Bernie’s Green New Deal is more a Green Leap Forward

“From the Oval Office to the streets, Bernie will generate the political will necessary for a wholesale transformation of our society, with support for frontline and vulnerable communities and massive investments in sustainable energy, energy efficiency, and a transformation of our transportation system.”

- berniesanders.com...

Think about what a “wholesale transformation of our society” might mean and dwell on it for a moment, because hidden in the rhetoric of Bernie’s Green New Deal are the remnants of a Great Leap Forward.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal sets out the goals of their plan, all of them to be accomplished with the force of a “10-year national mobilization”. This is eerily reminiscent of the “five-year plan” of the Soviet and Chinese command economy rather than Roosevelt’s fireside chat. The “Five-year Plan” is the Communist party’s blueprint that sets targets and guidelines for a range of social, economic, educational, cultural and environmental issues.

The “five-year plan” has evolved since the times of Stalin and Mao. These days they lack the communist mumbo-jumbo about the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, focussing mainly on policy priorities. Bernie’s Green New Deal, on the other hand, maintains the classist rhetoric, explicitly calling out “the greed of fossil fuel executives and the billionaire class who stand in the way of climate action” just as the CCP once denounced the “bourgeoisie and the landlord class” back in Mao’s time.

For Sanders, though, the climate crisis isn’t the only motivation for implementing his “green new deal”. He also sees it as “our single greatest opportunity to build a more just and equitable future”. So not only will he and an army of planners tackle the world’s climate, but he will do so under the auspices of the typical progressive euphemism: providing us a “just and equitable future” on one hand as they demolish entire industries and communities on the other. Besides the climate crisis, “The Green New Deal must serve to address modern and historical inequities and environmental racism”. This, to me, are hints that an avowed socialist is trying to sneak his version of socialism past the customs.

We can say this because, in Sanders’ plight to "end greed in the energy system", his solution is to abandon private ownership and flip the finger at the owners. Rather, any renewable energy generated by his deal will be state-controlled or “sold to distribution utilities with a preference for public power districts, municipally- and cooperatively-owned utilities with democratic, public ownership, and other existing utilities that demonstrate a commitment to the public interest”, leaving the rest of us out of the equation entirely.

These are just a few hints that the Green New Deal is more a Green Leap Forward. We can dismiss Bernie as a nutter, but his policies are the things totalitarian nightmares are made of. This seems clear because the “wholesale transformation of our society” will be implemented through state power and central planning, not through the free association of citizens. Sooner or later someone will refuse to have his mobile home replaced, or his job ended, or his car “decarbonated”. What then? Tyranny becomes the order of the day.

Actually More of a Marxist strategy to usher in communism but what do I know.

a reply to: CitizenZero

I have yet to hear anyone that is pushing hard for sustainable "green" energy have an actual complete plan.
All they say is no fossil fuels.
No mention of a replacement for all the byproducts made from oil.

Something has to literally"grease" the wheels.

I refuse to support a plan that is doomed to fail.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: CitizenZero

I have yet to hear anyone that is pushing hard for sustainable "green" energy have an actual complete plan.
All they say is no fossil fuels.
No mention of a replacement for all the byproducts made from oil.

Something has to literally"grease" the wheels.

I refuse to support a plan that is doomed to fail.

As well as tanking 9% of our GDP and throwing away roughly a million 6 figure jobs as well as tanking the local economies that service the industry.

But who cares, right?

They say the guy who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance that everyone's always fighting over was a Socialist. Social Security came from the closest thing America ever had to a socialist President. FDR won a record four times in a row, more than any other US President before or after. Einstein , Mark Twain , Orson Wells , and Noam Chomsky are all socialist leaning smart folks... I wouldn't be afraid to vote for Bernie just because my neighbor's are ignorant to the facts. He seems to stand for a lot of great ideas that have been floating around for a long time. Bernie seems pretty consistent and he has sided with individual rights ever since he was in office. Bernie seems to have been born with a conscience unlike some others who seem like they grow one only when it is politically expedient to do so. He was fighting for civil and gay rights before it was cool.

I wouldn't be afraid to vote for Bernie

a reply to: 3sixand9

You do realize that in a lot of cases FDR would be considered one of the worst presidents ever elected right? Social Security should never have been implemented in the first place. I know there's this big outcry of "We can't let our people just die", but in actuality we can. If you neglected to prepare for your old age, that's on you as an individual, not on the government.

As for your "socialist leaning smart folks", just because a person is gifted in a single aspect, be it science, writing, acting, or in Chomsky's case a political commentator, that does not mean your ideology is correct when it comes to a form of financial system. Now if you had economists saying that socialism was a viable option, I would be more inclined to listen, as they are generally speaking the experts in that field. Not saying you can't have an opinion on it, everyone is entitled to one, it doesn't mean that it's a good opinion though.

originally posted by: 3sixand9

Bernie seems to have been born with a conscience

Yeah. Spending your life not working while demanding people that do pay for everything, including his exorbitant salary and benefits, is really heroic.

How many homeless people live in his two spare houses when he isn't there?

a reply to: Hypntick

Such a nice feeling to know you'd just let the elderly die.

Perhaps the eldery are poor and sick because they spent their whole lives working to achieve an unachievable goal?

How many people get stuck in the welfare system, how many people work back breaking labor and live pay check to pay check to feed their family.

Personal responsibility is a fancy double speak phrase that conservatives love to tout to basically day, tough luck pal, go die in a ditch while I reap the benefits of the opportunities I was given in life, that you never had.

The USA will reject Bernie if he's the Dem nominee. No more time/effort needs to be invested in discussing his plans for America. It's a dead-end endeavor.

If the Senate remains red, which I think it would if Sanders were President to check him, what are the odds that most of his stuff even gets through?

Take Trump for example. Everything he's accomplished has been through executive and a red Senate. A blue House has been a small check and balance, but it doesn't hold the power of the Senate.

I foresee 4 more years of quagmire if a Dem wins the Presidency anyways. There'd have to be a triple blue Government majority.

a reply to: CitizenZero

Yeah, great....

An untouchable political class and the equally suffering serf class. I have seen this one before.

a reply to: strongfp

Unless you are legitimately disabled in some fashion, yeah tough luck. Inability to adapt leads to death, this is true in nature and in society. Building a safety net for those who are incapable of adapting is encouraging people not to adapt, dragging the people capable of adapting and producing for society down. I'm not apologetic about this, I'm not Christian so can't stick me with that label, I flat out 100% believe that you need to take personal responsibility for what happens in your life.

I appreciate the opinion, I really do, yet we're talking about a candidate running for the office of President of The United States of America. With your borders being as close as they are, I also appreciate that you have an interest in this, yet it's really up to the citizens of the US to make the decision of who they want running the show based on how they intend to govern the country. There's still a lot of "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" types here in the US, thankfully. The day that changes, you're going to have a very not nice southern neighbor who comes knocking for handouts. Are you and the good citizens of Canada prepared to give that to them?

a reply to: FlyingSquirrel

You're kinda forgetting Executive Orders and a President having the ability to put into place radicals to head the EPA, HHS, DOE, etc...

All the bureaucratic alphabet agencies that write "rules" and "guidelines" that have the force of law and are not voted on by Congress.

Bernie wouldn't need anything but the EPA to start his New Green Steal, for instance...

No politicians needed.

originally posted by: carewemust
The USA will reject Bernie if he's the Dem nominee. No more time/effort needs to be invested in discussing his plans for America. It's a dead-end endeavor.

Maybe America rejects him now, but these ideas are only growing stronger as more youth gets indoctrinated in school and college.

This is only a problem that is going to get worse, so resisting it now should be done whenever possible.

a reply to: Hypntick

it is viable but it requires reforms to make up for the absence of pensions in the modern day workplace.

originally posted by: proximo

originally posted by: carewemust
The USA will reject Bernie if he's the Dem nominee. No more time/effort needs to be invested in discussing his plans for America. It's a dead-end endeavor.

Maybe America rejects him now, but these ideas are only growing stronger as more youth gets indoctrinated in school and college.

This is only a problem that is going to get worse, so resisting it now should be done whenever possible.

And should be done on a national level NOW.

We need to as Americans vote on whether we want a Pro-American (Trump) or Anti-American (Sanders) running the country.

Get the discussion going, put the facts out there, see where we are at.

And for those Bernie Bros on the site that get prickly about me naming Sanders Anti-American, please link for me where he has EVER spoken about America or our Constitution in a positive light.

a reply to: FlyingSquirrel

If the Senate remains red, which I think it would if Sanders were President to check him, what are the odds that most of his stuff even gets through?

Which would be the absolute breaking point for the US , and the absolute worst thing that could ever happen to any country on the face of this Earth .
Sanders as leader of a country.

(from a once Sanders supporter . don't believe me ? check some of my posting history)
(bold by me for subject matter)
Done.
Next.