On Jan 26, 2009, at 2:16 PM, John Gulick wrote:
> Let's suppose that a green tech SSA could do the job that you
> propose here, which is debatable.
Of course it's debatable. But redoing the entire energy and transportation systems, transforming existing buildings, and creating entire new industries and occupational categories could have quite a long-term kick. Could, of course, who knows? But the potential is as big as petroleum and autos, no?
> Even cranky leftists like yourself (among many here, myself
> included) were cautiously optimistic about Obama's stimulus
> pacakge roughly a month or a month-and-a-half ago, before he
> backslid to his usual gooey bipartisanship. Now the proposed
> allotment for alt energy, building retrofits, and grid upgrades is
> puny, it won't be spent immediately, and it'll be directed to
> private sector sub-contractors. Surely the green social democratic
> types (the sort you've been having on your radio show a
> lot recently)
You noticed. It's my obsession at the moment, since it's both transformative and not completely impossible to imagine.
> will be sorely disappointed, or at least will have a very hard time
> prettyifying an ugly picture.
They're making more noise than I would have guessed, as are the Congressional Dems.
If I were an Obama apologist, which I'm not, I might say that maybe the crafty one is waxing all bipartisan now, fully expecting that the Reps won't play along. Then he could say, I tried, I really tried, but these obstructionist dolts with bad hair just wouldn't play along.
> We know that it was mostly the CIO labor movement that forced FDR's
> hand and made him and the political class of the time
> implement the New Deal SSA. But what is the present-day functional
> equivalent of the CIO that will leverage Obama and the
> Democratic majority to inistitute a green tech SSA?
Sorry to say it's probably not a popular movement, but a more enlightened (or at least appropriately self-interested) wing of the bourgeoisie. Green stuff is fading in political appeal now, as it usually does in a recession.
> And perhaps more crucially what is today's functional equivalent of
> the
> factory occupation/sit-down strike?
The factory occupation/sit-down strike. Why not?
Doug