Hi Upthepeople:
Apparently Howie Hawkins stated his version in 2010—so it’s been around for a while, but it’s got great and necessary ideas—that need to happen now. : )
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I observe two differences between AOC and Markey. They pretty much said the same thing today, but Markey has a zipper on the front of his trousers and his complexion is a bit whiter than AOC’s. After that, I suspect that their on-staff speech writers are about equal.
I certainly wont argue with you about what you are able to observe.
Yup, if only there was a party in power that embraced them. It ain’t the Democrats.
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When I was working on a solar breakthrough at MIT Markey came out to see it. He is the real deal.
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And you still ride in the horse and buggy because where the fvck are the gas stations. And you still illuminate with candles because where the fvck does electricity come from.
Look, if you’re advocating for the live of the native Americans back in the day, I’m all in. But you sound like Negative Nancy to me.
I’m very puzzled by your reply as my comment did not call for de-growth or a return to any deep-green position of primitivism which was effectively dismantled by the pioneer of social ecology, Murray Bookchin.
I’m in many ways a technophile who holds the view that robotics, automation, artificial intelligence when democratically controlled can serve the needs of the people while still having a benign influence upon the environment and create a situation of worldwide abundance where the division of North and South dissolves.
What i was critiquing is the trust and faith GND advocates have that governments can “outlaw” global warming and pollution with legal edicts when they are as Marx said the executive committee of the capitalist class and acts in their interest.
I am surprised no one seems to be adding this as a solution to the homelessness in our country. The original New Deal did so with CCC camps giving those folks dignity in the process.
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Markey has been more of a gyroscope than a rudder. He is happily moving more to the side of progressive policy thanks people of the squad.
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I guess when you say outlaw, you mean governments forcing us into green technology. We were forced into digital tv. Literally. But we outlaw pollutants all the time. Fossil fuels are pollutants.
But that isn’t even the point. Once the government gets behind the GND, corporations will have to follow if governments only contract to green companies.
And I guarantee you, if we intend to compete internationally, the car industry will follow. The airline industry will follow. And if we truly fear the “communist” Chinese Party, we had better start manufacturing here, not there, and we had better become a leader in green technology. Unless, of course, we want to be the UK of the 21st century.
Finally, so much is made of automation through robotics. Who’s going to buy all the crap manufactured by robots when the displaced employees suddenly find themselves working for poverty wages in the service industry?
And green doesn’t matter if we don’t move away from consumerism. Like it or not, when Climate Change will force us back into living off the land in small tribes.
Hi Ron_Genise:
Yes, that is a conundrum, as robots seem to be doing well, so what is it that humans will be doing? Those dog robots of the police don’t have any teeth—but I suppose that the programing will tell the tale. Even pizza delivery drivers are being replaced by some roving robots doing delivery. I was in Corvallis by the college the other day, and I was told that food delivery units are roaming the sidewalks with student food orders.
If robots are coming , perhaps replacing the CEOs and others in positions of power would be more effective. Because if robots replace most work, who will have a job and who will be able to BUY anything? Although, having a robot to make decisions might end up being better than a lot of humans who are making decisions now.
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Automated decision makers. Now that’s automation I can get behind. I guess it’s only a matter of time before self-driving delivery cars replace Uber Eats and other services provided by the “gig” economy.
And that is the real thing to know…we can make and provide for all through the technological advances that arrive daily, without the necessity of waged labor, without the requirement for wages, with money itself being no longer required and can be made redundant.
If you permit me a bit of hyperbole, Star-Trek replicators are already in sight for some products.
I don’t know if you have read the concept of Fully Automated Luxury Communism.
Already we have Silicon Valley moguls such Andrew Yang wanting to give away free money with UBI schemes yet unable to accept that there is actually no need for any money in the first place by implementing the Marx maxim, ‘from each according to ability, to each according to needs’, wage-slavery replaced by voluntary work. Charities will tell you that they never lack for unpaid volunteers.
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Damn. You took that all the way to goal line. It would be amazing if we could live without money. Unfortunately, mankind isn’t morally or ethically mature enough for that kind of society.
Hi Ron_Genises
And WATSON, the humanoid robot would do a much better job than many CEOs.Of course, like that old movie," 2001" --humans would have to worry about robots becoming tyrants ------like so many of the human CEOs. : )
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I think HAL just went insane in 2001. But point is well taken.
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not attention-seeking at all, or not for her-‘self’… (you don’t seem to be able to perceive character!)
Attention seeking suggest ego… she ain’t in it for the ego, isn’t that obvious!?
Clearly not!
Well she doesn’t seem to be in it to get any of what she yammers about accomplished in Congress. To those educated in rhetoric, some of her recent appearances have been clownish.
She did when she first ran and when she first entered office. Pelosi met with her, she fired her more radical staff members and replaced them with more establishment friendly staffers and she has in fact been pretty pathetically weak since. I also have a problem comparing her to Bernie. It took real guts for Bernie to do what he did decades ago, and he has in fact inspired lots of people and was right long ago. Evan if Bernie is now in fact pretty similar to AOC, what he has done all this time deserves respect. Yes, she hasn’t been in office nearly as long, but I don’t see her having the guts and the radical spirit that he once had. AOC has really just become the left flank of a pretty corrupt and right wing party, and honestly, the AOC that ran against Crowley would have very critical things to say about this AOC.
I also think that saying that the GND has all of this attention because of them is absurd. There is a massive amount of activism and we are facing down planetary ecological collapse. THAT is more than anything why we talk about systemic changes. I don’t think AOC or anyone else working on the GND is ever going to get anything if she and they are as concerned as they are with being good little DC Democrats. Fact is, her own party is just as much of a block to radical change as the other party, and she will never point that out or make that clear. And she does not talk about the entirely unsustainable capitalist system. She could force discussions into the popular consciousness about capitalism, but she doesn’t and will not.
But, I don’t take her seriously about her talk of “revolution”. Kshama Sawant can talk about revolution and she has kicked ass since taking office. AOC is no Sawant.
Well, you briefly hint at needing local, place based development. There is a very easy way to solve that, which is to support worker owned companies and public enterprises. Both necessarily mean the owners will live near the enterprise and do away with absentee ownership. Even Obama’s report on AI and automation briefly mentioned the ownership of capital and how the present ownership is going to intensify the conflicts between those who own capital and those that only own and sell their labor.
As far as de-growth, it is clearly needed and we need to realize the limits of markets and the limits of monetizing externalities. The only way to deal with those things, while realizing that the financial and monetary parts of the economy don’t have resource constraints, is through an economy that employs far more comprehensive economic planning. If people want to argue otherwise, show how a decentralized market economy can deal with the environmental crisis. Seems completely unworkable.