I love AOC part 2

[bennyboy]

[Yonadav]

Kindly point to anything about socialism in the resolution?

Oy vey. I've been thinking about how to respond to this, and what I keep coming back to is "Oh come on. Let's not be liars."  Democrats and liberals in general are always so afraid to stand their ground. So let's grow a pair, stand up straight, and tell the truth.

The Green New Deal is associated with a raft of socialist programs-- jobs guarantees, universal healthcare, guaranteed income, redistribution to disadvantaged communities, and some vaguely termed rhetoric about people's ownership of the new green infrastructure which I take to mean that it will be protected from becoming privatized. I am personally fine with those goals, but it is socialism. Let's not claim that it's not.

You can obfuscate and say that many of those goals are independent of the Green New Deal. Sure. But without those elements, the Green New Deal offers nothing but hardship in transitioning to an environmentally sustainable economy. If we could just start building a bunch of expensive green things and that would make the economy sizzle and clean up the environment, then there would be no need of a Green New Deal.

When the critics of the Green New Deal say that it is a socialist take over of the economy, they are not wrong.  The Green New Deal will be by far the largest part of our economy. And the Green New Deal is owned by the people. So it is factually a socialist take over of the economy.

The primary economic goal of the Green New Deal is to develop and mature a theory of economics that more accurately represents value. The big buggaboo in our current theory of economics is that many valuable things aren't profitable, and many profitable things aren't really valuable.  When we talk about doing a rapid transition to a carbon neutral society, we ask who is going to pay for it. When we say that, we are talking about capital as if it isn't there. As if we don't have the capital to do it. We probably do. Instead of thinking in terms of money, think in terms of intrinsic value-- resources, manpower, talent. We have enough of all of those to rebuild a carbon neutral world. So why don't we? Because we don't see the profit in it. A carbon neutral world is surely a very valuable thing, but how do we monetize it? Especially when you take into account that the carbon neutral world is probably going to be far less oriented to consumerism, and creating products that no one really needs is no longer regarded as 'productivity'.
 
It is not possible to enact the Green New Deal in a way that won't entail socialism. We have to totally own it or lie like Trump.

[The Grand Nudger]

Lie with whomever you like, lol.

Obviously I don't think that any of the above is true.  More importantly, though, the resolution is a commitment to goals agnostic of means. You're reading all of that in.

[Yonadav]

Lie with whomever you like, lol.

Obviously I don't think that any of the above is true.  More importantly, though, the resolution is a commitment to goals agnostic of means.  You're reading all of that in.

No, I'm not reading all of that in. It is what it is, and libtards who think in terms of a logically inconsistent collage of memes are completely undermining it by lying about what it is. Grow a pair. It's time to stop pretending to be deeply affiliated with the left, and then running away with your pants on fire when people accuse you of socialism.

[Yonadav]

One further warning that I would like to give to faint hearted liberals who are terrified of accusations of socialism:

Something as expensive as the Green New Deal can either be done in a proper socialist manner, or it can be botched with crony crapitalism. The more that you deny that it is socialism, the more likely that what you will get is crony crapitalism. The opponents of socialism will use their accusations of socialism to make timid liberals cooperate with stripping out anything and everything that contains the slightest whiff of socialism from the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal will be turned into a neoliberal Clinteonesque exercise in crony crapitalism in which big talking business executives with good government connections will massively under perform while federal dollars rain on them.

[The Grand Nudger]

The language was written to accommodate corporatist and vulnerable dems. The Green New Deal is a what, not a how.

[Yonadav]

[The Grand Nudger]

There's a massive difference between the way you want or think something should be done, and the only way to do it.  Rs are going to call Ds socialists regardless of what they do or how they do it.   Ultimately, meeting those goals is the more pressing concern.  

We've had four different opportunities for people who have made that claim to chime in and show what it is they're referring to.  You're reading in what you want to see, and he's repeating what he's heard.  

There's nothing whatsoever in the resolution about socialism. If someone is looking for a reason to like it or hate it, that aint it, because it isn't in there.

[Yonadav]

There's a massive difference between the way you want or think something should be done, and the only way to do it.  Rs are going to call Ds socialists regardless of what they do or how they do it.   Ultimately, meeting those goals is the more pressing concern.  

We've had four different opportunities for people who have made that claim to chime in and show what it is they're referring to.  You're reading in what you want to see, and he's repeating what he's heard.  

There's nothing whatsoever in the resolution about socialism.  If someone is looking for a reason to like it or hate it, that aint it, because it isn't in there.

You acknowledged that it was written to accommodate corporatists and vulnerable Democrats. Despite the careful wording that leaves wiggle room to deny socialism, socialism is pretty evident. So I'm not reading what I want to see into it. I'm just not using the wiggle room like you are.

You're doing exactly what the timid Dems are doing. They are running away from the slightest whiff of socialism, and that means that they are going to help Republicans strip the NGD down to crony crapitalism.

[The Grand Nudger]