Democracy Unchained, a response to the radical right

This morning I read an essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books that, in conjunction with the current series of hurricanes devastating the Caribbean and the Gulf Coast of the US, plus the wild fires all over the West, and the flooding in India, Bangladesh and Nepal and ..., had me in a deep funk, exacerbated because the good old U.S. of A. has recently elected a climate change denier-in-chief. The essay was about the book Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, by Nancy MacLean. To wit:

"Republicans are not going to “do” anything about Donald Trump, because the party is now only a delivery mechanism for the fantasies of radical right-wing libertarians, who are quite pleased by Trump’s dismantling of the American state and democratic values. As revealed in Jane Mayer’s Dark Money, the radical right has been working to take over the party for decades, and escalated its efforts in 2008. The dark money to which Mayer refers is political spending that is meant to influence your decisions as a voter, even though the donor isn’t disclosed and the source of the money isn’t known. Charles Koch is one of the biggest contributors of dark money to our system. Any Republican that expresses dissent from the Koch team is swiftly corrected or punished, as Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, not a unique case, discovered when he lost his seat."

I've been pondering for a long time why liberals don't seem to have been developing and acting on their own version of a  "long game" to counteract the radical right. One answer is that too many Democrats continue to fight the Bernie vs. Hillary debacle. Another came some time ago from Will Rogers "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat." These realizations did nothing to lift me out of my funk.

A largely Minnesota mess, the Enbridge Line 3 Replacement Project, has a Final Environmental Impact Statement that's in its public comment period. If you review the "No Action" alternative, it presumes that the same demand would need to be met for transporting product to the same locations. As we look at the rapidity with which renewables are replacing fossil fuels worldwide, that strikes us as being a highly questionable scenario. We are using a deeply flawed process to reach critical decisions these days. There is a better alternative. Thinking about the better alternative also pushed the reset button on my deep funk, because it is, essentially, a counter to the 1% long game plan. Donella Meadows came up with it some years ago, based on Herman Daly's work of 20 years prior to that. Vermont currently is using it as the basis for building its New Economy. Minnesota needs, at a minimum, to incorporate it into our EIS requirements and into the Minnesota Environmental Policy Act. The Democrats should seriously consider adding it to their platform, even if it means getting slightly organized.

To depart today on another bright note, hummingbirds are still around and visiting the feeders.

                     Democracy

By Dorianne Laux

When you’re cold—November, the streets icy and everyone you pass

homeless, Goodwill coats and Hefty bags torn up to make ponchos—

someone is always at the pay phone, hunched over the receiver

spewing winter’s germs, swollen lipped, face chapped, making the last

tired connection of the day. You keep walking to keep the cold

at bay, too cold to wait for the bus, too depressing the thought

of entering that blue light, the chilled eyes watching you decide

which seat to take: the man with one leg, his crutches bumping

the smudged window glass, the woman with her purse clutched

to her breasts like a dead child, the boy, pimpled, morose, his head

shorn, a swastika carved into the stubble, staring you down.

So you walk into the cold you know: the wind, indifferent blade,

familiar, the gold leaves heaped along the gutters. You have

a home, a house with gas heat, a toilet that flushes. You have

a credit card, cash. You could take a taxi if one would show up.

You can feel it now: why people become Republicans: Get that dog

off the street. Remove that spit and graffiti. Arrest those people huddled

on the steps of the church. If it weren’t for them you could believe in god,

in freedom, the bus would appear and open its doors, the driver dressed

in his tan uniform, pants legs creased, dapper hat: Hello Miss, watch

your step now. But you’re not a Republican. You’re only tired, hungry,

you want out of the cold. So you give up, walk back, step into line behind

the grubby vet who hides a bag of wine under his pea coat, holds out

his grimy 85 cents, takes each step slow as he pleases, releases his coins

into the box and waits as they chink down the chute, stakes out a seat

in the back and eases his body into the stained vinyl to dream

as the chips of shrapnel in his knee warm up and his good leg

flops into the aisle. And you’ll doze off, too, in a while, next to the girl

who can’t sit still, who listens to her Walkman and taps her boots

to a rhythm you can’t hear, but you can see it—when she bops

her head and her hands do a jive in the air—you can feel it

as the bus rolls on, stopping at each red light in a long wheeze,

jerking and idling, rumbling up and lurching off again.

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