Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who surprised all the old Dems by getting elected in the first place, is now shaking up Congressional hallowed halls by presenting a Green New Deal. Today, Axios, HuffPo and Earther are all talking about a survey just taken that shows a wide bipartisan range of people reporting positive feelings about this. Sounds good!
However, media guys point out, few people know that much about it. Well, that’s because what she’s proposed is a select committee to hold hearings, to listen to experts, and to draw up a huge plan. The goal? To move quickly with a 10-year action plan, begun Jan. 1, 2020, to lead the world with green technology, and decarbonize.
Holy smokes. That’s ambitious. It’s a lot like Canada’s recent move toward the Great Leap Manifesto, led by Naomi Klein!
Such a Green New Deal will need an inspiring and confident leader in the White House to bring it about, someone good at cooperation and collaboration, and with a vision. Someone who wants to wage economic life, not economic war. Sounds womanly, yes? Probably we’ll need new leaders in the Senate too, with some of those same emergency collaborative urges.
One of the things we most love about Alexandria’s plan is its double emphasis. She sees that this would not only address dangerous climate disruption, but also spread wider prosperity. She intends for it to “mitigate deeply entrenched racial, regional, and gender-based inequalities in income and wealth.” This means ensuring that “federal and other investment will be equitably distributed….” And she insists the historically impoverished, marginalized, and deindustrialized communities be included.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is already at work, jumping into Washington’s swamp with real ideas!
How long since you’ve heard an inclusive, smiling vision like this one? So here’s the first step: Make sure the select committee is well populated by women, and the men who love and listen to us, not the men who abuse us! Then, let women write and call their representatives to get behind the most exciting leader we’ve seen in a long time!
