The sorry spectacle of a rout is amazing and disturbing on its face:
Americans want leadership on energy and so much more. By and large they are getting it from Barack OBAMA and responding enthusiastically. On energy, in particular, the Obama Campaign stood firm and tall when both John McCAIN and Hillary CLINTON came forward months ago with an absurd "tax holiday" scheme.
Americans are perplexed, more by another financial crash/bailout cycle than an oil bubble, but it is our bi-partisan political-economic establishment that is either (a) cashing-out, if senior enough, or (b) in a panic, if they sense any threat of accountability at all.
Americans are not climate-change deniers and are genuinely enthusiastic about meeting a technology challenge that will have to involve them personally and actively -- our cars, our houses, our lifestyles generally.
Since the Clinton impeachment proceedings started, Democratic loyalists have been more steady than self-perpetuating Democratic leaders. The American people have proven to be way ahead of self-serving Congressional cowards on every major issue before the country. They are skeptical of "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less", but, so far in this campaign, have no reason to trust Democrats to do anything else or otherwise.
So, What we have here, folks, is an imperative, but also an opportunity, to resolve, rather than extend, what Lawrence LESSIG calls the "Democracy Crisis".
Yes, there is still Change We Can Believe In!
But, let's face it: Incumbent Democrats are ...
(a) Hand-wringing and crying "ain't it awful", even as they hustle from here to there in jet-planes and armored cars with their retinues of aides; ...
(b) Looking to bash cartoonish Big Oil!, unnamed Speculators!, and various Foreigners!, even as they huddle the lawyer/lobbyists for precisely those interests begging in private for contributions and for a poll-driven message to push in public; meanwhile, ...
(c) Hunkering down to protect the petty pork and protection they have built their Blazing Saddles careers on.
Well-funded challengers are following this example because that is where their funding comes from; Duh!, and ...
Poorly-funded challengers are either quiet or unheard - Same Difference!
The Texas Democratic Party's unreadable platform makes the point: It waffles on corn ethanol.
Two Texas incumbents make the point: Nick LAMPSON and Ciro RODRIGUEZ have monopolized DCCC allocations to Texas campaigns and have little to say on the subject of energy or much of anything, actually. Their bill to release oil from the strategic petroleum reserve was a mere gesture, easily vetoed but actually killed by a 2/3 passage rule imposed by the Democratic House Leadership. It is a game: Do-nothings running for office get to say they passed this or that without taking responsibility for accomplishing nothing with powers they actually have.
Two Texas challengers make the point: Rick NOREIGA is blabbering about "comprehensive energy reform" - empty-suit rhetoric. And, Michael SKELLY is talking up "New Energy" based on Enron finance and pricing schemes.
Now, this is surely better than what the GOP has been and is doing. That party is a failure. But, The GOP figures they can exploit catastrophe, and they do not hesitate to create it. They can raise money as the ruling party, and we let them run as the opposition party, leaving us ... nowhere.
Their energy policy, Deregulation + Privatization, is a clear failure that the Democratic Party establishment is, however, utterly complicit in and has no alternative to -- no matter how much corporate green-washing you slather over it or wind-mills you stick on it.
So, what is the alternative - a popular and progressive energy policy that is campaign-ready?
I offer The Texas Plan.
Short-term, this is classic German-American industrial policy based on nationalistic infant industry doctrine. That was originally the policy of Alexander HAMILTON and Friedrich LIST. It was implemented progressively by Abraham LINCOLN as a Protective Tariff and by Franklin ROOSEVELT as Military Keynesianism. But, it degenerated regressively into bi-partisan concession-tending during the Cold War and has been replaced, now, by bail-out of improvident financial institutions and multinational corporations. Technologically, the short-term component of this plan embraces renewable solar and cleaner synthetic fuels for more efficient tuned-diesel engines in connection with hybrid drive-trains. This involves little new technology and exploits existing consumer preferences. It is already popular but not with lobbies. This is a quick-launch but ultimately large-scale and transformative policy.
Near-term, we have to implement pervasive energy conservation by restoring common carriage principles of market regulation. This entails imposing sound financial and technology standards on debt-ridden, incompetent, and historically corrupt public utilities. This has to be done state-by-state, and no state is in a better position both to do this and to benefit from doing so than Texas. However, the Texas Democratic Party has to get out of a hole it has been digging since, evidently, a generation of law-students fell in love with the Dean's daughter, Carol, whatever her name is now. Technologically, this policy involves coupling wind and solar power to small-scale stored energy facilities and direct-current micro-grids as well as pricing energy at retail so as to encourage residential, commercial, and industrial efficiencies rather than, at present, indemnifying improvident lenders and rewarding white-collar criminals. Long-term, Democrats have to be something other than just plaintiff-lawyers. Yes, we really and truly need to stop the dumping of obsolete coal-fired boilers and nuclear reactors in Texas that cannot be built by foreign firms in their home countries. Protest, sue, do whatever it takes. These monstrosities, even just one, two, or three such plants wherever located in this state, are threats to our future. That is why peddling of these turn-key imports is called "dumping" - as distinct from the wind-mill "offsets" mentioned above. But, eventually, we will have to develop and manage large-scale, base-load sources of post-carbon, including nuclear, sources of electrical power and the process-steam required for refining renewable fuels, which are stored solar energy, or for synthesizing fuel and materials from coal. Technologically, these are huge and complex engineering and scientific challenges. But, that is a political opportunity: We do this sort of thing in Texas! We have done this before better than anyone on the planet on both a large and small scale. So, that is our competitive advantage, not cheap labor, not cheap energy, not cheap politics.
Remember, Texas workers and soldiers pay with their lives for cheap labor, cheap energy, and cheap politics mediated by Craddick Democrats propping up a Republican Speaker and mercenary Democratic consultants promoting bi-partisan concession-tending under the power-sharing formula du jour or constitutional subversion de jure.
Sadly, our political establishment in this state is used to exploiting the people in both their cringing liberal and extreme conservative modes of posturing in public, while collaborating in private. That is how we come to have the lowest political participation and highest incarceration rates in the nation, as well as the lowest marginal cost of energy and the highest retail price of energy in the country.
It is past time in Texas for responsible, two-party government based on robust competition in every sphere of civic discourse and action.
So far, the main drivers for that are, first, the netroots, second, the Obama Campaign at the grass roots, and, third, an emerging giant: a renewed, popular, and progressive Democratic Party that will eventually have to be a real party, not the stupidest part of a defunct coalition. |
It may not matter by November, all other things being equal, but Democratic candidates and incumbents are being routed on energy policy and politics.
