Energy Independence/Global Warming

The BP Gulf disaster has people--notably President Obama--buzzing about the pressing need for energy independence.  Al Gore used the opportunity to write an essay in The New Republic calling for an aggressive move toward a carbon tax so as to wean ourselves from dependence on coal and oil.  Today TNR published a counterpoint blog post which makes the good point that as sure as we can be that global warming will occur, predictions as to the dire consequences for human civilization are far less certain.  The IPCC's worst case scenario suggests that a 4C increase in average global temperature over the next century would lead to a shocking 3% reduction in global GDP as compared to what it would be without any warming at all.   

These are difficult numbers to ignore.  I continue to believe that we need to take efforts to price fossil fuels in such a way as to factor in their adverse environmental effects.  This means some sort of carbon tax.  (Whether you call it a tax or cap-and-trade, it's still a tax.) But if global warming is unlikely to destroy civilization, wrecking our economy to get to carbon-neutral status ASAP doesn't make much sense.  One has the feeling that what a lot of the more committed anti-climate change advocates like Gore and Bill McKibben are getting worked up about has more to do with a sentimental, aesthetic sense that it is bad for humankind to exert such profound effects on global ecosystems than any clear belief that global warming is going to cause civilization to collapse. 

It's All About the Congress

In a post entitled "Liberal Despair and the Cult of the Presidency" Jon Chait at TNR argues--correctly, in my opinion--that liberals who are disappointed by Obama's presidential performance misunderstand the powers--and lack of power--of the presidency. The Congress is where it's at if you want to get anything done. Which is why another TNR post by William Galston predicting an GOP takeover in the House is so chilling.

Here's an email solicitation I received from the DNC:

Aaron -- Yesterday, Republican Congressman Joe Barton, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, issued an outrageous personal apology to BP and slammed the President for his efforts to hold them accountable. Worse, if the GOP wins back the House, Barton is the guy who could be in charge of regulating the oil industry. Think about it: In the Gulf right now, jobs are being lost, ecosystems are being destroyed, an entire way of life is being upended. And Joe Barton is apologizing to the oil company that caused the disaster. We're whipping together an ad as fast as possible to make sure voters know exactly whose side Barton and the GOP are on and to demand they stop apologizing to big oil, but we need your help to get it on the air. If you're as furious as I am, will you chip in $5 to help us fight back? https://my.democrats.org/BartonAd Thanks, Brad Brad Woodhouse Communications Director Democratic National Committee

You see? THIS is the problem with money in American politics. I'm disposed to agree with Mr. Woodhouse. Joe Barton's apology to BP was despicable. But when every communication finishes with a request for cash, it undermines the message. I get annoyed just like I used to get annoyed with a semi-homeless guy named June Bug who frequented my neighborhood in North Carolina. It's like, "I'm sympathetic to your plight, June Bug. It doesn't even bother me that you're going to use whatever money I give you to buy beer. That's just how it is. But seriously, man, do you have to put your hand out every time we meet?"

I'll give the DNC five dollars. (Actually, I'll give them $100.) I do want the Democrats to hold onto the House. But we have to recognize that this constant need to beg for money on the part of our politicians is degrading to them, to us and to the quality of our political culture.

Krugman on Calls for Fiscal Austerity

"How bad will it be? Will it really be 1937 all over again? I don’t know. What I do know is that economic policy around the world has taken a major wrong turn, and that the odds of a prolonged slump are rising by the day."

The Guilded Age

Here's a letter I'm posting to my representatives. Feel free to cut and paste.

Dear Senator/Congressman:

Events of the past year including the recent round of state primary elections have made me increasingly concerned about the role that money plays in our nation’s electoral politics. I am worried about the Supreme Court’s apparent intention, manifested in several recent decisions, to neuter any effort on the part of the states to limit the distorting effects of corporate funds and individual fortunes upon our elections. If it is the case, as it seems to be, that millions spent on television advertising can tip the balance in an election and, what’s more, that the requirement that they raise and spend millions in order to compete with rich individuals and big corporate spenders keeps many worthy, non-wealthy candidates from entering politics in the first place, to the degree that we are unable to regulate the ways and amounts in which money is spent in our elections, our democracy is damaged.

I won’t waste your time with any legal or philosophical arguments as to why the Supreme Court is wrong on these or related matters, though I do believe that there are several such arguments to be made. Rather, I would encourage you to take up the mantle of campaign finance reform and pass the legislation required to counter Citizens United v. FEC and the Court’s other similarly noxious rulings. If a campaign finance bill can be crafted that answers the Court’s concerns and at the same time restores or, better, improves upon McCain-Feingold, then do it. If the only way to skin the campaign finance cat is to pass a constitutional amendment, then do that.

America, it seems, has entered a second Gilded Age ushered in by George W. Bush and his Republican Congress, now abetted by the Republican-majority Supreme Court, by obstructionist Republicans in the Senate, and by a few Democrats besides. The first Gilded Age was bad for democracy and bad for the common man. So far it doesn’t appear that in either respect the second will be much better.

Kind regards,
Aaron Walton

Second Try

So, I've had calls from some quarters--one quarter at least--to start up the blog again. Lord knows there's enough news out of the States to set me off on a rant or two. Financial reform...the Supreme Court's continuing campaign to gift wrap American electoral politics in their entirety and hand them over to corporations and rich individuals...the BP spill...the languishing economy and the vanishing likelihood of any further stimulus...this limp-wristed energy bill Obama was out shilling for last night which is sadly probably the best thing that can make it out of the Senate right now, which is to say the best that can make it out of the Senate ever. (Does anyone think our legislative gridlock will get better after November?)

I've been watching Jon Stewart's Daily Show here on Australia's ABC2. It's shown every night at 7PM on a five or six hour delay. Tonight Mr. Stewart cast Barack Obama as Frodo Baggins, a good man corrupted by power, for Obama's failure to dismantle Bush's extralegal anti-terror apparatus. He has been egually as harsh on Obama for his apparently easygoing response to the oil spill. Let me say two things in response to Mr. Stewart, my fellow William & Mary alumnus: First, just as many of Stewart's conservative critics argue, he has a tendency to get high up on a moral high horse, but then the instant he encounters any push-back he claims that he's just an entertainer, that nothing he says has any serious political content. Second, Stewart, like many of us, asks too much of the president, of any president.

Obama's ability to fix the oil mess is limited. Even more importantly, his ability to get meaningful reform through Congress is even more severely limited. I'm not exactly jumping for joy over Obama's performance this first year and a half of his presidency, but I rather imagine it's in the nature of things for a left-leaning Democrat such as myself to be disappointed by my Democratic presidents. By 2000 Clinton had me thinking along with Ralph Nader that there was no meaningful distinction between a prospective Al Gore presidency and a George W Bush presidency. (I voted for Gore anyway in the belief that a Nader presidency would be worse than either of the alternatives.) What has me more frustrated than Obama is our feckless legislative branch. The Senate needs to be shaken out of its stupor. So what if the Dems have lost their filibuster-proof majority. Bring the legislation forward anyway! Make the bastards filibuster! Make the Republicans stand up all night and all day reading the goddamn phone book into the Congressional Record and then have to go home to their constituencies and explain why they acted to obstruct the next defense appropriation or whatever other bit of crucial business their heroic blockade wouldn't let through.

Shutting Down

Anyone coming to this blog now will note that it has been weeks since I last posted. I've been trying to decide what to do with the thing. The truth is there aren't many of you out there reading it, mostly my friends and family and a few who find the site through unrelated web searches--"aaron lee walton conviction," "geelong hospital nurse." This site was intended as an experiment to find out whether or not I could recruit interested readers and commentators and hopefully motivate a few to get involved politically. As such, it has now shown itself to be a failed experiment. Writing of the kind I've been posting here requires too much time an effort for me to be doing it for an audience only of people who know me, and not even that many of them.

I'll leave the site up. The links are useful. Probably also when I write letters to my congresspeople I'll post them here, but no more regular posts.

Adios.