Christie’s Energy Plan – “Smoking Him Out”
[Update below]
The Barn Burners, from my home state of New York, are satirized in this cartoon.Â
The term barnburner was derived from the idea of someone who would burn down his own barn to get rid of a rat infestation, in this case those who would destroy all banks and corporations, to root out their abuses.
So, is that Dave Pringle on the roof? (or Lee Solomon?) Can DEP’s Bob Martin, Ray Cantor, and Irene Kropp be far behind? Who’s carrying thhe torch and pitchfork?
Christie is smoked out – guess its pretty obvious to everyone now after all this stuff: Â
- the waiver rule
- the (No) Public Access rule
- the Highlands appointments
- the global warming denial
- Gutting air pollution enforcement
- allowing polluters to write cleanup rules
- support of fracking
- abandoning RGGI; and now
- the Energy Master Plan rollback
Did I miss anything recent Dave?
Yours truly,
[Update – Unfortunately, this site’s format makes comments difficult to access and read. This comment from my fried Bill Neil warrants reading and a wider discussion, which I will engage with my next post:
Great cartoon Wolfe. Why any conservationist would still believe that someone close to if not deeply involved in the philosophy of the Republican Right would end up with environmental friendly policies is hard to fathom.
My last speech in NJ on Sept. 9, 2001 at Sandy Hook criticized the Republican Right for its anti-environmental policies, and the proverbial bi-partisan gathering – about one-quarter, if I recall correctly, didn’t like that, rubbed in with a reminder that I had never heard Rush Limbaugh refer to an environmentalist without the word being preceded by an epithet.
Even when “moderate conservationists†try to please the Right (and the Center) by their market friendly attempts to control CO2 through “cap and trade†proposals, the Right doesn’t buy any of it, least of all the science that it is based on. And Bill Wolfe has effectively critiqued the Northeast’s policies (the RGGI’s)from a very different perspectivel, which I share, as I warned a year ago that Wall Street’s attempt to control the actual trading platforms (the “exchangesâ€) for the proposed national system was very worrisome, as worrisome as the large banks existing control of the already existing exchanges.
Some well intentioned economists, like Dean Baker here in Washington, DC hope that the market could be seen, and used, as just a tool, like “a wheel.†Unfortunately, they’re missing the radical and Utopian belief in markets by the Right, which, as Karl Polanyi pointed out in 1944, in his “answer†to Von Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom,†is closer to theology in its temperament – fundamentalist theology, in reality.
Conservationists and just interested citizens trying to make sense of Gov. Christie and his movement might benefit from giving Polanyi’s “The Great Transformation†a read. It’s a road map for the economic and environmental troubles of our time, and by adding James Gustove Speth’s “The Bridge at the Edge of the World†to this abbreviated summer reading list, they can fit it right to the fault lines of the day.
Here’s what Speth, a moderate out of the Yale School of Forestry with a resume which should have insured him a wider audience, had to say about Polanyi on page 60 of this 2008 book:
“It is a pleasure to read Polanyi. He saw so clearly in 1944 the costs of unbridled capitalism, yet he believed this ‘19th century system,†as he called it, was collapsing. He saw the self-adjusting market as a ’stark utopia.’ Such an institution could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness…â€
And that’s why, Polanyi writes, whenever the market has threatened to eclipse all other institutions in society, as it did from 1750-1830 during the Industrial Revolution, and as it has done in the United States (and Britain) between 1975-2011, there is energetic push back to restore it to the role as society’s servant, not its master.
If readers watch and listen carefully to the Republican Right’s dreams, they will see that the market is to be applied to all of human society: medical care, pensions, employment, government, and even public education. Despite the recent horrors with mountaintop coal mining, and the realities of fracking for natural gas…it’s as if we’ve learned nothing since Polanyi and Speth have written.
The more I read about Christie, the more I see him through these two lenses. Enjoy the summer reading, you won’t be disappointed.
Great cartoon Wolfe. Why any conservationist would still believe that someone close to if not deeply involved in the philosophy of the Republican Right would end up with environmental friendly policies is hard to fathom.
My last speech in NJ on Sept. 9, 2001 at Sandy Hook criticized the Republican Right for its anti-environmental policies, and the proverbial bi-partisan gathering – about one-quarter, if I recall correctly, didn’t like that, rubbed in with a reminder that I had never heard Rush Limbaugh refer to an environmentalist without the word being preceded by an epithet.
Even when “moderate conservationists” try to please the Right (and the Center) by their market friendly attempts to control CO2 through “cap and trade” proposals, the Right doesn’t buy any of it, least of all the science that it is based on. And Bill Wolfe has effectively critiqued the Northeast’s policies (the RGGI’s)from a very different perspectivel, which I share, as I warned a year ago that Wall Street’s attempt to control the actual trading platforms (the “exchanges”) for the proposed national system was very worrisome, as worrisome as the large banks existing control of the already existing exchanges.
Some well intentioned economists, like Dean Baker here in Washington, DC hope that the market could be seen, and used, as just a tool, like “a wheel.” Unfortunately, they’re missing the radical and Utopian belief in markets by the Right, which, as Karl Polanyi pointed out in 1944, in his “answer” to Von Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom,” is closer to theology in its temperament – fundamentalist theology, in reality.
Conservationists and just interested citizens trying to make sense of Gov. Christie and his movement might benefit from giving Polanyi’s “The Great Transformation” a read. It’s a road map for the economic and environmental troubles of our time, and by adding James Gustove Speth’s “The Bridge at the Edge of the World” to this abbreviated summer reading list, they can fit it right to the fault lines of the day.
Here’s what Speth, a moderate out of the Yale School of Forestry with a resume which should have insured him a wider audience, had to say about Polanyi on page 60 of this 2008 book:
“It is a pleasure to read Polanyi. He saw so clearly in 1944 the costs of unbridled capitalism, yet he believed this ’19th century system,” as he called it, was collapsing. He saw the self-adjusting market as a ‘stark utopia.’ Such an institution could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness…”
And that’s why, Polanyi writes, whenever the market has threatened to eclipse all other institutions in society, as it did from 1750-1830 during the Industrial Revolution, and as it has done in the United States (and Britain) between 1975-2011, there is energetic push back to restore it to the role as society’s servant, not its master.
If readers watch and listen carefully to the Republican Right’s dreams, they will see that the market is to be applied to all of human society: medical care, pensions, employment, government, and even public education. Despite the recent horrors with mountaintop coal mining, and the realities of fracking for natural gas…it’s as if we’ve learned nothing since Polanyi and Speth have written.
The more I read about Christie, the more I see him through these two lenses. Enjoy the summer reading, you won’t be disappointed.