Dems roll over, abandon climate bill. will citizenry follow suit?

[G_j]

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/53546

Published Jul 22 2010 by Post Carbon Institute,

Dems roll over, abandon climate bill. will citizenry follow suit?

by Tod Brilliant


And so we have it. At noon today (PST), we saw the predictable collapse of Democrat resolve to address the most serious crisis of our times.

So what. Big surprise.

The most likely bills were horrifically flawed (don't get me started on the Kerry Lieberman joke, the one where the punchline was my childrens' future). The public demand for truly significant, timely progress on energy and climate simply isn't there. This was never going to happen in the first place.

We can point fingers at Washington, DC, but we should be pointing them at ourselves. We allow our votes to be taken for granted. We equate online activism with real-world pressure. We talk smart of responsible consumption and equitable resource distribution...while in line to purchase new iPhones. We hold hands when we should be holding feet to fire. We self-identify as consumers, not citizens. We elect, time and time again, fellow citizens with no track record of caring about our issues. We believe that Tweeting counts as activism. We make excuses like, "Lesser of two evils" and "Incremental change is better than slipping backward." (To be crystal here, I am including ME in 'we'. I work on these issues every single day, and still I fail in my personal life to be a notable example of resilient living.)

It's not that we don't care. Or don't believe that the earth is warming and action must be taken. We, as a nation, emphatically do.

It's that we haven't yet commited to making meaningful progress, as individuals or as a society. We must remember that every daily action has a reaction (somewhere, some time), and behave like informed citizens who give a damn. We know what to do. We even know how to do it. We know what the future can and should look like. We know how to get there. Everything is in place for a rapid and orderly transition to relocalized, resilient communities.

..more..

[LWolf]

1. wow.

That short snip contains 2 paragraphs offering the most accurate description of our political condition I may have ever read at DU.

I'm off to read the rest.

[G_j]

5. stretched a bit

to include the last paragraph, which to me was crucial.
:hi:

[msongs]

2. dems go from "better than nothing" to "why bother" lol. nt

[babylonsister]

3. Was the citzenry ever on board? Are they even paying attention? nt

[Enrique]

4. we need to remember that cap and trade passed the House

if we want our leaders to show leadership, we should keep in mind the examples that there are. The Democrats will likely lose some seats due to voting for Cap and Trade. But that's what happens often when you show leadership.

[Cal33]

6. Even if we made up a list of how each of our Democratic

senators and representatives voted on all the important issues, and
let those found wanting know that we will be voting for their newcomer
Democratic opponent, it would solve only a part of the problem.

F.i., there are those blue dog states where no Democratic candidate
could possibly win without being at least somewhat right-leaning.

Another way would be to expose, and expose non-stop, all the false
propaganda and lies that the Neocons are very successfully telling the
American people. This will be difficult and very expensive to do, since
90% of the news media are owned by the Neocons. And they've been already
doing it for so many decades. Time is on their side.

[kstewart33]

7. Oh please.

Global warming is a huge crisis and Congress must act on it.

But the Dems have passed more major legislation in the last 2 years than any other Congress since FDR.

It's almost August. It's time for the Dems to go out on the road now (Obama, are you listening?) and sell to the public what they've already done and hopefully curb their expected huge losses in November.

If they keep their majority, then launch the climate initiative big time.

The timing is all wrong for launching a major legislative initiative 3 months before the elections.

[Karmadillo]

8. Great post. The citizenry needs to go around/through our dysfunctional government. This

excellent post pretty much tells us how to start. We're so conditioned to wait on the spokespeople for our corporate masters to tell us what to do, it will be hard for us to take on the task. I think though that the worse things get, the more we'll be willing to take on our responsibility to the future. I just hope it won't be too late.

[Lorien]

9. Who is this "we" Mr Brilliant?

Many of us do quite a bit more than online activism, quite a few of us will no longer vote for the lesser of evils. And why is the petty iPhone always held up as the great evil of a consumer society? If you want to point fingers, point them directly at meat and dairy consumers-particularly beef. No other product consumed has as negative effect on our environment, yet even Al Gore avoids speaking this truth because too many people value a burger over their own future.

[G_j]

10. I agree with you

about factory farming and the mass consumption of it's products.
It is a disgrace for everyone who partakes in it, which is most of us.
Not only is it environmentally disastrous, it unbelievable cruel. Is it any wonder 'we' turn our heads at torture?

[amborin]

11. K&R

[texastoast]

12. ...

An old man on the point of death summoned his sons around him to give them some parting advice. He ordered his servants to bring in a tied bundle of sticks.
He said to his eldest son: "Break it."
The son strained and strained, but with all his efforts was unable to break the bundle. The other sons also tried, but none of them was successful.
"Untie the bundle," said the father, "and each of you take a stick."
When they had done so, he called out to them: "Now, break," and each stick was easily broken.
"You see my meaning," said their father.