Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
There are no shades of gray in today’s politics. It means that most policy discussions are binary — red or blue — and incapable of compromise. It shouldn’t be that way. If it continues this way, the consequences will be enormous.
What’s left once you take facts out of the policy debate? Anarchy, nihilism, chaos — just the sort of conditions aspiring demagogues and oligarchs feed off — and get phat while doing it?
Like an environmental impact study, a federal rulemaking can take several years to complete. Legal challenges can extend the overall process by years.
Whether it’s carried out by a local movement such as the L.A. Bus Riders Union or continent-spanning drives like the Native campaigns against Big Oil and Gas, no single effort can snuff out fossil fuel extraction and consumption on its own. The mulitplication of such efforts is therefore essential.
It now appears that Republicans can at least talk about climate change in non-derisive terms. However, as evidenced by the proposed policy platform, the GOP has hardly changed its tune. Only the lyrics are different.
Staffers are to politicians as canaries are to coal miners. When they stop singing, there’s a problem. Key Biden staffers are beginning to leave the administration.
The most powerful Joe in Washington has some decisions to make. No, no, not that Joe. Although he too has some critical choices confronting him. However, it’s a tale best told another day.
The only realistic course is to protect the electoral process despite all its flaws, ensure universal voting rights, and push harder than ever to make this country what it has never been: a multiracial, pluralistic democracy.
In the near term, any legislative action by Congress and President Biden in support of clean energy—possibly the broader environment—will likely be brokered by Joe Manchin and be all about the politics.
The clock is ticking. In the upcoming months, we’ll need to strive for a leap even as we brace ourselves for a slide.
We humans use our minds to create the world we live in, so the better we understand how our minds work, the more successful we will be in creating the world we live in….and more importantly, the world we want to create.
To respond effectively to this situation, political debate needs to incorporate and reflect all the complexity and depth of today’s challenges, to encourage the conceptual space for a transformation in our worldview, beliefs and values as profound as any in human history.
