2017-03-24 11:19:06-0400
Thoughts on cutting down the size of the USA Military:
While it's important to cut the military drastically, you have to realize that it's the USA's #1 jobs program. Outside of its obvious destructive end, for many people in all aspects of the war machine, from logistics, housing, research, legal work it's a steady paycheck that can be brought into any politician's district.Therefore, the transition to a Green economy has to be done, as Dr.Jill Stein says, the way the government took over industry in WW II. It has to be framed as the patriotic thing to do. The process is akin to taking a dangerous object from a toddler: you have to give the child something else, not just take it away. Industries that produce material for the military will need to be transitioned to green manufacturing, distribution, and building and devising green technology. Which is good, since military industry is a large sinkhole of economics: you don't get much of a return on maintaining huge bases and remotely blowing up wedding parties.
In general, people choosing candidates pick them via their issues, and that's good, because you can't be pasionate about everything, and the hope is that these issues - of social justice, truly democratic representation, promoting the general welfare - will become clearer once we have a problem to solve that's actually real, unlike a takeover of the US by foreign terrorists. Droughts and hurricanes, flooding and fracking-based earthquakes do not care if you are a Christian or transgender. (Although I'm sure some will assume these calamities are effects of the Rapture... except in the real world, they have no option other than to be left behind.)
Serious action in the Green agenda - scaling up and refining Green technologies, preparing civil engineering for more extreme weather events, and raising consciousness - will be more self evident courses of action as the climate becomes more unstable.
The last three months have been the hottest historically for their time of the year by significant margins. Houston is flooded right now.
The executive branch has a constrained set of powers in many regards, but it can help to set the narrative and agenda for the other branches of Government, and the Bully Pulpit. The Green New Deal is a straightforward idea - and it's on the table for anyone with political power to consider. This has happened in the past: ideas from a fringe group get implemented by other more mainstream groups.
While it's important to cut the military drastically, you have to realize that it's the USA's #1 jobs program. Outside of its obvious destructive end, for many people in all aspects of the war machine, from logistics, housing, research, legal work it's a steady paycheck that can be brought into any politician's district.Therefore, the transition to a Green economy has to be done, as Dr.Jill Stein says, the way the government took over industry in WW II. It has to be framed as the patriotic thing to do. The process is akin to taking a dangerous object from a toddler: you have to give the child something else, not just take it away. Industries that produce material for the military will need to be transitioned to green manufacturing, distribution, and building and devising green technology. Which is good, since military industry is a large sinkhole of economics: you don't get much of a return on maintaining huge bases and remotely blowing up wedding parties.
In general, people choosing candidates pick them via their issues, and that's good, because you can't be pasionate about everything, and the hope is that these issues - of social justice, truly democratic representation, promoting the general welfare - will become clearer once we have a problem to solve that's actually real, unlike a takeover of the US by foreign terrorists. Droughts and hurricanes, flooding and fracking-based earthquakes do not care if you are a Christian or transgender. (Although I'm sure some will assume these calamities are effects of the Rapture... except in the real world, they have no option other than to be left behind.)
Serious action in the Green agenda - scaling up and refining Green technologies, preparing civil engineering for more extreme weather events, and raising consciousness - will be more self evident courses of action as the climate becomes more unstable.
The last three months have been the hottest historically for their time of the year by significant margins. Houston is flooded right now.
The executive branch has a constrained set of powers in many regards, but it can help to set the narrative and agenda for the other branches of Government, and the Bully Pulpit. The Green New Deal is a straightforward idea - and it's on the table for anyone with political power to consider. This has happened in the past: ideas from a fringe group get implemented by other more mainstream groups.
2016-08-21 00:36:47-0400
I'd just like to update to say that every month so far this year is still the hottest in recorded, human relevant weather history, and those records have not been debatable squeakers, but rather significant departures from the baseline and from last year. Also, now (Mid August 2016) it's Louisiana that is being flooded.
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