Once every year, on a Saturday in November, green activists gather at Vermont Technical College in Randolph to share their experiences, learn skills to make them more effective, and to celebrate little landmarks and big victories in the ongoing struggle to protect our natural environment. Co-sponsors of the event include Toxics Actions Center,VPIRG, VNRC, DFA, True Majority and The Vermont League of Conservation Voters: a veritable cavalcade of good-doers in the Green Mountain State and beyond.
Last year, the event hosted the first public forum of the Democratic gubernatorial primary campaign. This year, with the 2010 election behind us, the results became something to celebrate for Vermont’s green lobby; but not without a sober look at the rest of the nation. No one could put the significance of the recent election in better perspective for Vermonters than keynote speaker Pat Parenteau of the Vermont Law School who reminded the assembly of the extraordinary opportunity and responsibility Vermont has to lead by example as the one island of forward-thinking environmental activity in a rising sea of reactionary chaos.
Citing the statistical evidence of significant job creation in the wake of the Clean Air Act of 1970, Prof. Parenteau framed the arguments for a clean energy future with two simple questions:
“How many jobs? What’s the carbon?”
Parenteau reminded the audience how the U.S. has lost leadership to China in the development of clean air industries, and how this translates to lost jobs. As a nation, the only hope we have of correcting the downward trajectory of the American middle class is to recognize that simple reality and reclaim our environmental leadership.
With a Democratic governor and majorities in both houses of the Legislature, Vermont has the unique opportunity to lead by example, and to further reinforce the economic advantage we already have over most other states, thanks to the valuable cooling effect of Act 250 during the development bubble.
If I am able to obtain a link to Prof. Parenteau’s remarkable address, I will most certainly add it to this post; but more about the event after the jump…
As a representative of the Northwest Citizens for Responsible Growth, I have attended these events in Randolph for perhaps five or six years running. I remember the electricity leading up to and following the 2008 election.
The tone this year was different, cautionary despite the exhilaration. Governor-elect Peter Shumlin sent a recorded speech which reiterated his commitment to the green initiatives he had endorsed throughout his campaign, to which the audience responded enthusiastically; but we all know better now what regional and national obstacles lie ahead. In casual encounters throughout the day, activists visiting from Maine and New Hampshire expressed angst over the uncertain future their efforts now face at home. These worries joined the usual complaints of unsympathetic local officials, conflicted administrators of public services, slow regulatory and enforcement initiatives, and simple lack of funds.
Then there were the little reminders that the green “highway” may have many detours. Book-ending the exhibition hall were displays from two opposing views on bio-mass, their proponents nervously eyeing one another across a sea of potential converts. There were debates in other corners over whether or not there would ever be the possibility of truly “green” nuclear energy.
While Tea Party activists enjoy the luxury of a simplistic flat world view that allows them to rest on their platitudes, environmental activists know that nothing in this complex and changing world is ever “simple.” Like I used to say to my husband when he’d reply to a question with the seventies toss-off, “I’m easy:” simple isn’t easy.
“the U.S. has lost leadership to China in the development of clean air industries, and how this translates to lost jobs. As a nation, the only hope we have of correcting the downward trajectory of the American middle class is to recognize that simple reality and reclaim our environmental leadership.”
But this is all intentional. The grand plan of the GOP since the FDR days has always been to eliminate the middle class in America. Bush rammed Most Favored Nation Trading Status for China in the chaos of 9/11 with the specific intent of killing off the last manufacturing jobs in the US.
Now we are in the end game of that long-cherished goal, Reagan really accelerated it, Bush II set up the pieces for the final showdown, and Obama is ‘leading’ the Dems right into the ambush.
The GOP leaders promises during the 2010 elections and statements made since they won, and the Catfood Commission Chairmen’s early proposal, make it clear that the only legislation that will be allowed in Congress is that which attacks the vestiges of our middle class.
Social Security, for example, has NOTHING to do with the US deficit? Social Security is NOT insolvent OR broken! The Dems and The GOP are intentionally lying to us about S.S. Here’s the simple problem with S.S.: the payroll tax cap hasn’t been keeping up with inflation – just raise that limit (or remove it altogether) so the rich actually pay their share and – voila! – Social Security is back to being just fine!
Same thing with Medicaid: just get the obscenely wealthy to pay their share, instead of now when they pay almost nothing, and it’s all fixed.
In fact, all of America’s woes stem from us having cut the income for the Feds by eliminating the tax burden on the super-rich.
When was America at it’s most powerful? The 1950s, after WWII. We had a healthy middle class, unions to protect the worker from the rapacious businessmen, we were the leaders of the world locked in an arms race with the Soviets AND we developed space flight (of course those two are inseperable).
And how did America accomplish all that? Because the tax rate for the disgustingly rich was a appropriate 90%!
America didn’t used to be a Super-Power because of our Freedom™®, we were a superpower because the rich paid their fair share!
Now, after 40 years of cutting the taxes of the unimaginably wealthy, America is no longer a world leader and the GOP intentionally handed all our power to China. The far-far-far-right extremists all say ‘we need to cut taxes on the wealthy because that is the only way to grow our economy’! To which I say BULLSHITE!
It is proven by the historical record that cutting taxes DAMAGES the economy! Letting the outrageously wealthy pay almost no taxes ONLY EVER leads to economic downturns: the historical record proves that!
So raise the taxes on the obscenely wealthy if you love America!