Pirate's Cove

Remember, folks, that the Green New Deal has nothing to do with Socialism nor politics, they just want to save the planet from having a fever

What Will it Take to Win a Green New Deal?

The push for a Green New Deal (GND) that’s become a big topic of political discussion in the US has come north. At the beginning of May 2019, the Pact for a Green New Deal was launched publicly in Canada. It was endorsed by a range of organizations and prominent individuals. Behind the scenes, staff from a number of major NGOs including Greenpeace and Leadnow are playing key roles in the initiative.

The Pact calls the GND “a vision of rapid, inclusive and far-reaching transition, to slash emissions, protect critical biodiversity, meet the demands of the multiple crises we face, and create over a million jobs in the process. It would involve the full implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) including the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), dozens of other pieces of legislation, new programs and institutions, and a huge mobilization calling on the creativity and participation of all of us.”

The Pact sets out “two fundamental principles” for a GND: “1. It must meet the demands of Indigenous Knowledge and science and cut Canada’s emissions in half in 11 years while protecting cultural and biological diversity”, and “2. It must leave no one behind and build a better present and future for all of us.” (snip)

It does matter what the specific GND policies will be – but not only or mainly for the reason that some anti-capitalists think. Some radicals in the US have dismissively criticized the GND championed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Democratic politicians for not targeting the capitalist system itself. In a much more constructive reflection, British socialist Richard Seymour has asked if the GND depends “on magical thinking about technology and capitalism? Are the legislative tools it looks to adequate? Is it internationalist, or can it be? Does it risk further commodifying the natural world?” Seymour suggests “we need the GND plus something else.”

In other words, they want to make sure they target the capitalist system itself. In case you missed it, the link goes to The Socialist Project, which is pretty much as far Modern Socialist as you would think, and was originally published in The New Socialist

It’s more useful to think about a GND in the way McDonald suggests: “what a Green New Deal must do is begin to establish the political and cultural conditions in which this scale of transition becomes possible.” As US socialist Thea Riofrancos puts it (quoting left critic of the GND Jasper Bernes): “‘shifting the discussion, gathering political will, and underscoring the urgency of the climate crisis.’ If, through the vehicle of the amorphous Green New Deal, left forces might achieve these three tasks, that strikes me as an exceedingly important development; not an end in and of itself, of course, but it’s unclear to me how a pathway to radical transformation wouldn’t pass through these three crucial tests of political capacity.”

Put simply, what matters most about a GND is that it can serve as a tool that people can use to start to build a larger and more powerful movement for climate justice. What we need is many more people in motion. Another document that, like the Leap Manifesto of 2015, gets some people talking and influences left politics but doesn’t lead to mass action won’t cut it.

They want to use the manufactured “climate crisis” to institute all their Modern Socialism ideas. That Leap Manifesto is a doozy of far, far, far left ideas, which are actually far, far right ones, since they involve more and more government, moving into the Authoritarian model.

A clearer strategy for winning a GND has been proposed by 350.org’s new Our Time campaign. Our Time aims to mobilize young people “to vote for Green New Deal champions and against politicians in the pocket of Big Oil” in the federal election this fall and then “be ready after the election with a mass movement.”

They want the people who do not really understand Real Life yet, who do not understand the implications of their beliefs, and how they would be giving up their modern lifestyle, money, and freedom to Government.

We’ll need a really powerful movement because we’re not just up against the fossil fuel companies. The banks and other large corporations with significant investments in fossil fuels will also oppose any GND worthy of the name. So too will other capitalists who hate the idea of FPIC, massive public sector spending that doesn’t boost their profits, and a government job guarantee for anyone whose job is lost in a transition to renewable energy. In other words, supporters of a GND are up against the Canadian capitalist class (although some sectors are more hostile than others). We also have to contend with political parties that enthusiastically defend or, in the case of the NDP, accept the system that has us on a path to catastrophic climate change: capitalism.

Nope, this has nothing to do with Socialism at all.