PEOPLE'S HISTORY DISCUSSION GROUP

Hello  this is to invite you to join us in a People's History discussion group. We're going to begin by reading the book that started it all "A People's History of the United States." The book was written by Howard Zinn, a bombardier of a B17 who'd become a historian at Spelman college with mostly African American students and found himself immersed in the sixties civil rights and anti war movements. 

The young people of those movements had lots of unanswered questions about what the people who they were bringing into peace and social justice struggles came up against. Like why were the government institutions, the wealthy and the corporations acting against the aspirations, needs and interests of the working class and the impoverished here at home and throughout the third world? What were the causes of war, poverty and racism? Why weren't the answers in our text books, the newspapers and TV? 

What was happening and this continues was that was that the history that was taught wasn't telling our stories, our stories as human beings with third world heritages, as peasants or workers or indigenous people, even as women. Back then and to a certain extent now, Black History, Working Class History, Indigenous History all those kinds of things had to be searched for and many libraries were completely lacking. 

If you examine the bibliography at the back of Zinn's book most people will find titles and subjects they've never heard about or hardly had a chance to think about. If you look at the table of contents you'll find such chapters as "the Intimately Oppressed" now can you imagine who that is? All the chapters are from the view point of the displaced, exploited, oppressed and/or the casualties of impoverishment, violence and war. He connects the stories of the the bottom 80% as they are forced to submit or fight back and includes the 14% sliding back and forth in between. 

You get some new eyeglasses to see thorough. You get a taste of our stories, our history from the ground up, history from our people's stand point are told.  It will come to you that tow distinct classes came off the European ships that arrived on the eastern shores. The slaves and indentured servants didn't come here by choice nor did most the refugees. You'll get to almost feel what it was like to be among the invaded indigenous people

how the class society and its culture thought of those they were violently displacing and exploiting.  You might be surprised to learn that Mark Twain was one of our first anti-imperialists as he writes about the Moro massacre as we easily defeat the Spanish and invade the Philippines. You'll meet Mother Jones and Big Bill Haywood and get a taste of what the labor movement has always been about. You'll find out there were anarchists, communist and socialist in America before there was a Democratic or Republican Party and the red flag flew during the Eight Hour Movement 31 years before the Russian revolution. You'll get to meet the abolitionists and the early women's movements hear Fredrick Douglas arguing with Abraham Lincoln about arming the slaves during the civil war to fight for their own freedom and what Harriet Tubman had to say the white women as these courageous gals rewrote the Declaration of Independence to include women as equal human beings. Of course some of us are excited that you't meet EuGene Debs who's sitting in jail for being a labor leader, a socialist and opposed to world war I. But most America's agreed with him about the war even if he was spending his jail time reading Marx and still running for president and getting a quarter of the votes. In the amidst this book there'll be our ideal fore mother -- Lucy Parsons -- a Mexican Cherokee European American working class woman who spent a life time fighting for all the things we're fighting for today. 

Most of all what People's History does is help you answer those burning questions those sixties kids were asking and see what we and the people of this world are up against a little more clearly. It adds immensely to that feeling of who we are and perhaps the insight and courage it will take to make this planet a inhabitable home worthy of our humanity. I promise it'll clear you your home work of quite a few mistakes and make it a bit easier. 

Look for notifications, email winter.george0@gmail.com or call 451-969-6746  for information... buy yourself a book or ask us to help to my knowledge there's only 1 copy in the library -- george

The battle lines have been drawn on the Green New Deal

Naomi Klein

“I REALLY DON’T like their policies of taking away your car, taking away your airplane flights, of ‘let’s hop a train to California,’ or ‘you’re not allowed to own cows anymore!’”

So bellowed President Donald Trump in El Paso, Texas, his first campaign-style salvo against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey’s Green New Deal resolution. There will surely be many more.

It’s worth marking the moment. Because those could be the famous last words of a one-term president, having wildly underestimated the public appetite for transformative action on the triple crises of our time: imminent ecological unraveling, gaping economic inequality (including the racial and gender wealth divide), and surging white supremacy.

Or they could be the epitaph for a habitable climate, with Trump’s lies and scare tactics succeeding in trampling this desperately needed framework. That could either help win him re-election, or land us with a timid Democrat in the White House with neither the courage nor the democratic mandate for this kind of deep change. Either scenario means blowing the handful of years left to roll out the transformations required to keep temperatures below catastrophic levels.

Back in October, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a landmark report informing us that global emissions need to be slashed in half in less than 12 years, a target that simply cannot be met without the world’s largest economy playing a game-changing leadership role. If there is a new administration ready to leap into that role in January 2021, meeting those targets would still be extraordinarily difficult, but it would be technically possible—especially if large cities and states like California and New York escalate their ambitions right now. Losing another four years to a Republican or a corporate Democrat, and starting in 2026 is, quite simply, a joke.

So either Trump is right and the Green New Deal is a losing political issue, one he can smear out of existence. Or he is wrong and a candidate who makes the Green New Deal the centerpiece of their platform will take the Democratic primary and then kick Trump’s ass in the general, with a clear democratic mandate to introduce wartime-levels of investment to battle our triple crises from day one. That would very likely inspire the rest of the world to finally follow suit on bold climate policy, giving us all a fighting chance.

Those are the stark options before us. And which outcome we end up with depends on the actions taken by social movements in the next two years. Because these are not questions that will be settled through elections alone. At their core, they are about building political powe —enough to change the calculus of what is possible.

That was the lesson of the original New Deal, one we would be wise to remember right now.

The New Deal was a process as much as a project, one that was constantly changing and expanding in response to social pressure from both the right and the left.

Ocasio-Cortez chose to model the Green New Deal after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s historic raft of programs understanding full well that a central task is to make sure that this mobilization does not repeat the ways in which its namesake excluded and further marginalized many vulnerable groups. For instance, New Deal-era programs and protections left out agricultural and domestic workers (many of them black), Mexican immigrants (some 1 million of whom faceddeportation in the 1930s), and Indigenous people (who won some gains but whose land rights were also violated by both massive infrastructure projects and some conservation efforts).

Indeed, the resolution calls for these and other violations to be actively redressed, listing as one of its core goals “stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth.”

I have written before about why the old New Deal, despite its failings, remains a useful touchstone for the kind of sweeping climate mobilization that is our only hope of lowering emissions in time. In large part, this is because there are so few historical precedents we can look to (other than top-down military mobilizations) that show how every sector of life, from forestry to education to the arts to housing to electrification, can be transformed under the umbrella of a single, society-wide mission.

Which is why it is so critical to remember that none of it would have happened without massive pressure from social movements. FDR rolled out the New Deal in the midst of a historic wave of labor unrest: There was the Teamsters’ rebellion and Minneapolis general strike in 1934, the 83-day shutdown of the West Coast by longshore workers that same year, and the Flint sit-down autoworkers strikes in 1936 and 1937. During this same period, mass movements, responding to the suffering of the Great Depression, demanded sweeping social programs, such as Social Security and unemployment insurance, while socialists argued that abandoned factories should be handed over to their workers and turned into cooperatives. Upton Sinclair, the muckraking author of “The Jungle,” ran for governor of California in 1934 on a platformarguing that the key to ending poverty was full state funding of workers’ cooperatives. He received nearly 900,000 votes, but having been viciously attacked by the right and undercut by the Democratic establishment, he fell just short of winning the governor’s office.

All of this is a reminder that the New Deal was adopted by Roosevelt at a time of such progressive and left militancy that its programs—which seem radical by today’s standards—appeared at the time to be the only way to hold back a full-scale revolution.

It’s also a reminder that the New Deal was a process as much as a project, one that was constantly changing and expanding in response to social pressure from both the right and the left. For example, a program like the Civilian Conservation Corps started with 200,000 workers, but when it proved popular eventually expanded to 2 million. That’s why the fact that there are weaknesses in Ocasio-Cortez and Markey’s resolution—and there are a few—is far less compelling than the fact that it gets so much exactly right. There is plenty of time to improve and correct a Green New Deal once it starts rolling out (it needs to be more explicit about keeping carbon in the ground, for instance, and about nuclear and coal never being “clean”). But we have only one chance to get this thing charged up and moving forward.

THE MORE SOBERING lesson is that the kind of mass power that delivered the victories of the New Deal era is far beyond anything possessed by current progressive movements, even if they all combined efforts. That’s why it is so urgent to use the Green New Deal framework as a potent tool to build that power—a vision to both unite movements and dramatically expand them.

Part of that involves turning what is being derided as a left-wing “laundry list” or “wish list” into an irresistible story of the future, connecting the dots between the many parts of daily life that stand to be transformed—from health care to employment, day care to jail cell, clean air to leisure time.

Right now, the Green New Deal reads like a list because House resolutions have to be formatted as lists—lettered and numbered sequences of “whereases” and “resolveds.” It’s also being characterized as an unrelated grab bag because most of us have been trained to avoid a systemic and historical analysis of capitalism and to divide pretty much every crisis our system produces—from economic inequality to violence against women to white supremacy to unending wars to ecological unraveling—in walled-off silos. From within that rigid mindset, it’s easy to dismiss a sweeping and intersectional vision like the Green New Deal as a green-tinted “laundry list” of everything the left has ever wanted.

Now that the resolution is out there, however, the onus is on all of us who support it to help make the case for how our overlapping crises are indeed inextricably linked — and can only be overcome with a holistic vision for social and economic transformation. This is already beginning to happen. For example, Rhiana Gunn-Wright, who is heading up policy for a new think tank largely focused on the Green New Deal, recently pointed out that just as thousands of people moved for jobs during the World War II-era economic mobilization, we should expect a great many to move again to be part of a renewables revolution. And when they do, “unlinking employment from health care means people can move for better jobs, to escape the worst effects of climate, AND re-enter the labor mkt without losing” (her whole Twitter thread is worth reading).

A woman stands on her property on October 5, 2017, about two weeks after Hurricane Maria, in San Isidro, Puerto Rico. (Photo- Mario Tama:Getty Images)

Investing big in public health care is also critical in light of the fact that no matter how fast we move to lower emissions, it is going to get hotter and storms are going to get fiercer. When those storms bash up against health care systems and electricity grids that have been starved by decades of austerity, thousands pay the price with their lives, as they so tragically did in post-Maria Puerto Rico.

And there are many more connections to be drawn. Thosecomplaining about climate policy being weighed down by supposedly unrelated demands for access to health care and education would do well to remember that the caring professions—most of them dominated by women—are relatively low carbon and can be made even more so. In other words, they deserve to be seen as “green jobs,” with the same protections, the same investments, and the same living wages as male-dominated workforces in the renewables, efficiency, and public-transit sectors. Meanwhile, as Gunn-Wright points out, to make those sectors less male-dominated, family leave and pay equity are a must, which is part of the reason both are included in the resolution.

Drawing out these connections in ways that capture the public imagination will take a massive exercise in participatory democracy. A first step is for every sector touched by the Green New Deal—hospitals, schools, universities, and more—to make their own plans for how to rapidly decarbonize while furthering the Green New Deal’s mission to eliminate poverty, create good jobs, and close the racial and gender wealth divides.

My favorite example of what this could look like comes from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, which has developed a bold plan to turn every post office in Canada into a hub for a just green transition. Think solar panels on the roof, charging stations out front, a fleet of domestically manufactured electric vehicles from which union members don’t just deliver mail, but also local produce and medicine, and check in on seniors—all supported by the proceeds of postal banking.

TO MAKE THE case for a Green New Deal—which explicitly calls for this kind of democratic, decentralized leadership—every sector in the United States should be developing similar visionary plans for their workplaces right now. And if that doesn’t motivate their members to rush the polls come 2020, I don’t know what will.

We have been trained to see our issues in silos; they never belonged there. In fact, the impact of climate change on every part of our lives is far too expansive and extensive to begin to cover here. But I do need to mention a few more glaring links that many are missing.

A job guarantee, far from an opportunistic socialist addendum, is a critical part of achieving a rapid and just transition. It would immediately lower the intense pressure on workers to take the kinds of jobs that destabilize our planet because all would be free to take the time needed to retrain and find work in one of the many sectors that will be dramatically expanding.

This in turn will reduce the power of bad actors like the Laborers’ International Union of North America who are determined to split the labor movement and sabotage the prospects for this historic effort. Right out of the gate, LIUNA came out swinging against the Green New Deal. Never mind that it contains stronger protections for trade unions and the right to organize than anything we have seen out of Washington in three decades, including the right of workers in high-carbon sectors to democratically participate in their transition and to have jobs in clean sectors at the same salary and benefits levels as before.

There is absolutely no rational reason for a union representing construction workers to oppose what would be the biggest infrastructure project in a century, unless LIUNA actually is what it appears to be: a fossil fuel astroturf group disguised as a trade union, or at best a company union. These are the same labor leaders, let us recall, who sided with the tanks and attack dogs at Standing Rock; who fought relentlessly for the construction of the planet-destabilizing Keystone XL pipeline; and who (along with several other building trade union heads) aligned themselves with Trump on his first day in office, smiling for a White House photo op and declaring his inauguration “a great moment for working men and women.”

LIUNA’s leaders have loudly demanded unquestioning “solidarity” from the rest of the trade union movement. But again and again, they have offered nothing but the narrowest self-interest in return, indifferent to the suffering of immigrant workers whose lives are being torn apart under Trump and to the Indigenous workers who saw their homeland turned into a war zone. The time has come for the rest of the labor movement to confront and isolate them before they can do more damage. That could take the form of LIUNA members, confident that the Green New Deal will not leave them behind, voting out their pro-boss leaders. Or it could end with LIUNA being tossed out of the AFL-CIO for planetary malpractice.

The more unionized sectors like teaching, nursing, and manufacturing make the Green New Deal their own by showing how it can transform their workplaces for the better, and the more all union leaders embrace the growth in membership they would see under the Green New Deal, the stronger they will be for this unavoidable confrontation.

ONE LAST CONNECTION I will mention has to do with the concept of “repair.” The resolution calls for creating well-paying jobs “restoring and protecting threatened, endangered, and fragile ecosystems,” as well as “cleaning up existing hazardous waste and abandoned sites, ensuring economic development and sustainability on those sites.”

There are many such sites across the United States, entire landscapes that have been left to waste after they were no longer useful to frackers, miners, and drillers. It’s a lot like how this culture treats people. It’s what has been done to so many workers in the neoliberal period, using them up and then abandoning them to addiction and despair. It’s what the entire carceral state is about: locking up huge sectors of the population who are more economically useful as prison laborers and numbers on the spreadsheet of a private prison than they are as free workers. And the old New Deal did it too, by choosing to exclude and discard so many black and brown and women workers.

There is a grand story to be told here about the duty to repair—to repair our relationship with the earth and with one another, to heal the deep wounds dating back to the founding of the country. Because while it is true that climate change is a crisis produced by an excess of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it is also, in a more profound sense, a crisis produced by an extractive mindset—a way of viewing both the natural world and the majority of its inhabitants as resources to use up and then discard. I call it the “gig and dig” economy and firmly believe that we will not emerge from this crisis without a shift in worldview, a transformation from “gig and dig” to an ethos of care and repair.

If these kinds of deeper connections between fractured people and a fast-warming planet seem far beyond the scope of policymakers, it’s worth thinking back to the absolutely central role of artists during the New Deal era. Playwrights, photographers, muralists, and novelists were all part of a renaissance of both realist and utopian art. Some held up a mirror to the wrenching misery that the New Deal sought to alleviate. Others opened up spaces for Depression-ravaged people to imagine a world beyond that misery. Both helped get the job done in ways that are impossible to quantify.

In a similar vein, there is much to learn from Indigenous-led movements in Bolivia and Ecuador that have placed at the center of their calls for ecological transformation the concept ofbuen vivir, a focus on the right to a good life as opposed to more and more and more life of endless consumption, an ethos that is so ably embodied by the current resident of the White House.

The Green New Deal will need to be subject to constant vigilance and pressure from experts who understand exactly what it will take to lower our emissions as rapidly as science demands, and from social movements that have decades of experience bearing the brunt of false climate solutions, whether nuclear power, the chimera of carbon capture and storage, or carbon offsets.

But in remaining vigilant, we also have to be careful not to bury the overarching message: that this is a potential lifeline that we all have a sacred and moral responsibly to reach for.

The young organizers in the Sunrise Movement, who have done so much to galvanize the Green New Deal momentum, talk about our collective moment as one filled with both “promise and peril.” That is exactly right. And everything that happens from here on in should hold one in each hand.

Naomi Klein is author of “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate.” Her new book, “No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump's Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need,” will be published in June.

View all posts by Naomi Klein →

Why the Green New Deal Is So Vague About Food and Farming

Maybe that’s the point.

Tom Philpott February 13, 2019 6:10 AM

The Green New Deal resolution, released last week by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), offered broad visions for socially just and climate-ready food and farm policy. It called for a “10-year national mobilization” to “eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector” by “supporting family farming,” “investing in sustainable farming and land use practices that increase soil health,” and “building a more sustainable food system that ensures universal access to healthy food.” 

These statements are undeniably vague, and that drew the ire of some observers. Washington Postfood columnist Tamar Haspel took to Twitter to “give it a C, or maybe C-,” declaring the family farming and food access planks so vague as to be “basically meaningless” and the soil health piece to be “on target but really broad.”

Tech investor Ramez Naam noted in a widely shared Twitter thread that the document “does talk (vaguely)” about reducing farm-related greenhouse gas emissions, which is “better than nothing.” But then he dropped the hammer: “[I]t’s one and only proposed solution—local ag—is a non-solution.” It was an odd critique, because the resolution’s tiny agriculture section makes no mention of local farming. Naam then lays out what he thinks shouldbe in the document. (Note: ARPA-A is a reference to the US Department of Defense office whose research led to the development of the internet.)

What would climate policies focused on agriculture & industry look like?
a) An ARPA-A in the Dept of Ag, driving science to remove methane from livestock & otherwise tackle ag & deforestation.
b) Incentives for farmers to adopt new tech to reduce methane & other emissions. 17/

— Ramez Naam (@ramez) February 9, 2019

But here’s the thing: Both Naam and Haspel miss the point. The Green New Deal, in its current form, isn’t about rolling out policy proposals that are “politically feasible,” as Haspel put it in a tweet in response to mine, or as Naam put it, “actually passable.”

I don't think there's a shortage of NGOs or food justice groups suggesting policy. The problem is weeding through those ideas to find ones that are A) effective and B) politically feasible.

— Tamar Haspel (@TamarHaspel)February 7, 2019

Last week’s Green New Deal document doesn’t aim to be a set of policies ready to sail through the current Congress. Rather, it’s a resolution that, as its very first line puts it, recognizes the “duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.” It’s a set of policy goals—ones that are, by design, quite ambitious: “net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers,” “to create millions of good, high-wage jobs and ensure prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States,” and more.

But it is bluntly agnostic on what policies should be put in place to achieve these goals, stipulating that they should emerge “through transparent and inclusive consultation, collaboration, and partnership with frontline and vulnerable communities, labor unions, worker cooperatives, civil society groups, academia, and businesses.” Filling in the blanks of what specific legislation is to come out of the deal is left up to the public. 

This is an extremely unusual strategy for US politicians. Normal legislation involves a congressperson proposing “politically feasible” or “passable” policies and then trying to push them through the bill-to-law process. But Ocasio-Cortez and Markey seem to be acknowledging that the standard strategy has stalled when it comes to climate change. What is politically feasible when climate deniers control the presidency and the Senate? What’s passable when the oil and gas industry showers Washington, DC, with more than$66 million in campaign cash every two-year election cycle? 

Ocasio-Cortez and Markey’s idea is to generate an upswell of grassroots support for policies that aren’tfeasible under President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)—but might soon be if the political tides change. And the way they seek to drum up that support is to consult the public directly for policy ideas, building buy-in as they go. The outside-inside strategy also explains why Ocasio-Cortez is keen to mount primary challenges against Democratic colleagues whose campaign contributions might make them reluctant to support bold climate action. “All Americans know money in politics is a huge problem, but unfortunately the way that we fix it is by demanding that our incumbents give it up or by running fierce campaigns ourselves,” Ocasio-Cortez said on a conference call with supporters last year. “That’s really what we need to do to save this country.”

Will the Green New Deal strategy work? No one has any idea. But the old tactic of pushing feasible climate legislation through Congress has little to show for it. Back in 2009, Markey (then a member of the House of Representatives) mounted a massive effort with then-House colleague Henry Waxman to push comprehensive climate legislation through the DC sausage machine, at a time when Democrats controlled the presidency, the House, and the Senate. After the Waxman-Markey bill, as it was known, narrowly passed in the House, it had quite a slog in the Senate, as Ryan Lizza showed in his wonderful 2010 New Yorker tick-tock. By the end of the process, Lizza reported, the bill’s Senate sponsors had “abandoned their attempt to cap the emissions of the oil industry and heavy manufacturers and pared the bill back so that it would cover only the utility industry”—and soon after watered down the cap on utilities, too. It failed anyway—and the Green New Deal is the Democrats’ first attempt at climate legislation since. 

Agriculture policy too is paralyzed by big industrial interests, geared for decades now to encourage overproduction of a couple of chemical-intensive crops, polluting water and destroying soil in the process. Indeed, as my reporting showed at the time, Big Ag interests managed to exempt farming from Waxman-Markey’s greenhouse-gas emission cap even before the bill left the House. 

“The influence of special interests is now at an extremely unhealthy level,” former Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore told Lizza in 2011, explaining the Waxman-Markey bill’s sad path to collapse. “And it’s to the point where it’s virtually impossible for participants in the current political system to enact any significant change without first seeking and gaining permission from the largest commercial interests who are most affected by the proposed change.”

So that’s the context for the Green New Deal. Rather than consult and gain permission from Big Ag and dirty energy before enacting climate legislation, they’re going straight to the public. I like Raam’s idea of setting up an ARPA-like research team within the Agriculture Department tasked with finding more climate-friendly farming techniques—even though it’s not likely feasible under current leadership. Let a thousand flowers bloom. I’ve been talking to various scientists, farmers, and activists in the sustainable agriculture, soil health, and food access spaces about what an effective Green New Deal could look like. I’ll report back soon. 

A Positive Vision For What The Green New Deal Could Be

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance.

February 10, 2019

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We interviewed Dahr Jamail about his new book, “The End of Ice,” for our podcast, Clearing the FOG, this week. It will be available Monday. Jamail describes the grim reality of human-caused climate distortion. The bottom line is: It is here. It is accelerating. We need to take swift action to attempt to mitigate it and adapt to it as best we can.

The Green New Deal was introduced this week by Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Markey. It is best described by Jason Grumet, head of a conservative Washington, DC think tank, as “a mirror that allows anyone to see their own interest.” It is a resolution that Members of Congress can support because it doesn’t challenge their corporate donors while it gives the illusion of addressing the climate crisis.

The Green New Deal has received mixed responses from the climate justice movement. Some see it as a positive because the idea was introduced in Congress, while others raise serious concerns that its contents leave too much wiggle room for things to stay the same. What becomes of the Green New Deal is up to us to determine.

This photograph taken on December 4, 2009 shows a glacier in the Everest region some 140 km (87 miles) northeast of Kathmandu. The Himalayan glaciers provide water for more than a billion people in Asia, but experts say they are melting at an alarming rate, threatening to bring drought to large swathes of the continent within decades. AFP PHOTO/PRAKASH MATHEMA/AFP/Getty Images

The Climate Crisis is Here

Dahr Jamail stated that while the amount of climate devastation he described in his book is severe, new reports since his book show the climate crisis continues to worsen. In January, scientists reported that Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica has a giant hole under it, two-thirds the size of Manhattan, and is melting faster than they thought. It alone could raise sea level globally by two feet.

Another new study finds that ice in the Himalayan Mountains is melting faster than the global average and could practically disappear in this century. They write that if we continue with the same level of carbon emissions, global temperatures will rise by 4.2º to 6.5ºCelsius by the end of the century, far higher than the goal of keeping global warming below 1.5ºC and far more disastrous.

It’s not as if our lawmakers are unaware of the crisis. US intelligence analysts cited the climate crisis as a significant threat to global stability in their recent Worldwide Threat Assessment because of loss of resources like water and resultant migration. They also alerted Congress members that some US military bases are at risk because of rising seas and storms.

The most recent United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which is considered a conservative document, calls for immediate action to attempt to keep the increase in temperature below 1.5ºC to give the best chance of human adaptation. The current levels of fires, storms, drought and more are the result of a 1ºC temperature rise, and they will worsen exponentially as the temperature goes up. The IPCC states, “limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require ‘rapid and far-reaching’ transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities.”

Climate activists visited 50 congressional offices December 10 demanding support for a Green New Deal. (Rachael Warriner)

The Door is Open for a Green New Deal

The Green New Deal, which could create such a transition, is an idea that has finally broken through into the mainstream public dialogue. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has been working on it since she won her seat last November. She started with the idea of having a Green New Deal committee, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected that and created a Select Committee on the Climate Crisis headed by Congresswoman Kathy Castor instead. The committee has little power. It can neither subpoena witnesses to testify in hearings nor draft legislation.

In his analysis of the blue wave, which he calls a “corporate wave,” Nick Brana of Movement for a People’s Party describes the committee as “a public relations stunt for the fossil fuel industry.” He says, “It is worse than nothing to have a committee that pretends to be doing something while ensuring that nothing gets done to address climate change and other urgent environmental crises.”

This week, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey introduced “H. Res. 109 – Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.” It is a resolution, not a bill, that provides a framework for the Democrat’s Green New Deal. It is remarkably vague. It does not even contain keywords such as “oil,” “gas,” “coal,” “nuclear,” or “fossil fuels.”

Several groups have criticized the resolution. The Indigenous Environmental Network listed a number of concerns, from the use of terms that would permit market mechanisms for managing carbon, which would allow fossil fuel companies to keep extracting oil and gas, to not specifying what is meant by clean and renewable energy to failing to recognize the sovereignty of Indigenous Nations, and more. Food and Water Watch cited significant omissions in the resolution, writingthat it needs to “halt the expansion of fossil fuels immediately, ensure that the transition to 100% renewable energy happens by 2035 at the latest, [and] exclude dirty energy sources like nuclear power…”

Whitney Webb explains that the Green New Deal leaves a lot for corporations to like and views it as an effort timed to benefit the Democrats in the 2020 elections, rather than a serious attempt to address the climate crisis. She compares it to the Green Party’s version of the Green New Deal, which calls for an immediate halt to investment in fossil fuels, 100% renewable energy by 2030, defined as wind, solar, tidal and geothermal, the creation of a Renewable Energy Administration tasked with supporting the development of cooperatively-owned energy and reducing the military by 50% to help finance the transition.

Community-owned solar panels. From the Institute for Local Self Reliance.

A Vision for a Green New Deal

Even if it is primarily an election season ploy for Democrats, to the millions of people who worry about the climate crisis and are pushing for solutions, the Green New Deal is an opportunity to define the transformations we need. That’s how Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson views it. He calls on “the Left to intervene” to make sure the Green New Deal doesn’t support the “market-based capitalist extractive system.” Akuno states that an ideal Green New Deal would prioritize reparations through financial compensation and decolonization.

Susan Scherarth and Sean Sweeney write that market mechanisms must be replaced with the concept of energy democracy, “public and social ownership of energy, to serve both social and ecological needs…” They view energy as a public good and a human right, not a commodity. Other writers argue that the Green New Deal must include a new agency that supports the development of energy cooperatives, much like the Green Party’s Renewable Energy Administration proposal. The Backbone Campaign takes that even farther with Solutionary Rail, a plan to create electric rail that moves people, freight and locally-produced renewable energy around the country. We interviewed Bill Moyer and Steve Chrismer about it on Clearing the FOG in 2016.

Current industrial farming techniques contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. Elizabeth Henderson writesthat sustainable agriculture must be part of the Green New Deal and outlines what that looks like. It includes support for agricultural cooperatives and family farms, unions for farm workers, regenerative farming and a just transition to end factory farms and the use of toxic chemicals.

Financing the Green New Deal is another opportunity to have an impact on transforming the economy. Ellen Browndescribes how using a network of public banks to finance the transition to the new energy economy would not only avoid using tax dollars but would also generate a return to the government. We have long argued that instead of the profits from the transition going to Wall Street, they could be used to finance a universal basic income, which would reduce or eliminate poverty.

These are just some of the ideas that could be used to fill in the gaps of the Green New Deal and ensure it is both transformational in a way that ends wealth inequality and effectively addresses the climate crisis. Adam Simpsoninterviewed Johanna Bozuwa of the Democracy Collaborative, Anthony Torres of the Sierra Club and Evan Weber of the Sunrise Movement about their ideas for creating a new economy through the Green New Deal. We need to keep the public debate going on these issues to generate a common vision of what the Green New Deal could be.

Green New Deal – Full Language

The Green New Deal will convert the decaying fossil fuel economy into a new, green economy that is environmentally sustainable, economically secure and socially just.  The Green New Deal starts with transitioning to 100% green renewable energy (no nukes or natural gas) by 2030.  It would immediately halt any investment in fossil fuels (including natural gas) and related infrastructure. The Green New Deal will guarantee full employment and generate up to 20 million new, living-wage jobs, as well as make the government the employer of last resort with a much-needed major public jobs program.

Our nation – and our world – we face a “perfect storm” of economic and environmental crises that threaten not only the global economy, but life on Earth as we know it. The dire, existential threats of climate change, wars for oil, and a stagnating, crisis-ridden economic system require bold and visionary solutions if we are to leave a livable world to the next generation and beyond.

These looming crises mean that the question facing us in the 2016 election is historically unique.  The fate of humanity is in our hands. It is not just a question of what kind of world we want, but whether we will have a world at all.

Building on the concept of FDR’s New Deal, we call for a massive mobilization of  our communities, government and the people on the scale of World War II – to transition our energy system and economy to 100% clean, renewable  energy by 2030, including a complete phase out of fossil fuels, fracked gas and nuclear power.  We propose an ambitious yet secure economic and environmental program that will revive the economy , turn the tide on climate change, and make wars for oil obsolete – allowing us to cut our bloated, dangerous military budget in half. [1]

The Green New Deal is not only a major step towards ending unemployment for good, but also a tool to fight the corporate takeover of our democracy and exploitation of the poor and people of color.  It will provide a just transition, with a priority on providing resources to workers displaced from the fossil fuel industry, low-income communities and communities of color most impacted by climate change.  The Green New Deal will provide assistance to workers and communities that now have workers dependent on the fossil fuel, nuclear and weapons industries, and to the developing world as it responds to climate change damage caused by the industrial world.

The transition to 100% clean energy will foster democratic control of our energy system, rather than maximizing profits for energy corporations, banks and hedge funds. It will promote clean energy as a human right and a common good. It will include community, worker and public ownership, as well as small businesses and non-profits.

We will cut military spending by at least half to bring our troops – currently stationed in over 800 bases worldwide – home to their families, deploying our valued servicemen and women in their own communities to build up our country’s future and prosperity here at home.   Maintaining bases all over the world to safeguard fossil fuel supplies or to shore up repressive oil monarchies could no longer be justified as “protecting American interests.”

The Green New Deal not only saves us from climate catastrophe. It also pays for itself through health savings alone, from the prevention of fossil fuel-related diseases – which kill 200,000 people every year and afflict millions more with asthma, heart attacks, strokes, cancer and other illnesses. This program not only addresses the urgent crises facing our society, but puts America’s leading role in the world to work in a constructive way: to build a just, sustainable, and healthy planet for our young people and future generations.

What the Green New Deal Will Do

Right now, our federal subsidy programs benefit large agribusiness corporations and the oil, mining, nuclear, coal and timber giants at the expense of small farmers, small business, and our children’s environment. We spend billions of dollars every year moving our economy in the wrong direction, turning our planet uninhabitable while imposing the greatest harm on communities of color and the poor.  The Green New Deal will instead redirect that money to the real job creators who make our communities more healthy, sustainable and secure at the same time.

We will:

1. Invest in sustainable businesses including cooperatives and non-profits by providing grants and loans with an emphasis on small, locally-based companies that keep the wealth created by local labor circulating in the community rather than being drained off to enrich absentee investors.
2. Move to 100% clean energy by 2030. Invest in clean energy technologies that are ready to go now. Redirect research funds from fossil fuels and other dead-end industries toward research in wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal energy. We will invest in research in sustainable, nontoxic materials and closed-loop cycles that eliminate waste and pollution, as well as organic agriculture, permaculture, and sustainable forestry.
3. Create a Commission for Economic Democracy to provide publicity, training, education, and direct financing for cooperative development and for democratic reforms to make government agencies, private associations, and business enterprises more participatory. We will strengthen democracy via participatory budgeting and institutions that encourage local initiative and democratic decision-making.
4. Establish a Renewable Energy Administration on the scale of FDR’s hugely successful Rural Electrification Administration, launched in 1935,  that brought electrical power to rural America, 95 per cent of which had no power.  Emulated by many other countries, this initiative provided technical support, financing, and coordination to more than 900 municipal cooperatives, many of which still exist.  The Green New Deal would update this model with eco-friendly energy sources.
5. End unemployment in America once and for all by guaranteeing a job at a living wage for every American willing and able to work. A Full Employment Program will create up to 20 million jobs, both directly and indirectly, by implementing a nationally-funded, locally-controlled, direct employment initiative replacing unemployment offices with local employment offices. The government will be the employer of last resort, offering jobs meeting community-identified needs in the public and non-profit sectors to take up any slack in private for-profit sector employment. These will include jobs in sustainable energy and energy efficiency retrofitting, mass transit and “complete streets” that promote safe bike and pedestrian traffic, regional food systems based on sustainable organic agriculture, clean manufacturing, infrastructure, and public services (education, youth programs, child care, senior care, etc). Communities will use a process of broad stakeholder input and democratic decision making to fairly design and implement these programs.

Dealing with the Climate Crisis – 100% Clean Energy by 2030

The centerpiece of the Green New Deal is a commitment to transition to 100% clean, renewable energy by 2030. The transition to clean energy is not only a visionary plan for a better world, it’s absolutely necessary to ensure we have a world at all.

The climate crisis is a serious threat to the survival of humanity and life on Earth. To prevent catastrophe, we need a WWII-scale mobilization to transition to a sustainable economy with 100% clean renewable energy, public transit, sustainable agriculture, and conservation.

Already tens of millions of people have been turned into climate refugees, and hundreds of thousands die annually from air pollution, heat waves, drought-based food shortages, floods, rising seas,  epidemics, storms and other lethal impacts of climate change and fossil fuels.

Scientists report that sea levels are rising much faster than predicted, and could overwhelm coastal areas within decades. New York. Baltimore. Miami. Los Angeles. New Orleans. And more. Some scientists say the data shows that sea levels may rise by 9 feet within the next 50 to 150 years.  [2]

And as global climate change worsens, wars fought over access to food, water and land will become commonplace.[3]

Historically, talks aimed at stopping global warming have centered on the goal of staying below a 2°C rise in average temperature. The major “victory” in COP 21 in Paris was that the industrial polluting nations such as the US agreed with the rest of the world that the existing global warming cap target of 2 degrees Celsius would lead to catastrophic change. They agreed to set a lower target of “well below 2 degrees Celsius” and, preferably, 1.5 degrees Celsius. Scientific studies show this means reducing greenhouse gases twice as fast (7 to 9% annually) compared to the old goal of “80 by 50”. The GND’s plan to transition to 100% clean energy by 2030 is the only program in any US presidential candidate’s platform that even attempts to meet the scientific goal agreed to in Paris.

Going to 100% clean energy by 2030 means reducing energy demand as much as possible.  This will require energy conservation and efficiency; replacing non-essential individual means of transport with high-quality and modern mass transit; and eliminating the use of fossil-based fertilizers and pesticides. Along with these steps it will be necessary to electrify everything else, including transport, heating, etc. Many current proposals by the state and federal government to move to renewables only address the existing electrical system, which accounts for only about 1/3 of the carbon footprint.

Studies have shown that there are no technological or logistical barriers to a clean-energy transition by 2030. [4] A British think tank recently put out a study saying that all fossil fuels could be eliminated in 10 years.[5]

The author of the best known series of studies on how to transition to 100% clean energy, Prof. Mark Jacobson, has acknowledged that 2030 is technologically feasible but he has added 20 years to reflect political and economic challenges. However, adding an additional 20 years to the timetable based on expected political obstructionism unfortunately makes it easier for politicians to delay urgently needed action by falsely claiming that we still have over 30 years until we really need to act. Other professors at Stanford  such as Tony Seba have criticized him for not being clearer that 2030 is not only feasible but needed. [6] We have the technology to transition to 100% clean energy, and the science shows us that we must; the only missing ingredient is the political will.

The Jacobson plan – which, while only one potential approach, is currently the most detailed and well-known – would be met with 30.9% onshore wind, 19.1% offshore wind, 30.7% utility-scale photovoltaics (PV), 7.2% rooftop PV, 7.3% concentrated solar power (CSP) with storage, 1.25% geothermal power, .37% wave power, 0.14% tidal power, and 3.01% hydroelectric power.

Over all 50 states, converting would provide 3.9 million 40-year construction jobs and 2.0 million 40-year operation jobs for the energy facilities alone, the sum of which would outweigh the 3.9 million jobs displaced in the conventional energy sector.

Jacobson’s jobs estimates are only for electric power production. They do not include jobs from the two most potent job creators in an energy transition: mass transit/freight rail and retrofitting buildings for insulation and efficiency. It is estimated that every dollar spent on investments in renewable energy creates 3 times as many jobs as investments in nuclear power or fossil fuels [7]. Also missing in the Jacobson study are manufacturing jobs for clean energy generation equipment and jobs for retrofitting the grid into a smart grid.

The Center for American Progress estimates that $100 billion in green economic investment will translate into two million new jobs in two years.[8] And a 2008 report by the Center on Wisconsin Strategies suggests that roughly 8 -11 jobs can be created by every $1 million invested in building energy efficiency retrofitting.[9] The American Solar Energy Society has estimated that jobs in energy efficiency industries will more than quadruple between 2007 and 2030, from 3.75 million to 16.7 million.[10] (see also Scaling Up Building Energy Retrofitting in U.S. Cities [11])

There is less data about how many jobs would be created by transitioning to a comprehensive national mass transit program. However, an analysis in 2011 by Smart Growth America, the Center for Neighborhood Technology and U.S. PIRG, found that every billion dollars spent on public transportation produced 16,419 job-months, while the same amount spent on highway infrastructure projects produced 8,781 job-months; meaning that investment in public transit creates almost twice as many jobs as investing in highways.[12] (See also a study by the Transportation Equity Network.[13])

Need to Invest in Offshore Wind

A major missing ingredient in moving to 100% renewable energy system in the US is the lack of offshore wind power generation. The first small offshore wind (OSW) farm will be operating shortly off of Block Island in Rhode Island.

The University of Delaware recently said that the United States has moved backwards in the last decade with respect to wind power due to overreliance on market forces. There needs to be increased federal and state financial support to develop offshore wind.[14]

A report by the NYS Energy Research and Development Authority, written by the University of Delaware, found that the best way to lower costs for offshore wind was to commit to OSW development at scale, rather than on a project by project basis. It concluded that costs could be lowered as much as 30%. Taking advantage of wind turbine innovations and other technology and industry advances could lower costs by roughly an additional 20 percent. The NYSERDA report’s author added “well-designed policies and actions taken by New York, as well as by other states, can play an essential role in helping New York City and other U.S. East Coast population centers benefit from gigawatts of clean energy that could be generated by deploying wind turbines off the Atlantic coast.” [15]

The Green New Deal and Public Jobs Program

The Green New Deal will redirect research money from fossil fuels and other dead-end industries toward research in wind, solar, and geothermal as well as wave and tidal power. We will invest in research in sustainable, nontoxic materials, closed-loop cycles that eliminate waste and pollution, as well as organic agriculture, permaculture, and sustainable forestry.

It will provide jobs in sustainable energy, transportation and manufacturing infrastructure: clean renewable energy generation, energy efficiency retrofitting, intra-city mass transit and inter-city railroads, weatherization, “complete streets” that safely encourage bike and pedestrian traffic, regional food systems based on sustainable organic agriculture, and clean manufacturing of the goods needed to support this sustainable economy.

This would include a WPA-style public jobs program to secure the right to decent paid work through public jobs for the unemployed and those presently working in low paid service-sector jobs such as in fast food and retail. That would include a significant portion of non-construction, non-energy jobs in public services and non-profits, which is crucial because many unemployed are not skilled in building trades or physically fit to do construction work, skilled or unskilled. Construction workers have one of the highest unemployment rates by economic sectors, while unemployment and underemployment is concentrated among women and minorities.

Economist Philip Harvey estimated the net federal cost for 1 million living-wage public jobs in 2011 at $28.6 billion. The economic multiplier of this fiscal stimulus would generate another 414,000 jobs in Harvey’s analysis. In an analysis of the July 2016 Bureau of Labor Statistics report, the National Jobs for All Coalition identified a need for 19.6 million jobs to achieve full employment. Dividing 19.6 million needed jobs by 1.4 million created jobs equals 14, which multiplied by $28.6 billion equals $400.4 billion for a 19.6 million jobs program.[16]

Other economists also estimate the cost of a program for the federal government as employer of last resort (ELR) would be relatively small, around 1-2% of GDP, because it corresponds with huge savings in unemployment insurance in a way that pays people to work rather than paying them to not work. A federally funded ELR program will also help the budgets of every state as incomes from employment add to the tax revenue of states and local governments.[17]

Bernie Sanders’ recent presidential campaign called for the creation of 13 million living-wage jobs, primarily through $200 billion a year in investments in infrastructure: water system, transportation, seaports, electric grid, dams and broadband.[18] As outlined above, the Green New Deal would invest in infrastructure that reduces the carbon footprint (e.g., energy retrofits, renewable energy), as well as education, child and adult care, home health services and other essential human services.

A job guarantee would also be good for the private sector, as it guarantees that domestic demand never collapses as much as it does under current conditions with chronically low wages and structural unemployment and underemployment. It would also lift incomes for the most vulnerable households, helping to significantly reduce income inequality.

Paying for the Green New Deal

We will need revenues between $700 billion to $1 trillion annually for the Green New Deal. $400 billion will be for the public jobs programs. Estimates for the transition to 100% clean energy start at $200 billion a year.

Economists predict that we can build a 100 percent renewable energy system at costs comparable to or less than what we would have to spend to continue our reliance on dirty energy. The International Energy Agency estimates that limiting warming to 2° C would require an additional investment of about 1 percent of global GDP per year, which would be $170 billion a year for the US [19]. The former chairperson of the Intergovernmental  Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has made similar estimates.

Jacobson estimates that the total capital cost to go to 100% renewable energy in the US would be $13.4 trillion [20]. Much of those capital costs could be covered by diverting existing investments in nonrenewable energy. America’s coal and nuclear power stations are old and many are dilapidated.  In order to keep the lights on in the United States, a new energy system will need to be constructed. Large corporations are walking away from existing power stations, closing them and laying off the workers.

Prices for renewable energy have been falling very fast in recent years, which would reduce the costs in outlining years. The Jacobson report shows that between 2009 and 2014, the cost of solar electricity in the United States fell by 78 percent and the cost of wind energy fell by 58 percent. In many parts of the United States, wind is now the cheapest source of electricity, and solar power is on track to be the cheapest source of power in many parts of the world in the near future. Renewable energy technologies are also continually improving in performance.

When we make the investment required to clean up our emissions and waste, our economy will be revitalized by the wealth created. Our national security will no longer be vulnerable to disruption of oil supplies, and there will be absolutely no reason to send our people abroad to fight wars for oil. Using renewable energy instead of coal and gas will mean health care costs will go down because the foundations of a green economy – clean energy, healthy food, pollution prevention, and active transportation – are also the foundations of human health. The Green New Deal pays for itself through the prevention of chronic disease, which consumes a staggering 75% of $3 trillion in annual health care costs. All in all, this is an investment in our future that will pay off enormously as we build healthy, just, sustainable communities.

According to Jacobson et al, converting to 100% clean energy would also eliminate approximately 62,000 (19,000–115,000) U.S. air pollution premature mortalities per year today, avoiding 600 ($85–$2400) billion per year (2013 dollars) in healthcare costs by 2050. Converting to clean energy would further eliminate $3.3 (1.9–7.1) trillion per year in 2050 global warming costs to the world due to U.S. emissions. These plans will result in each person in the U.S. in 2050 saving $260 (190–320) per year in energy costs (2013 dollars), U.S. health costs per person decreasing by $1500 (210–6000) per year, and global climate costs per person (including costs incurred by extreme weather events, sea level rise, adverse effects on water and agriculture, etc) decreasing by $8300 (4700–17600) per year.

The Green New Deal includes a major cut in federal spending on the military (including the Pentagon budget as well as expenditures on war, nuclear weapons and other military-related areas), which would free up from roughly $500 billion per year. The $1 trillion in current annual United States military spending is equivalent to the rest of the world’s military budgets combined. A 50% cut would leave us with a budget that is still three times the size of China’s, the next biggest spender. U.S. military expenditures have doubled over the past decade without improving security. At the same time, the shift towards a policy of “full spectrum dominance” and expanding American empire has proven counterproductive to peace and security.

A carbon fee will ensure more realistic fossil fuel prices that include the cost to the environment, and are high enough to tackle climate change effectively by creating the economic incentive to drive efficiency and bring alternative fuels to market. The revenues will provide funding for the Green New Deal as well as safety nets for low-income households vulnerable to higher prices on certain items due to rising carbon taxes. We advocate establishing an Oil Legacy Fund, paid for by a tax on the assets of oil and gas companies. The funds raised would help deal with the effects of climate change and smooth the transition to a low-carbon economy.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, a carbon tax of $20 per ton would raise $120 billion a year. [21] We would support a carbon tax of at least $60 per ton ($360 billion per year) and then rising $15 to $20 per ton annually. (Some of the carbon tax revenues would be rebated in various forms to low and middle income households to offset the regressive nature of any consumption or sales  tax.)

A carbon tax is an “upstream” tax on the carbon contents of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) and biofuels. A carbon tax is the most efficient means to instill crucial price signals that spur carbon-reducing investment. A carbon tax can also be used to recapture some of the costs pushed on to taxpayers and consumers from burning fossil fuels. Unlike cap-and-trade, carbon taxes don’t create complex and easily-gamed “carbon markets” with allowances, trading and offsets. Also, because carbon taxes / fees are predictable, unlike volatile cap-and-trade markets, it is easier to plan clean energy investments to avoid carbon taxes.

The wealthy, who have most benefited from the excessive burning of fossil fuels, should pay increased taxes to help with the cost of transitioning to a green economy. Jill Stein has called for a higher estate tax on the wealthiest Americans; raising the top income tax rate while lowering it for low and middle income Americans; and closing various tax loopholes, especially for corporations. 

This is one of the most clarifying articles i have found on what;s happening to the working class and poor of venezuela and evidently form a portland dsa member   -- george  


Why Can’t the U.S. Left Get Venezuela Right Shamus Cooke On July 13, 2017 

As Venezuela’s fascist-minded oligarchy conspires with U.S. imperialism to overthrow the democratically elected government of Nicolas Maduro, few in the U.S. seem to care.

Instead of denouncing  rightwing violence that aims at regime change, many on the U.S. left have stayed silent, or opted to give an evenhanded analysis that supports neither the Maduro government nor the oligarchy trying to violently overthrow it. Rather, the left prioritizes its energy on lecturing on Maduro’s “authoritarianism” and the failures of “Chavismo.”

This approach allows leftists a cool emotional detachment to the fate of the poor in Venezuela, and clean hands that would otherwise be soiled by engaging with the messy, real life class struggle that is the Venezuelan revolution.

A “pox on both houses” analysis omits the U.S. government’s role in collaborating with Venezuela’s oligarchs. The decades-long crimes of imperialism against Venezuela is aided and abetted by the silence of the left, or by its murky analysis that minimizes the perpetrator’s actions, focusing negative attention on the victim precisely at the moment of attack.

Any analysis of a former colonial country that doesn’t begin with the struggle of self-determination against imperialism is a dead letter, since the x-factor of imperialism has always been a dominant variable in the Venezuelan equation, as books by Eva Gollinger  and others have thoroughly explained, and further demonstrated by the ongoing intervention in Latin America by an endless succession of U.S. presidents.

The Venezuelan-initiated anti-imperialist movement was strong enough that a new gravitational center was created, that pushed most of Latin America out of the grasp of U.S. domination for the first time in nearly a hundred years. This historic achievement remains minimized for much of the U.S. left, who remain indifferent or uneducated about the revolutionary significance of self-determination for oppressed nations abroad, as well as oppressed peoples inside of the U.S.

A thousand valid criticisms can be made of Chavez, but he chose sides in the class fault lines and took bold action at critical junctures. Posters of Chavez remain in the homes of Venezuela’s poorest barrios because he proved in action that he was a champion for the poor, while fighting and winning many pitched battles against the oligarchy who wildly celebrated his death.

And while it’s necessary to deeply critique the Maduro government, the present situation requires the political clarity to take a bold, unqualified stance against the U.S.-backed opposition, rather than a rambling “nonpartisan” analysis that pretends a life or death struggle isn’t currently taking place.

Yes, a growing number of Venezuelans are incredibly frustrated by Maduro, and yes, his policies have exacerbated the current crisis, but while an active counter-revolutionary offensive continues the political priority needs to be aimed squarely against the oligarchy, not Maduro. There remains amass movement  of revolutionaries in Venezuela dedicated to Chavismo and to defending Maduro’s government against the violent anti-regime tactics, but it’s these labor and community groups that the U.S. left never mentions, as it would pollute their analysis.

The U.S. left seems blissfully unaware of the consequences of the oligarchy stepping into the power vacuum if Maduro was successfully ousted. Such a shoddy analysis can be found in Jacobin’s recent article, Being Honest About Venezuela, which focuses on the problems of Maduro’s government while ignoring the honest reality of the terror the oligarchy would unleashed if it returned to power.

How did the U.S. left get it so wrong?

They’ve allowed themselves to get distracted by the zig-zags at the political surface, rather than the rupturing fault lines of class struggle below. They see only leaders and are blinded to how the masses have engaged with them.

Regardless of Maduro’s many stumbles, it’s the rich who are revolting in Venezuela, and if they’re successful it will be the workers and poor who suffer a terrible fate. An analysis of Venezuela that ignores this basic fact belongs either in the trash bin or in the newspapers of the oligarchy. Confusing class interests, or mistaking counter-revolution for revolution in politics is as disorienting as mistaking up for down, night for day.

The overarching issue remains the same since the Venezuelan revolution erupted in 1989’s Caracazo uprising, which initiated a revolutionary movement of working and poor people spurred to action by IMF austerity measures. How did Venezuela’s oligarchy respond to the 1989 protests? By killing hundreds if not thousands of people. Their return to power would unleash similar if not bloodier statistics.

In Venezuela the revolutionary flame has burned longer than most revolutions, its energy funneled into various channels; from rioting, street demonstrations, land and factory occupations, new political parties and radicalized labor-union federations and into the backbone of support for Hugo Chavez’s project, which, to varying degrees supported and even spearheaded many of these initiatives, encouraging the masses to participate directly in politics.

Chavez’s electoral victory meant — and still means — that the oligarchy lost control of the government and much of the state apparatus, a rare event in the life of a nation under capitalism. This contradiction is central to the confusion of the U.S. left: the ruling class lost control of the state, but the oligarchy retained control of key sectors of the economy, including the media.

But who has control of the state if not the oligarchy? It’s too simplistic to say the “working class” has power, because Maduro has not acted as a consistent leader of the working class, seeming more interested in trying to mediate between classes by making concessions to the oligarchy.  Maduro’s overly-bureaucratic government also limits the amount of direct democracy the working class needs before the term ‘worker state’ can be applied.

But Maduro’s power base remains the same as it was under Chavez: the working and poor people, and to that extent Maduro can be compared to a trade union president who ignores his members in order to seek a deal with the boss.

A trade union, no matter how bureaucratic,  is still rooted in the workplace, its power dependent on dues money and collective action of working people. And even a weak union is better than no union, since removing the protection of the union opens the door to sweeping attacks from the boss that inevitably lower wages, destroy benefits and result in layoffs of the most “outspoken” workers. This is why union members defend their union from corporate attack, even if the leader of the union is in bed with the boss.

History is replete with governments brought forth by revolutionary movements but which failed to take the actions necessary to complete the revolution, resulting in a successful counter-revolution. These revolutionary governments often succeed in breaking the chains of neo-colonialism and allowed for an epoch of social reforms and working class initiative, depending on how long they lasted. Their downfall always results in a counter-revolutionary wave of violence, and sometimes a sea of blood.

This has happened dozens of times across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where the class divisions are sharper, where imperialism plays a larger role, and where the class dynamics are more variegated: the poor are poorer, there is a larger informal labor force, a larger section of small shopkeepers, larger rural population, etc.

Winning significant reforms under capitalism is incredibly difficult, even in rich countries; it is twice as difficult in former colonial countries, due to the death grip the oligarchy has on the economy plus the collaboration of imperialism, which intervenes in financial markets — or with bullets — to prevent the smallest reforms.

The example of Allende’s Chile could be compared to Maduro’s situation in Venezuela. Allende was far from perfect, but can anybody claim that Pinochet’s coup wasn’t a catastrophe for the Chilean working class? In Venezuela the counter-revolution would likely be more devastating, as the oligarchy would have to push back against decades of progress versus Allende’s short-lived government. If it came to power the street violence of the oligarchy would be given the resources of the state, aimed squarely at the working class and poor.

Maduro is no Chavez, it’s true, but he has kept most of Chavez’s victories intact, maintaining social programs in a time of crashing oil prices while the oligarchy demands “pro-market reforms.” He’s essentially kept the barking dogs of the oligarchy at bay, who, if unleashed, would ravage the working class.

The oligarchy has not accepted the balance of power that Chavez-Maduro have tilted in favor of the working class. A new social contract has not been cemented; it is being actively fought for in the streets. Maduro has made some concessions to the oligarchy it’s true, but they have not been fundamental concessions, while he’s left the fundamental victories of the revolution in tact.

The social contract we call Social Democracy in Europe wasn’t finalized until a wave of revolution struck after WWII. Although Maduro would likely be happy with such a social democratic agreement in Venezuela, such agreements have proven impossible in developing countries, especially at a time while global capitalism is attacking the social democratic reforms in the advanced countries.

The Venezuelan ruling class has no intention of accepting the reforms of Chavez, and why would they so long as U.S. imperialism invests heavily in regime change? A ruling class does not accept power-sharing until they face the prospect of losing everything. And nor should Venezuela’s working class accept a “social contract” under current conditions: they have unmet demands that require revolutionary action against the oligarchy. These contradictory pressures are at the heart of Venezuela’s still-unresolved class war, which inevitably leads either to revolutionary action from the left or a successful counter-revolution from the right.

Thus, for a U.S. leftist to declare that either side is equally bad is either bad politics or class treachery. Many leftists went bonkers over Syriza in Greece, and they were right to be hopeful. But after radical rhetoric Syriza succumbed to the demands of the IMF that included devastating neoliberal reforms of austerity cuts, privatizations and deregulation. Maduro has steadfastly refused such a path out of Venezuela’s economic crisis.

This is why Maduro is despised by the rich while the poor generally continue to support the government, although passively but occasionally in giant bursts, such as the hundreds thousands strong May Day mobilization in support of the government’s fight against the violent coup attempts, which was all but ignored by most western media outlets, since it spoiled the regime-change narrative of “everybody hates Maduro.”

The essential difference between Maduro and Chavez will make or break the revolution: while Chavez took action to constantly shift the balance of power in favor of the poor, Maduro simply attempts to maintain the balance of forces handed down to him by Chavez, hoping for some kind of “agreement” from an opposition that has consistently refused all compromise. His ridiculous naivety is a powerful motivating factor for the opposition, who see a stalled revolution in the way a lion views an injured zebra.

Venezuelan expert Jorge Martin explains in an excellent article, how the oligarchy would respond if it succeeded in removing Maduro.

1) they would massively cut public spending

2) implement mass layoffs of the public sector

3) destroy the key social programs of the revolution (health care, education, pension, housing, etc.)

4) there would be a privatization frenzy of public resources, though especially the crown jewel PDVSA, the oil company

5) massive deregulation, including turning back rights for labor and ethnic-minority groups

6) they would attack the organizations of the working class that came into existence or grew under the protection of the Chavez-Maduro governments.

This is “Telling the Truth” about Venezuela. The U.S. left should know better, since the ruling class exposed what it would do during the Caracazo Uprising, and later when they briefly came to power in their 2002 coup: they aim to reverse everything, using any means necessary. The documentary “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” is still required watching about the 2002 coup.

Maduro may have finally learned his lesson: Venezuela’s crisis has forced him to double down on promoting the interests of the poor.  When oil prices collapsed it was inevitable the government would enter a deep crisis, it had only two choices: deep neoliberal reforms or the deepening of the revolution. This will be the litmus test for Maduro, since the middle ground he sought disappeared.

Rather than begging for money from the International Monetary Fund —which would have demanded such Syriza-like reforms — Maduro instead encouraged workers to takeover idle factories while a General Motors factory was nationalized. A new neighborhood-based organization, CLAP, was created that distributes basic foodstuffs at subsidized prices that benefits millions of people.

On May Day this year, in front of hundreds of thousands of supporters, Maduro announced a Constituent Assembly, an attempt to re-engage the masses in the hopes of pushing forward the revolution by creating a new, more progressive constitution.

It’s true that Maduro is using the Constituent Assembly to overcome the obstruction of the oligarchy-dominated National Assembly — whose stated intention is to topple the government — but the U.S. left seems indifferent that Maduro is using the mobilization of the working class (the Constituent Assembly) to overcome the barriers of ruling class.

This distinction is critical: if the Constituent Assembly succeeds in pushing forward the revolution by directly engaging the masses, it will come at the expense of the oligarchy. The Constituent Assembly is being organized to promote more direct democracy, but sections of the U.S. left have been taken in by the U.S. media’s allegations of “authoritarianism.”

If working and poor people actively engage in the process of creating a new, more progressive constitution and this constitution is approved via referendum by a large majority, it will constitute an essential step forward for the revolution. If the masses are unengaged or the referendum fails, it may signify the death knell of Chavismo and the return of the oligarchy.

And while Maduro is right to use the state as a repressive agent against the oligarchy, an over reliance on the state repression only leads to more contradictions, rather than relying on the self-activity of the workers and poor. Revolutions cannot be won by administrative tinkering, but rather by revolutionary measures consciously implemented by the vast majority. At bottom it’s the actions of ordinary working people that make or break a revolution; if the masses are lulled to sleep the revolution is lost. They must be unleashed not ignored.

It’s clear that Maduro’s politics have not been capable of leading the revolution to success, and therefore his government requires deep criticism combined with organized protest. But there are two kinds of protest: legitimate protest that arises from the needs of working and poor people, and the counter-revolutionary protest based in the neighborhoods of the rich that aim to restore the power of the oligarchy.

Confusing these two kinds of protests are dangerous, but the U.S. left has done precisely this. Maduro is accused of being authoritarian for using police to stop the far-right’s violent “student protests” that seek to restore the oligarchy. Of the many reasons to criticize Maduro this isn’t one of them.

If a rightwing coup succeeds in Venezuela tomorrow, the U.S. left will weep by the carnage that ensues, while not recognizing that their inaction contributed to the bloodshed. By living in the heart of imperialism the U.S. left has a duty to go beyond critiques from afar to direct action at home.

Protesting the Vietnam war helped save the lives of Vietnamese, while the organizing in the 1980’s against the “dirty wars” in Central America limited the destruction levied by the U.S.-backed governments. In both cases the left fell short of what was needed, but at least they understood what was at stake and took action. Now consider the U.S. left of 2017, who can’t lift a finger to re-start the antiwar movement and who supported Bernie Sanders regardless of his longstanding affection for imperialism.    .

The “pink tide” that blasted imperialism out of much of Latin America is being reversed, but Venezuela has always been the motor-force of the leftward shift, and the bloodshed required to reverse the revolution will be remembered forever, if it’s allowed to happen. Their lives matter too.

THESE ARE QUESTIONS THE TEMPORARY STEERING COMMITTEE COULDN'T ANSWER IF INTERVIEWED BY A REPORTER WITHOUT A CLEARER FEELING OF THE GROUP'S CONSENSUS:                                                         -- george

tell us what you think about socialism and what is a democratic socialist?

what is dsa and what are you up to? when was dsa first organized and what is its history?

how many members do you have?

what do do you plan to do in pendleton?

what's your impression of AOC?

what is dsa's relationship with the democratic party?

where do you stand on the government shut down?

are you supporting the green new deal?

describe the green new deal?

are you going to support bernie sanders of elizabeth warren?

what are you doing about the homeless situation?

we hear that the walla walla dsa is organizing a tenants union. are you going to that in pendleton?

what's your organizations stand on Venezuela? what's happening there and why?

how is dsa going to help with the homeless?