It's common knowledge that many Democrats have drifted to the radical left of the ideological spectrum. I recently discovered a way to roughly guage the magnitude and extent of this shift. This was by researching the number of House Democrats, Democrat Senators and Presidential 2020 Democrat candidates who had read, embraced and cosponsored Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (AOC's) "Green New Deal" resolution early in 2019 before it became available for public scrutiny. It turns out that 11 Democrat 2020 candidates, 12 Democrat Senators and 100 House Democrats cosponsored AOC's "Green New Deal" resolution. This should deeply concern any American who values their individual freedom, their private property and the virtues of their nation's free - market, capitalist economy. Let me explain...
AOC's "Green New Deal" resolution is kind of like a 21st century take on Marx and Engel's 1844 "Communist Manifesto" ideologically speaking, but whereas there was some evidence of rational thought in the later document, the term "insane" is an understatement with respect to the ideas that are presented in the GND. It brigs to mind something that a drunken 19-year-old college student has concocted after a boozey Saturday night party on campus. I suppose it is imaginative (like a science fiction novel), but it most certainly is not serious public policy. The GND calls on the US to embark on a 10-year, radical, top-down, socialist "economic mobilization" with the goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers.However, only a handful of proposals in the "Green New Deal" (GND) actually involve climate change,these are...
* Shutting down virtually all coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear-powered electricity generators
* Spending untold billions of dollars on new zero-emission vehicle infrastructure and and these are simply "fig leaves " covering up the naked socialist takeover of the US economy which is the real objective of the GND proposal.
* Spending untold billions on new zero-emission vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing and green public transit projects.
* Eliminating as many gasoline-powered vehicles as is technologically possible.
* Upgrading ("retro-fitting) ALL existing buildings in the US to achieve maximal energy efficiency.
But "strangely", only a relatively small handful of proposals in the GND resolution involve climate change, it turns out they are only a "fig leaf" covering up a radical, top-down socialist takeover of the US economy, for the GND resolution also proposes....
(1) A basic minimum income program (for those who are either willing or unwilling to work)
(2) "Free college tuition and forgiveness of any outstanding debt
(3) "Free" home remodelling
(4) Massive federal investment in mass transit and other infrastructure
(5) "Free" health care
(6) "Free" housing
(7) "Free" retirement security
(8) A guarantee of a high-paying job to make up for those lost in transitioning to a fully green economy
(9) Paid vacations
(10) Adequate family and medical leave
(11) A promise to "mitigate deeply-entrenched racial, regional and gender - based (incl LGBTQI) inequalities in wealth and income (including without limitation, ensuring that Federal and other investment will be equitably distributed to historically impoverished, low income , deindustrialised and other marginalised communities in such a way that builds wealth and ownership at the community level). NB: This goes far beyond "Affirmative Action" and quotas, this would involve a monumental transfer of wealth of the most radical nature, a policy sure to inflame and fan racial tensions and conflicts.
SO, WHO PAYS FOR THIS COLOSSAL "FREE LUNCH" - THAT'S WHAT I'D LIKE TO KNOW ? The entire US Federal for 2018/2019 was between 4 and 5 trillion dollars. Estimates of the cost of AOC's "Green New Deal" range from 70 to 80 to 90 trillion dollar over 10 years; it would require the US to massively expand its already bloated budget that is already burying America in debt.
But AOC claims she can make it work !
According to AOC, the extreme growth of government effected by the GND plan could be paid for by the Federal Reserve extending credit to power the scheme's multiple projects and investments; creating new public banks to extend credit and a combination of numerous taxation tools (including taxes on carbon emissions and progressive wealth taxes.
IN OTHER WORDS, by massively hiking taxes and then borrowing and ultimately printing money (which as Venezuela discovered leads to inflation and dramatically heightens the cost of living).Then it would use public banks run by unaccountable bureaucrats to carry the whole thing out.
This is not very DEMOCRATIC, but it is socialistic - it's basically an American version of a Soviet-style 5-year-plan focused on "command and control" economic solutions that have proven time and again to fail all over the world.
What prompted AOC to create the GND resolution? I mean, AOC is not the sharpest tool in the kit, but FFS, even a six-year -old child could see that the proposals in it are abject madness. One reason, I think, is that AOC is a bug-eyed, socialist zealot - a "true believer" in Marx's "scientific" socialism, one who is unsalvagable. There is point in trying to teach her how and why socialism is a fatally flawed as a political ideology, or reminding her that it has NEVER ONCE worked in ANY state where it has been attempted (and there are lots of them). This is because she is an egomaniac and she - a loud-mouthed 30 - year - old with minimal political experience - knows better. She is blind and deaf to the truth - yet another one of those deluded individuals who sees herself as an heroic moral crusader, and has chosen socialism as the ideology she will use to save the world (which she says will end in twelve (12) years time due to global warming) and destroy the evil reign of capitalism and its bloated plutocrats.
One thing AOC has learned is that she cannot sell her radical socialism on its merits, because it has none. So instead what she did is build a Trojan Horse, or perhaps a better metaphor for the GND would be that it is a watermelon, a tempting, fresh watermelon - green on the outside but deep, deep red on the inside.
One other reason AOC put together the GND resolution is that recent polls of American youth in 2018 and 2019 have shown that a majority of 18-24 year-olds would a support Democratic Party socialist candidates (61%) (Harris Poll Feb, 2019), while 55% of working age women in the US would do likewise. The polls found that many young adults, e.g. millennials and Generation-Z, have a particularly negative view of capitalism seeing it as evil and irredeemable. The majority of young American who took part in the Harris Poll were (1); White European and (2): quite well educated, having at least a High School Certificate and in a substantial number of cases, one or more college degrees, so I guess you could say that of the 2,000+ participants most were White middlle-class.
That's scary
