America just took a wrong turn. It's time to take a hard left

[kpete]

America just took a wrong turn. It's time to take a hard left
Howie Hawkins

Double down on oil and trouble? Not so fast: fracking bans in oil country and common sense on infrastructure might turn the US a deeper shade of green between now and 2016

Sometimes it feels as if Sarah Palin won the last two presidential elections. We’re not quite living in “Drill Baby Drill” America, but by co-opting the other Republican energy slogan, a meaningless plan literally called “All-of-the-Above”, President Obama has opened up vast new areas to offshore drilling and pushed hydrofracking for oil and gas onshore. Even as the president says that “we are closer to energy independence than we’ve ever been before”, sometimes it seems like the US is becoming a repressive petrostate.

And then some days, like the day after the midterm elections, it feels like a complete victory for Palinite politics. The Republicans took back the US Senate, and the only Democrats who won major races were those like Andrew Cuomo, who defeated my Green Party campaign for governor of New York with a $45m campaign war chest provided by a few hundred super-rich donors – Democratic and Republican ones.

But there were real victories this week for progressive alternatives on clean energy, economic security and social justice. The extremist blood bath may have painted the country more red, but there were more than a few important – and extremely promising – tea leaves of green. It was even enough to suggest a new, independent, hard-left turn in American politics is still very much possible.

Fracking bans just passed in cities from California to Ohio and even in Denton, Texas – the town at the heart of America’s oil-and-gas boom. In Richmond, California, progressives beat back a multi-million dollar campaign funded by Chevron to defeat Green and allied candidates. Voters in Alaska, Oregon and Washington DC joined Washington State and Colorado in legalizing marijuana, adding to the growing momentum to call off the failed “war on drugs” that has given the US the highest incarceration rate in the world.



Read the whole thing here:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/06/election-green-promise-2016

[Feral Child]

1. Yep n/t

[colsohlibgal]

2. Agree 100%

It has to turn back one way or another. The whole baseline has move steadily right since Reagan.

So far it has gone in cycles I hope it holds since now, unlike the Robber Baron era or the great depression, we have Faux News plus now One America News 24/7 brainwashing the hopelessly gullible. Critical thinking is a good thing gullible right wing sheep.

[badtoworse]

3. As an energy professional, "All of the above" makes sense to me.

I'm not big on wind, but I think distributed solar makes a lot of sense, especially if battery storage becomes economically viable. We have an enormous economic advantage with our huge shale resources and our superior fracking technology. Energy costs are a significant consideration in siting new plants (read that as jobs) and we should be using that to attract manufacturing jobs back home.

[RiverLover]

4. "US is becoming a repressive petrostate."

So true! Didn't realize how much until I moved to Ohio & the Utica Shale they're blasting to smithereens underneath our feet. And have over 240 toxic waste wells, or landfills. Radioactive waste right into landfills! Thanks to Obama opening up offshore fracking, the Ohio River is now going to be toast. They're going to be fracking right by the chemical company in WV the frackers blew up last year, leaving 1000s without potable water...The chemical co is now trying to stop the frackers in court. Go figure...

Sorry for the rant, but this article nailed it. I was light green before, but SCREAMIN' GREEN now!!