assert itself as the voice of the majority.”

Nonetheless, he said he has to give a little to get a little. “I welcome them every time,” Lawrence said.

Sometimes I wish we could make the Tea Party live in the world they fondly dream of.

-Chris

Related articles

• Virginia Governor Declares State of Emergency for Irene – Fox News (news.google.com)
• Irene Spawns Flooding in Va. (myfoxphoenix.com)
• Agenda 21 Wackos On The Move to Stop Smart Growth (treehugger.com)

Republicans Continue War on EPA

I have to believe that the rank and file right-winger really has no idea of the benefits of having an effective Environmental Protection Agency.

These guys hunt, fish, breathe air, drink water and enjoy good health, right?

That’s why it is so frustrating to see them piling on the EPA at every opportunity:

Springtime for Toxics

Paul Krugman takes them to task for their war on the environment:

With everything else that has been going on in U.S. politics recently, the G.O.P.’s radical anti-environmental turn hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. But something remarkable has happened on this front. Only a few years ago, it seemed possible to be both a Republican in good standing and a serious environmentalist; during the 2008 campaign John McCain warned of the dangers of global warming and proposed a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. Today, however, the party line is that we must not only avoid any new environmental regulations but roll back the protection we already have.

Krugman is speaking specifically about recently passed but long-overdue EPA regulations on mercury.

Republicans, who allegedly carry the fiscally conservative banner are showing their true colors on this one:

In fact, the benefits of reduced fine particle pollution account for most of the quantifiable gains from the new rules. The key word here is “quantifiable”: E.P.A.’s cost-benefit analysis only considers one benefit of mercury regulation, the reduced loss in future wages for children whose I.Q.’s are damaged by eating fish caught by freshwater anglers. There are without doubt many other benefits to cutting mercury emissions, but at this point the agency doesn’t know how to put a dollar figure on those benefits.

Even so, the payoff to the new rules is huge: up to $90 billion a year in benefits compared with around $10 billion a year of costs in the form of slightly higher electricity prices. This is, as David Roberts of Grist says, a very big deal.

And it’s a deal Republicans very much want to kill.

Unfortunately, the GOP pathological phobia of short-term costs explains a lot about the current state of the nation, from their shortsighted view of taxation and infrastructure investment, to their view of Wall Street regulation.

Along with Krugman, I celebrate the new rules and hope they are a harbinger for a move to hold industry accountable for the real harm they do — to health and the economy.

-Chris

Related articles

• What if Republicans Closed the E.P.A.? (dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com)
• E.P.A. Issues Rule Limiting Mercury Emissions (green.blogs.nytimes.com)
• How to tally up the benefits from EPA’s mercury rule. (washingtonpost.com)
• EPA requires limit on mercury emissions from power plants (cnn.com)

GOP Crusades To Prevent Voting

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The New York Times Editorial yesterday, Keeping Students From the Polls sums up a piece of the national campaign by the Republican Party to prevent likely Democratic citizens from exercising their right to vote.

It is a documented fact that actual voter fraud, in which someone casts a vote illegally, is extremely rare.

Starting with the assassination of ACORN, Republicans have tried to build a case that illegal immigrants are voting en masse with the help of evil librul organizations.

If you aren’t familiar with the ACORN case, the organization hired people across the country to registered people of ALL stripes to vote.

Some of those people, instead of doing their job, made up names and submitted them to ACORN — who promptly flagged them and reported the applications to the state election commissions in question.

That’s it. That’s the whole story.

In terms of voter fraud, ACORN was absolutely innocent, and independent investigations have exonerated the group. Their crime was to try to register minorities, immigrants, and young people — a demographic that tends to vote Democrat.

Using the pretext of the trumped-up ACORN case (fueled by Fox News, the right-wing blogosphere and talk radio), Republican governors have forced through completely unnecessary laws that:

1. Prevent college students from voting Setup draconian
2. ID laws to excluded the elderly and poor
3. Distribute false information to likely Democratic constituents to suppress their vote during elections
4. Stop convenient same-day registration for voters

The times piece notes, in the case of students:

Seven states have already passed strict laws requiring a government-issued ID (like a driver’s license or a passport) to vote, which many students don’t have, and 27 others are considering such measures. Many of those laws have been interpreted as prohibiting out-of-state driver’s licenses from being used for voting.

These barriers also prevent some minorities and the elderly from accessing the voting booth.

Case in point:

96-year-old Chattanooga resident denied voting ID

Did you guess? She’s black.

But others have been caught in the net as well:

Wisconsin Voter ID Law Ensnares Teacher In Rural Part Of State

All of this puts the lie to the alleged anti-big government bullshit stance taken by the right-wing.

They’re just fine with overreaching government interference into people’s rights — unless their the ones wo get interfered with.

The Times sums it up:

It’s all part of a widespread Republican effort to restrict the voting rights of demographic groups that tend to vote Democratic. Blacks, Hispanics, the poor and the young, who are more likely to support President Obama, are disproportionately represented in the 21 million people without government IDs. On Friday, the Justice Department, finally taking action against these abuses, blocked the new voter ID law in South Carolina.

With the challenge to the SC law and other fights around the nation, Americans are winning small victories to restore voter access for all:

Many students have taken advantage of Election Day registration laws, which is one reason Maine Republicans passed a law eliminating the practice. Voters restored it last month, but Republican lawmakers there are already trying new ways to restrict voting. The secretary of state said he was investigating students who are registered to vote in the state but pay out-of-state tuition.

The major problem with these tactics is that they work.

In the long run, they create a bitter distaste for voting among young people and depresses their representation.

We need to fight to turn this around.

-Chris

Related articles

• Democrats Say GOP Suppresses Minority Vote (usnews.com)
• Democrats Hitting Back Against GOP Voting Measures (huffingtonpost.com)

Posting Schedule

All,

I usually try to post something each weekday, but in the midst of the holiday season, I am extremely busy.

I will try to return to regular posting after the New Year begins.

-Chris