progressivebrief-blog

[progressivebrief-blog]

Climate Politics on the Eve of the US Elections

As the signs of rapid climate change increasingly mount, the sheer scale of the global transformations required across industry, transportation, energy, and many other domains to pull the earth back from the brink over the next two decades is daunting. Even more concerning, existing political institutions--particularly in the United States--appear to be unable to respond with the ambitious set of policies that are needed urgently.  As Bill McKibben writes, we are at a World War II moment in the fight to keep the earth livable, but so far the means--the political leverage--to fight that war are sorely lacking. The problem is a large power imbalance between, on the one hand, those supporting the status quo, including the major energy producers more or less aligned with the budget hawks and market fundamentalists in Washington, and, on the other, the scientists, activists, and parts of civil society who advocate for change. Modest forward movement in US policy over the past eight years has been achieved primarily through occasional actions taken unilaterally by the Obama administration.

The US elections in November may provide some additional political opportunities. If Hillary Clinton becomes president and Democrats take back the Senate and make major gains in the House, one can envision additional steps beyond those taken by the Obama administration. But, it would be foolish to expect the sort of major initiatives in public policy that are needed with the reshuffled configuration of power in Washington. We may get faster gradualism, but it will be gradualism just the same.

Foolish, that is, absent major mobilization from below. Fortunately, there is a growing activist movement, prominently seen recently in the North Dakota Access Pipeline action, and fully engaged in many other locations throughout the US and in other countries. These movements have wrong-footed the oil giants to some extent as they have been able to put divestment on the table and have been waging battles in court to hold Exxon and its partners accountable for withholding knowledge about the role of fossil fuels in climate change as well as for the environmental damage they have caused. 

But the conditions for major mobilizations in the United States are mixed at best. The public profile of climate change and climate activism is depressingly low in the United States. In the 2016 presidential and vice-presidential debates, for example, no questions were asked about climate change and the topic only came up briefly. During the primaries, Bernie Sanders said very forcefully that climate change was the number one security problem for the United States and the rest of the world. But that view was dismissed or ignored by much of the mainstream media and has remained outside of mainstream political debate in this country.

This state of affairs leads to the pressing question of what can be done to raise the profile of climate change issues. Recent polling indicates that there may be opportunities to spur greater public support for major change. Data collected in the past couple of years show that there is increasing recognition at all levels of society, but particularly among younger demographics, that climate change is real and is being caused by human activities. Even more encouraging, there is greater support for taking action to address it. On the other hand, as will be seen, such support is rather soft as climate change appears not to be seen as the crisis it is. The challenge for climate activists is to mobilize more committed supporters, heighten concerns about global warming society-wide, and convince more US leaders and constituencies that climate change is a profound threat that has to be addressed immediately. To accomplish this transformation of the public sphere, the climate movement will have to do a better job making its case, demonstrating the urgency and magnitude of the problem while also showing that activism can lead to tangible results.

By the Numbers: Changes in Public Opinion

A paper jointly published in March, 2016 by the George Mason Center for Climate Communication and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication reviewed the findings of surveys from 2014 to 2016 about American attitudes toward climate change. Briefly, the polling revealed that in just the past two years, there has been a significant increase in the number of American voters who believe that global warming is happening. According to the survey, three quarters of all Americans think global warming is happening, including more than half of Republican voters. At the same time, on the crucial question of whether global warming is caused by human activity, 56% say that global warming is mostly caused by human activities.  Seventy five percent of all registered democrats believe this is the case, while 49% of "liberal" or "moderate" republicans agree. Only 26% of "conservative republicans" agree.

On the question of concern about global warming, 57% of all registered voters are very or somewhat worried, with democrats (88% of "liberal" democrats and 67% of "moderate or conservative" dems) being far more concerned than republicans (48% moderate republicans and only 21 % of conservative republicans). Forty-nine percent of independent voters have such concerns.

In terms of support for presidential candidates' positions, 23% overall said they would be much more likely and 19% said somewhat more likely to vote for a candidate who strongly supported taking action. Is this a high number? It is hard to say. On the one hand, 42% saying that their vote would be at least partially dependent on a candidate's position on taking action to address global warming might be impressive. Certainly political movements have made great strides in the past with less public support. But for this survey, one has to wonder if voter attitudes might have been affected by the survey itself. After answering questions about their views on climate change and its importance as an issue, it is possible if not likely that respondents would be significantly more inclined to say they would vote on the basis of a candidate's position. Or, put more casually, "yes, now that you have got me thinking about this, I do think I am likely to vote on that basis."

More telling are the responses to questions asking the respondents to rank issues of importance and this is where support for measures to address climate change shows its softness. Even among liberal democratic voters, climate change ranked 6th on their list of concerns, behind the economy, health care, income inequality, protecting the environment, and education. Breaking global warming away from other environmental concerns is an issue one could take with the authors of the survey, but even so, there are several other issues that rank above global warming for even the most supportive segment of the voting public.

Moving to other segments, global warming ranked in 13th place for moderate and conservative democrats, 21st place among liberal and moderate republicans, and dead last among conservative republicans: 23rd out of 23 choices offered to the respondents.

Still, as noted above, attitudes are changing under the surface, mostly outside of the public sphere. Particularly interesting are attitudes on the right. In a 2016 poll the group Young Conservatives for Energy Reform found that 85% of young republicans (ages 18-35) believe the world is getting warmer and 77% agree that human activity plays a significant role. Fifty-five percent strongly or "somewhat" support the recent Paris agreement, while 73% have a favorable view of the clean energy industry, 59% have a favorable view of the Environmental Protection Agency, and 58% strongly or somewhat support a "revenue-neutral" "carbon-based fuels tax.

It appears that these shifts in conservative public opinion are being mirrored by small but meaningful shifts in Congress. Just this year, republican Senator Lindsey Graham, along with 4 GOP co-sponsors in the Senate filed an amendment to an energy bill that said climate change was real and human activity contributed to it. Meanwhile in the House, 33 republicans broke ranks to vote with their democratic colleagues to defeat an amendment to an appropriations bill that would "eliminate funding for the Air, Climate and Energy Research Program under the EPA.”

The effect of these shifts in conservative attitudes and political behavior is still unclear and the legislators mentioned, as one might expect, have not been consistent on climate issues. At a minimum, however, it is quite possible that these shifts should help to open public space for a fuller discussion of the implications of climate change and the importance of public policy in addressing it. There appears to be an opportunity here for activists.

It is fair to say, then, that the potential for significant change exists and that underlying trends in public opinion are significant and positive. But there needs to be a breakthrough in the public domain, meaning that climate change needs to become a top-tier issue for those who recognize the reality and favor government action. The challenge to making this happen is a topic I plan to address in a coming post. 

[progressivebrief-blog]

Which states perform better economically, red or blue?

Interesting research by Paul Pierson and Jacob Hacker on the past few decades. I tend to think that there must be an urban-rural component to this as well, but they make a compelling case that state governments that invest in education and infrastructure create more dynamic economies that grow faster and create more and better jobs.

The Path to Prosperity Is Blue                                                                   

By JACOB S. HACKER and PAUL PIERSONJULY 30, 2016

HOW can America’s leaders foster broad prosperity? For most Republicans — including Donald J. Trump — the main answer is to “cut and extract”: Cut taxes and business regulations, including pesky restrictions on the extraction of natural resources, and the economy will boom.

Mr. Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan are united by the conviction that cutting taxes — especially on corporations and the wealthy — is what drives growth.

A look at the states, however, suggests that they’re wrong. Red states dominated by Republicans embrace cut and extract. Blue states dominated by Democrats do much more to maintain their investments in education, infrastructure, urban quality of life and human services — investments typically financed through more progressive state and local taxes. And despite what you may have heard, blue states are generally doing better.

[progressivebrief-blog]

Important article in The Nation

“Lobbying isn’t dying; instead, it’s simply going underground.”

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Glenn Greenwald: How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations

One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents.

Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented to the NSA and the other three partners in the English-speaking “Five Eyes” alliance. Today, we at the Intercept are publishing another new JTRIG document, in full, entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations”.

.....

http://bit.ly/1k6dHGh

[progressivebrief-blog]

Bill Moyers Interviews Mike Lofgren on the Deep State

Lofgren says the Deep State’s heart lies in Washington, DC, but its tentacles reach out to Wall Street, which Lofgren describes as “the ultimate backstop to the whole operation,” Silicon Valley and over 400,000 contractors, private citizens who have top-secret security clearances. Like any other bureaucracy, it’s groupthink that drives the Deep State. 

http://t.co/ieOm8GOJUz

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Tell Oxfam to drop SodaStream Global Ambassador Scarlett Johansson. Occupation isn't green or "guilt free." http://thndr.it/19Sequ3

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Iran Deal Now in Danger

See two articles on the current state of P5 +1 talks with Iran. The Netanyahu government in Israel along with its US allies in Congress and the neo-cons are attempting to torpedo the talks.

Jessica Matthews in The New York Review of Books:

Significant differences remain, but at long last, both governments appear ready to work their way toward a resolution. Yet the US Congress, acting reflexively against Iran, and under intense pressure from Israel, seems ready to shatter the agreement with a bill that takes no account of Iranian political developments, misunderstands proliferation realities, and ignores the dire national security consequences for the United States.

And Bob Dreyfuss over at The Nation

The November 24 interim agreement between Iran and the P5+1 world powers, which moved into its implementation phase in January, could be blown apart if Congress, backed by hawks and the Israel lobby, enacts yet another Iran sanctions bill, the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act.

[progressivebrief-blog]

Robert Reich on David Brooks and Inequality

Very concise piece. Here's the core of it:

First, when almost all the gains from growth go to the top, as they have for the last thirty years, the middle class doesn’t have the purchasing power necessary for buoyant growth.

�� Once the middle class has exhausted all its coping mechanisms – wives and mothers surging into paid work (as they did in the 1970s and 1980s), longer working hours (which characterized the 1990s), and deep indebtedness (2002 to 2008) – the inevitable result is fewer jobs and slow growth, as we continue to experience.

  Few jobs and slow growth hit the poor especially hard because they’re the first to be fired, last to be hired, and most likely to bear the brunt of declining wages and benefits.

  Second, when the middle class is stressed, it has a harder time being generous to those in need. The “interrelated social problems” of the poor presumably will require some money, but the fiscal cupboard is bare. And because the middle class is so financially insecure, it doesn’t want to, nor does it feel it can afford to, pay more in taxes.

  Third, America’s shrinking middle class also hobbles upward mobility. Not only is there less money for good schools, job training, and social services, but the poor face a more difficult challenge moving upward because the income ladder is far longer than it used to be, and its middle rungs have disappeared.

[progressivebrief-blog]

Assessing Sharon

There has been a lot of comment in the press on Arial Sharon's passing that has basically whitewashed his bloody history. See this analysis on Mondoweiss. Here are four useful resources, that deal more fully with Sharon's actions throughout his career. The fourth, "A Preventable Massacre," by grad student Seth Anziska in the New York Times, was published in September 2012, thirty years after the Sabra and Shatila massacre. In it, he uses recently declassified Israeli documents to illustrate that 1) the Israeli leadership knew very well what was happening during the massacres, and 2) that the United States also had some culpability, because it only complained (ineffectively) to the Israelis and took no other actions. Noam Chomsky, Rashid Khalidi, and Avi Shlaim on Democracy Now Bernard Avishai in the New Yorker Khalidi on the Foreign Policy site A Preventable Massacre, by  in NY Times (Sept, 2012)

[progressivebrief-blog]

Medicaid is Obamacare’s biggest success

Interesting blog post in today's WaPo by Ezra Klein. Basically, while 2 million have signed up for health insurance under the ACA, another 4 million have enrolled in the expanded medicaid program. This seems to be another data point indicating that while there are significant problems with the foundation of the ACA, it is bringing about improvements--directly and indirectly--in the number of people getting into some sort of insurance program. And it may be creating increased demand at the state level for public options.

Unfortunately, b/c of the conservative slant to the ongoing debate--dems want to minimize the fact that the ACA and Medicaid expansion are government programs--there is much less attention to the Medicaid part of the equation. Time for dems (way past time) to grow a backbone on this issue and play to their strengths which includes likely growing demand for decent health care insurance in many states and localities, many of the outside traditional "blue" areas.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/06/medicaid-is-obamacares-biggest-success-but-neither-side-wants-to-talk-about-it/?tid=hpModule_f8335a3c-868c-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394&hpid=z9

[progressivebrief-blog]

7 Drugs Whose Dangerous Risks Emerged Only After Big Pharma Made Its Money

Another great article on the problematic relationship between the end of providing healthcare as a social good and the means of using unregulated capitalism to achieve it.

"It is the business model for new drugs that provokes Big Pharma to bury risks and exaggerate benefits. A new drug under patent has a high price and no competition, and will make millions or even billions every year it is under patent. A settlement for death or injuries down the road is a nuisance and just the cost of doing business. Needless to say, the "forgiveness is cheaper than permission" business plan breeds shameless repeat offenders since the company makes money and no officers go to jail."

http://bit.ly/1bIWLPK

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One of the worst epithets that can be leveled at a politician these days is to call him a “redistributionist.” Yet 2013 marked one of the biggest redistributions in recent American history. It was a redistribution upward, from average working people to the owners of America.

The stock market...

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What's Next in Healthcare?

Two articles point to the importance of state-level activism to push healthcare forward. Michael Moore writes at Alternet that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is disappointing for various reasons, but mostly because it "is a pro-insurance-industry plan implemented by a president who knew in his heart that a single-payer, Medicare-for-all model was the true way to go." He does admit that it will have beneficial effects for many people because it will improve their awful or non-existant health insurance. But his key point is that the politics of healthcare is now moving to the individual states because of the Medicaid expansion provisions of the ACA. Moveover, single-payer or public options are getting more traction at the state level. How far these efforts get will depend on local- and state-level activism. William Greider, writing at The Nation has an  article, based largely on the views of Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington state. McDermott talks about the restructuring of healthcare because of the different economic incentives brought about by the ACA and other trends. Like Moore, McDermott sees opportunities over the next few years at the state level to push for single payer systems. "The congressman from Seattle thinks it may take a few more years of chaotic conflict before people understand the opportunity. But state governments—even in the neo-Confederate Republican Party—may start clamoring for this new approach once they begin to see the results."

[progressivebrief-blog]

John Nichols - The Democratic Vistas of 2014: Five Reforms to Make Our Politics Matter

Great article with major emphasis on making elections fairer and increasing turnout.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/177753/democratic-vistas-2014-five-reforms-make-our-politics-matter

[progressivebrief-blog]

Great TED Talk Slamming TED Talks

"If we really want transformation, we have to slog through the hard stuff (history, economics, philosophy, art, ambiguities, contradictions). Bracketing it off to the side to focus just on technology, or just on innovation, actually  prevents transformation.   Instead of dumbing-down the future, we need to raise the level of general understanding to the level of complexity of the systems in which we are embedded and which are embedded in us. This is not about "personal stories of inspiration", it's about the difficult and uncertain work of demystification and reconceptualisation: the hard stuff that really changes how we think." http://admin.alternet.org/culture/its-recipe-civilizational-disaster-ted-has-turned-american-idol-science-philosophy-and-tech?akid=11355.249990.UyYh9X&rd=1&src=newsletter942117&t=5

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Top 10 Noteworthy Progressive Milestones of 2013

From social justice to living wages to environmental common sense, grassroots movements have taken significant steps this past year.

http://www.alternet.org/activism/top-10-noteworthy-progressive-milestones-2013

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In No One We Trust - Joseph Stiglitz

Unfortunately, however, trust is becoming yet another casualty of our country’s staggering inequality: As the gap between Americans widens, the bonds that hold society together weaken. So, too, as more and more people lose faith in a system that seems inexorably stacked against them, and the 1 percent ascend to ever more distant heights, this vital element of our institutions and our way of life is eroding.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinionator/2013/12/21/in-no-one-we-trust/