Yesterday, the Dow Jones closed down 12.94%. The worst day in 1929-- the harbinger of the Great Depression (which is different from a recession)-- was 12.82%. Yes, anyone who thought Donald Trump would make America great again should lose their right to vote until taking a year of good, solid civics courses.In the video above, Naomi Klein explains how predators and their shameless political enablers-- whether a Bush or a Biden-- try to use emergencies and profound shocks to the system to push their selfish, toxic agendas forward."After a shocking event-- a war, coup, terrorist attack, market crash, or natural disaster-- they exploit the public's disorientation. Suspend democracy. Push through radical 'free market' policies that enrich the 1 percent at the expense of the poor and middle class.""But," she continued, "here is what my research has taught me: Shocks and crises don't always go the shock doctrine path. In fact, it's possible for crisis to catalyze a kind of evolutionary leap. Think of the 1930s, when the Great Depression led to the New Deal."That's because the Democratic Party nominated Franklin Roosevelt-- it took 4 convention ballots to do so-- instead of the Joe Biden of the day, Al Smith, an ardent conservative. Roosevelt went on to defeat Republican incumbent Herbert Hoover 22,821,277 (57.4%) to 15,761,254 (39.7%), winning 472 to 59 electoral college votes. Hoover won only 6 states. I should mention that two years earlier-- just after the market crash-- the Democrats managed to wrest control of the House, winning 52 Republican seats and a tenuous majority-- 218 to 216. Although the Republicans lost 6 Senate seats, they still managed to retain control of that body (50-45) but Roosevelt's coattails changed all that. In 1932, as the Great Depression raged, the GOP lost another 11 Senate seats-- including that of nutcase conservative Majority Leader James Watson (R-IN)-- and winning a 58-37 majority. In the House, as the Republicans continued to screech "Socialism!!!," the Democrats grew their majority by 97 seats as the Republicans were punished by the voters with a loss of 101 seats, leaving the Democrats with a 313-117 majority. Two years later, the Republicans, still screaming "socialism" as the Democrats implemented the New Deal, lost another 14 seats-- and then 2 years after that another 15 seats! By 1936, the GOP minority-- still babbling incoherently about "socialism"-- was the shitty end of a 334-88 split in the House. In the Senate, the Republicans lost another 5 seats, leaving them with just 17 to the Democrats' 74.That's how we got a social safety net in this country. Can we do it again? Will this shock be enough to elect Bernie and not hapless status quo establishment conservative Joe Biden? And will it see progressives like Marie Newman, McKayla Wilkes and Eva Putzova replace conservatives like Dan Lipinski (D-IL), Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Tom O'Halleran (D-AZ) and progressives like Mike Siegel, Kara Eastman, J.D. Scholten, Jon Hoadley and Liam O'Mara replace conservatives like Michael McCaul (R-TX), Donald Bacon (R-NE), Steve King (R-IA), Fred Upton (R-MI) and Ken Calvert (R-CA)? You can help-- we all need to if we are going to win this thing. That's why I've included the Blue America 2020 congressional thermometer on the right. Please contribute what you can. As Naomi concluded, "With Washington suddenly in the giant stimulus business, this is precisely the time for the stimulus that many of us have been talking about for years. It's called the Green New Deal. Instead of rescuing the dirty industries of the last century, we should be boosting the clean ones that will lead us into safety in the coming century. If there is one thing history teaches us, it's that moments of shock are profoundly volatile. We either lose a whole lot of ground, get fleeced by elites and pay the price for decades, or we win progressive victories that seemed impossible just a few weeks earlier. This is no time to lose our nerve. The future will be determined by whoever is willing to fight harder for the ideas they have lying around.For me, I'd rather solve the crisis and the society's structural faults by handing leadership over to someone like progressive Milwaukie mayor Mark Gamba than reactionary Blue Dog Kurt Schrader. A few minutes ago, Mark, a fan of Naomi Klein's book, told me that "Times of great upheaval do indeed create an opening for dramatic change. That can cut either way. If we give into fear, that change could lead to the end of democracy as we know It (Trump cancelling elections and staying in office), or at least a strong steepening of the curve towards the plutocracy that the neo-liberals have been striving towards for decades (Biden winning and putting a pretty face on the continued destruction of the middle class). If, however, we choose hope; if we choose to believe that the world can indeed be a better place, then the opportunity to quickly transform our economy and way of life into one that serves the common man and heals our planet is ours for the taking." He continued:
A hard swing to the left with the election of Sanders to the presidency, a senate flip and the election of a raft of congress people unbeholden to the corporatocracy, could not only save our democracy and our economy-- it could literally save the future of life on this planet.With the passing of the Green New Deal, millions would be put to work in family wage jobs: building out the infrastructure to transition to 100% renewable energy, electrified transportations systems, transformed agricultural systems, restoration of our great forest and much more.Nearly half of America would have new found access to world class health care with the passing of Jayapal’s Medicare for All bill. Hospitals and clinics would return to rural areas, long term care wouldn’t bankrupt families, and pandemics like the one we are currently just beginning to experience would be far less lethal. Millions would be employed providing health care rather than being employed denying health care so that insurance companies can maximize their profits.We would also be prioritizing education and making sure that the full potential of every American can be realized, so that the brightest minds have the opportunity to solve future disasters. Right now, many of them don’t choose to continue to higher education, many don’t even finish our radically underfunded k-12 system. Because our federal government has chosen profits for a few over optimizing the potential of every child, we are becoming less competitive in the world market and destroying the middle class.We could end the cradle to prison pipeline and the prison for profit system. We could reduce our massive spending on the military industrial complex and finally stop the endless wars that kill and maim our young people and wreak havoc on civilians all over the world.Imagine an America where everyone makes a good living, where no one dies of curable diseases, where homelessness is dark memory of our recent past, where the natural world is restored and food is not poisoned in the fields. All of that is possible. The only thing we have to give up to get it is our fear and the unlimited enrichment of the billionaires.
