RFK Jr.'s article in Vanity Fair: The Next President's First Task.

[Lex]

Brilliant article, linking our oil addiction to a moral choice, and a drag on our economy. Worth a read. :hi:

The Next President’s First Task

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. / May 2008

Last November, Lord (David) Puttnam debated before Parliament an important bill to tackle global warming. Addressing industry and government warnings that we must proceed slowly to avoid economic ruin, Lord Puttnam recalled that precisely 200 years ago Parliament heard identical caveats during the debate over abolition of the slave trade. At that time slave commerce represented one-fourth of Britain’s G.D.P. and provided its primary source of cheap, abundant energy. Vested interests warned that financial apocalypse would succeed its prohibition.

That debate lasted roughly a year, and Parliament, in the end, made the moral choice, abolishing the trade outright. Instead of collapsing, as slavery’s proponents had predicted, Britain’s economy accelerated. Slavery’s abolition exposed the debilitating inefficiencies associated with zero-cost labor; slavery had been a ball and chain not only for the slaves but also for the British economy, hobbling productivity and stifling growth. Now creativity and productivity surged. Entrepreneurs seeking new sources of energy launched the Industrial Revolution and inaugurated the greatest era of wealth production in human history.

Today, we don’t need to abolish carbon as an energy source in order to see its inefficiencies starkly, or to understand that this addiction is the principal drag on American capitalism. The evidence is before our eyes. The practice of borrowing a billion dollars each day to buy foreign oil has caused the American dollar to implode. More than a trillion dollars in annual subsidies to coal and oil producers have beggared a nation that four decades ago owned half the globe’s wealth. Carbon dependence has eroded our economic power, destroyed our moral authority, diminished our international influence and prestige, endangered our national security, and damaged our health and landscapes. It is subverting everything we value.



rest of article ---> http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/rfk_manifesto200805?printable=true¤tPage=all

[opihimoimoi]

1. But McCain might be the nx prezzy...then whot?

[Lex]

2. The set of problems do not change

regardless of who is President next.

[opihimoimoi]

5. Yes, I can understand that but the solutions would be dramatically different

McLame has not shown any ability to solve other than win his nom

[Lex]

6. Yes, we are well and truly screwed--if McLame wins

then we all lose, and many generations after us as well.

[opihimoimoi]

7. VOTE BLUE...come, we go heal, we go Luau

:toast:

[midnight]

3. I know the focus of this post is about eliminating carbon.

I'm all for it. There have been solar panels and other forms of renewable news coming out that makes this request very on target. But how about including the work of rasing the next generation to the GDP. It is basically left to women and therefor not recongnised just like other work women do does not receive the same ecomomic echange that men's work does. The education of eleminating a form of slavery has been shown to not collapse the ecomomy, but make it more viable.

[Apinionated]

4. K & R.

RFK, Jr. was excellent on Letterman last night too. Don't know if you caught him on it or not.

[crimsonblue]

8. Sorry, but you're wrong RFK jr...

the first order of business is NOT solving global warming. The first order of business is ordering an independent investigation of the Bush Administraton's entire term and also getting us out of Iraq. Sorry, but global warming will have to wait until after we have a democracy again.

[rusty quoin]

9. We can do both. n/t

[Lex]

10. We better be able to because democracy is useless without a country

or a world, for that matter.

[Faryn Balyncd]

11. Absolutely BRILLIANT analysis ! ! ! ! RFK has persuasively Framed this issue with Truth & Power.