WolfeNotes.com

Coal Plant Shutdowns Bailed Out As “Stranded Assets”

Instead of Complete Shutdown, Huge Coal Capacity Projected To Remain On Line

“PJM will have more coal capacity than any other RTO starting in 2023″

If retired early, such a [coal] plant may be subject to cost recovery risks because investment decisions were made based on the plant’s remaining full lifetime. Across the country, unrecovered coal investments amount to over $100 billion. (Source: The Brattle Group, link to Report below)

The nuclear industry has successfully secured billions of dollars in subsidies designed to keep uncompetitive, dangerous, dinosaur, high cost nuclear plants operating. In NJ alone, legislators and State regulators have provided almost a billion dollars, in just 3 years, and with no end for these $300 million/year subsidies in sight. (The Murphy BPU Energy Master Plan assumes these plants will operate until 2050!)

Hardly mentioned in the nuclear bailout debate is that, in NJ, those same nuke plants were bailed out as “stranded investments” in the 1999 Whitman administration law that deregulated energy production: (see  N.J. Utility Shows How to Offset Deregulation Costs

PSE&G, New Jersey’s largest utility was left with more than $3 billion of such stranded assets last year as a result of deregulation, says Busch.

The “lion’s share” of this total consists of the company’s Salem, Hope Creek, Peach Bottom and Limerick nuclear power plants.

Of this, Busch tells CFO.com, state regulators allowed for the recovery of $2.9 billion, $400 million through rate increases and the rest from the utility being able to write off the remaining life of the facilities.

Well, now – making exactly the same bailout arguments – there is another “stranded investment” bailout happening below the radar.

This time, it’s approximately $100 billion nationally for the coal power industry.

Here are the arguments now being made to State regulatory Commissions to support a bailout:

Biden Fossil Extraction “Pause” Is Exposed As A Fraud

Oil and Gas Leases On Public Lands & Permits Worse Than Bush

[Updates below]

At the time President Biden issued his Executive Order (see Sect. 208) creating a so called “pause” on approvals of leases for fossil extraction on public lands, we predicted it before he took office and called bullshit on it via numerous twitter posts. While media and green groups were cheerleading, we were truth telling (March 26, 2021 tweet):

The Biden faux “pause” was never a serious effort to actually stop fossil extraction and satisfy the moratorium “keep it in the ground“ demand of the green groups. Just the opposite: it was a symbolic gesture designed to create a false appearance.

The Associated Press is just today reporting on the meaning of Sect. Haaland’s Senate confirmation testimony I criticized at the time, but which got very little if any attention by the media at the time. But instead of citing the Senate confirmation hearing (which they missed at the time), the AP now cites a much later June House Committee hearing where she repeated and revealed the same policy:

Haaland has sought to tamp down Republican concern over potential constraints on the industry. She said during a House Natural Resources Committee hearing last month that there was no “plan right now for a permanent ban.”

“Gas and oil production will continue well into the future and we believe that is the reality of our economy and the world we’re living in,” Haaland told Colorado Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn.

But, the Green Groups gave Biden and Haaland a pass and the cheerleading clueless stenographic press favorably reported the Biden “pause” as a significant climate policy.

[Update – here’s what Haaland said in her opening Statement – she made additional concessions in response to questions:

Now, the data is in, and it validates our criticism. Biden is proven a climate fraud.

The Associated Press just reported:

US drilling approvals increase despite Biden climate pledge

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Approvals for companies to drill for oil and gas on U.S. public lands are on pace this year to reach their highest level since George W. Bush was president, underscoring President Joe Biden’s reluctance to more forcefully curb petroleum production in the face of industry and Republican resistance.

The Interior Department approved about 2,500 permits to drill on public and tribal lands in the first six months of the year, according to an Associated Press analysis of government data. That includes more than 2,100 drilling approvals since Biden took office January 20.

New Mexico and Wyoming had the largest number of approvals. Montana, Colorado and Utah had hundreds each.

Did you get that? Let me repeat:

Approvals for companies to drill for oil and gas on U.S. public lands are on pace this year to reach their highest level since George W. Bush was president, underscoring President Joe Biden’s reluctance to more forcefully curb petroleum production in the face of industry and Republican resistance.

And the approvals are not limited to leases, but include permits:

The [Trump] pace dropped when Biden first took office, under a temporary order that elevated permit reviews to senior administration officials. Approvals have since rebounded to a level that exceeds monthly numbers seen through most of Trump’s presidency. …

If the recent trends continue, the Interior Department could issue close to 6,000 permits by the end of the year. The last time so many were issued was fiscal year 2008, amid an oil boom driven by crude prices that reached an all-time high of $140 per barrel that June.

We told you exactly this would happen, back in April 2021, when we predicted:

I’m expecting to see pipelines receive subsidies and “streamlined regulatory review” under Biden’s infrastructure plan. I’ve already read quotes from Sect. Transportation Buttigieg that included pipelines in the definition of infrastructure. And Biden supported the gas industry before the US supreme Court, see:

• Biden PennEast Pipeline Betrayal Tests NJ Gov. Murphy’s Climate Commitments

This is exactly the policy Joe’s mentor, Barak Obama implemented – which we also criticized at the time despite all the environmental group praise. We quoted Obama’s own absurd words, see:

Under my administration, America is producing more oil than at any time in the last eight years. We’ve opened up new areas for exploration. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We’ve added enough new oil and gas pipeline to circle the Earth and then some,” Obama said (source)

Amazingly, we see a repeat of our call out of Obama followed by an Associated Press story that delivers the facts to validate out criticism, see:

• The Other Oil Man in the White House

Five days after I wrote this post – which basically suggested that Obama was worse than oil man Bush – the Associated released this analysis which shows that EPA enforcement under Obama is WEAKER than under Bush:

Oil stats belie tough enforcement talk  –

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the three years since President Barack Obama took office, Republicans have made the Environmental Protection Agency a lightning rod for complaints that his administration has been too tough on oil and gas producers.

But an Associated Press analysis of enforcement data over the past decade finds that’s not the case. In fact, the EPA went after producers more often in the years of Republican President George W. Bush, a former Texas oilman, than under Obama.

Also, the agency’s enforcement actions have declined overall since 2002 and reached their lowest point last year, the review found.

When will all the Big Green groups and even the “radical” folks at Sunrise Movement wake up?

[Update #1 : 8/4/21 – More evidence of the fraud – just as we predicted Sect. Haaland would cave:

• Biden Interior Dept Denounced for Giving Big Oil Green Light to Harass Polar Bears, Walruses ~~~ end update]

[Update #2 : 8/7/21 – Wow. I’ve not been following this debate. Too much for me to write about. Things are far worse than I imagined. Just now reading the Senate “bi-partisan” infrastructure bill backed by Biden. It is a disaster. Climate stuff stripped out, all carrots (incentives) and no sticks (requirements), deregulation, privatization, corporate subsidies, and lots of bad stuff. Here’s just one big problem: it would create a new $3.8 billion carbon capture program. In trying to figure that out, I cam across a letter from climate activists opposing that, but then found that the Big Green groups are not opposing it and other really bad climate stuff. In a June 1 story about the split in the climate community, the Biden folks openly admit that they are Obama “all the the above” 2.0:

“The President is interested in all-of-the-above-strategy,” said White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy earlier this month, at a summit hosted by Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “We’re going to do a lot of things, and invest in a clean energy future, and make sure we have the flexibility to use the technologies that are going to get there.”

Like I said, Biden is a climate fraud.

Even if it comes with the so called Democratic $3.5 trillion version going through the budget reconciliation, the motto should be “kill the bill”.

But I suspect that NO CLIMATE – NO DEAL is just a slogan, but I hope not. ~~~ end update]

[Update #3: 9/1/21: We knew this was coming and instead of cheerleading for Biden, we called it out on day 1 (March 26):

• ‘A Shattered Promise': Biden Blasted for Resuming Fossil Fuel Leasing on Public Lands and Waters

Advocacy groups on Tuesday blasted the Biden administration for resuming oil and gas lease sales for public lands and waters as the United States faces multiple disasters exacerbated by the fossil fuel driven-climate emergency. ~~~ end update]

Manufacture Scientific Uncertainty To Delay & Weaken Legislation & Regulation

Corrupt Legislators, Lie To The Public, Deploy Green Cover Groups, Capture Regulators, & Dupe A Gullible Media

Hide Polluting Corporations Behind The “Umbrella” Of The NJ Chemistry Council & NJ Business and Industry Association

Dennis Hart of the NJ Chemistry Council and Ray Cantor of NJ Business and Industry Association (NJBIA) have some explaining to do. The NJ press corps likes to quote these two corporate lobbyists, almost always in a very favorable light and almost always without disclosing their revolving door corruption (and the flip side of the revolving door corruption, which is known as “regulatory capture”).

But that all must change because Exxon-Mobil’s Washington DC lobbyists just spilled the beans on Exxon’s corrupt strategy for dodging accountability for climate destruction and toxic pollution, while boosting corporate profits.

In an historic sting operation, Exxon’s top DC lobbyists were duped – by Greenpeace UK of all people – into thinking they were talking to job recruiters. Before you go any further, please read this remarkable story and watch all the astonishing Zoom videos here (the expose is called “Unearthed):

• Inside Exxon’s playbook: How America’s biggest oil company continues to oppose action on climate change

The Washington Post wrote an overview of the proliferating national scandal, see:

• An Exxon lobbyist thought he was in a job interview. Instead, it was a secretly recorded Zoom call. – 

The tape, recorded by Greenpeace UK, has sent ripple effects through Washington, with one top Democratic lawmaker asking for Exxon’s CEO to testify in Congress about the company’s communication on climate change.

In addition to climate, the Exxon playbook also involved PFAS (forever chemicals), toxic chemicals, and plastics:

Over the coming days, Unearthed, will also reveal: (Unearthed)

• Claims that Exxon covertly fought to prevent a ban on toxic chemicals
• How Exxon is using its playbook on climate change to head-off regulations on plastic

The Exxon lobbyist implicated NJ Chemistry Council (Mr. Hart) and NJ BIA (Mr. Cantor) in their corrupt campaign, but noting how Exxon and the national associations worked with State level associations.

So, because NJ is a heavily petrochemical state, and I work on these specific NJ State level issues, and especially because the Exxon fools highlighted how they work through State level Associations, I want to frame some of the NJ dimensions of this story, in hopes that the otherwise lame NJ press corps can ask a few questions of former DEP officials Dennis Hart (NJ Chemistry Council) and Ray Cantor and Michele Sikierka (NJ BIA), who they rely on so often as credible Trenton sources, often without even mentioning the DEP revolving door (that’s you, NJ Spotlight!)

Given that “forever chemicals” (PFOA, PFAS), plastic bans, and climate regulation (DEP PACT) are controversial issues now pending in NJ, one would expect that Dennis Hart (NJ Chemistry Council) and Ray Cantor (NJBIA) would face some tough questions from NJ press corps and Legislators, based on the Greenpeace “Unearthed” expose. 

(oops, how did I forget Jim Benton of the NJ Petroleum Council – He was never with DEP as far as I know. Is he still there?)

1. Hide Corporate Polluters Behind Associations

Corporations don’t like bad press and they hate public accountability.

The Exxon lobbyist admits that and highlights how working behind the “umbrella” of various industry associations accomplishes these corporate objectives.

Now the companies feed into that [lobbying Coalition], but the public face is the Associations.

Right here in NJ, major corporate polluters use exactly the same tactic and hide behind the NJ Chemistry Council and NJ BIA.

NJ environmental groups let them get away with that and very rarely publicly call out a corporate polluter.

Even the various NJ DEP public reports explicitly format the data to hide the identities of specific corporate polluters (just look at the DEP’s Pollution Prevention data reporting format and the DEP’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory for examples of this abuse)

Will media ask specific question and get behind the facade of these “umbrella” associations? ASK Dennis Hart, NJ BIA President and CEO Michele Siekerka, Communications Officer Bob Considine, and lobbyist Ray Cantor! (all of them revolving door former DEP officials in the notoriously anti-environment Christie Administration).

And it’s not just pro-business Republicans – the revolving door corruption is bi-partisan (e.g. see a recent NJ Spotlight)

[Dennis Hart of the NJ Chemistry Council] was encouraged by a commitment to look at why the regulatory process is so long and costs so much more than other states.

“If this new executive order leads to discussions and positive impacts on streamlining the regulatory and permit program and reducing the fees and costs of doing business in New Jersey, we fully support it and are ready to start working on those issues right now,’’ he said.

Unlike that Spotlight puff piece, we explained how NJ Gov. Murphy’s regulatory policy was virtually the same as Gov. Christie’s.

2. Promote Market Based Tools Over Strict Regulation

This element of the Exxon – corporate playbook is what brought us the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and the toothless Global Warming Response Act, instead of strict DEP regulation of greenhouse gas emissions

By the start of the Obama administration in January 2009, it had become untenable for ExxonMobil to continue to publicly cast doubt on climate science.

Instead, ahead of Obama’s inauguration, and in an apparent break with Exxon’s long opposition to what it called “near-term policies” on climate change, the company’s then-CEO Rex Tillerson publicly backed a carbon tax.

The proposal sought to spread the cost of tackling climate change beyond the fossil fuel sector, taxing businesses in every sector of the economy for each tonne of carbon emitted – either by them directly or embedded in products they sell to consumers. The cost of this would then be passed on to the public.

In making the announcement, Tillerson sketched the outlines of a new ExxonMobil playbook on climate change – one that accepts the science but nevertheless seeks to delay rapid emissions cuts.

This ineffective market based approach as an alternative to strict regulation continues today as an across the board ideological plank of current pro-corporate environmental policy, which has effectively abandoned strict regulation.

Even the so called “environmental groups” embrace this corporate policy.

Will NJ media expose the corporate roots of this policy?

Will they explicitly compare ineffective market based tools with strict regulation?

3. Deny Science And Manufacture Uncertainty To Avoid, Delay, And Weaken Regulation

It’s long been known and reported that Exxon has denied and polluted the climate science, but it’s not nearly as well known that this strategy is used across the board in all realms of environmental policy.

I’ve been writing about specific examples of “manufacturing uncertainty” for a very long time. see:

• Dupont: Doubt (And Intimidation) Are Their Product
• Should the Chemical Industry Have a Role in Writing Your Drinking Water Standards?
• NJ Chemical Industry Invokes Gov. Christie’s Executive Order to Block DEP Drinking Water Standards for Toxic Chemicals
• Winston Smith Pays A Visit To The Drinking Water Quality Institute
• DRBC Fracking Ban Manufactures Doubt On Climate Impacts Of Methane
• Murphy DEP “Forest Action Plan” Sparks Controversy Over Conflicts With Climate Goals And Logging State Lands

The NJ examples of this particular tactic in the Exxon corporate playbook are legion.

But no one talked about any of this: (e.g. see: Dupont – Too Big to Jail)

In response to recommendations by DEP scientists:

• Dupont hired experts to manufacture uncertainty and challenge the DEP’s scientific risk assessment of PFOA;
• Dupont intimidated and attacked the integrity of the DEP scientists, and
• Dupont lobbied the DEP Commissioner to block application of DEP science in DEP regulations and drinking water standards(which drive toxic site cleanup).

When will the NJ press corps start to apply thisExxon playbook framework explicitly in their questions to corporate polluters and the narrative of their news coverage?

4. Corrupt The Legislative Process

An important part of the Exxon-corporate playbook is not only to do traditional lobbying, but to hijack the legislative process by actually writing proposed legislation:

We would prefer model legislation that the American Chemistry Council would put forth to say, a super-progressive member of Congress that puts forth comprehensive legislation. We prefer it come from us, rather than them.

Other tactics include seeking “moderates” – like NJ Senate President Sweeney and Senate Environment Committee chairman Bob Smith:

When asked which senators Exxon is lobbying on these specific points, McCoy said: “Senator [Shelley Moore] Capito [Republican senator for West Virginia]… who’s the ranking member of environment and public works. Joe Manchin, I talk to his office every week, he is the kingmaker on this because he’s a Democrat from West Virginia which is [a] very conservative state, so he is, and he’s not shy about sort of staking his claim early and completely changing the debate.”

Senator Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen), Chair of Budget & Appropriations Committee – where good bills go to die (Toms River – 2/11/13)

“On the Democrat side we look for the moderates on these issues”, McCoy continued, highlighting figures including Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema; John Tester, senator for Montana; and Chris Coons, senator for Delaware, President Biden’s home state.

“Senator Coons… has a very close relationship with Senator [President] Biden, so we’ve been working with his office – as a matter of fact our CEO is talking to him next Tuesday and having those conversations and just teeing it up, and then that way I can start working with his staff to let them know where we are on some of these issues,” McCoy said.

The Exxon Zoom scandal (who’s zoomin’ who?) has prompted outrage and calls for Congressional Legislative oversight in Washington. As the Washington Post reported:

Senate Environment Committee Chairman Bob Smith

The tape, recorded by Greenpeace UK, has sent ripple effects through Washington, with one top Democratic lawmaker asking for Exxon’s CEO to testify in Congress about the company’s communication on climate change.

But can anyone even imagine NJ Senate Environment Committee Chairman Bob Smith holding hearings to demand accountability from NJ corporate polluters or their lobbyists?

Or asking DEP some tough questions, not only on climate, but the many other issues I document above that were raised in the Exxon Zoom?

5. Deploy Green Cover – Corporate Co-Optation Of Environmental Groups 

The Exxon lobbyist highlighted the use and funding of “shadow groups”. Nothing new there.

But right here in NJ, big corporate polluters – including such “progressive” corporations like PSE&G – routinely use NJ “environmental groups” for exactly the same reasons.

These “shadow groups” include Sustainable NJ, NJ Future, NJ Audubon Society, NJ League of Conservation Voters, and sadly now even NJ Conservation Foundation, Highlands Coalition, and Environment NJ – all of whom take various forms of corporate money (take a look at THIS from NJ Audubon’s most recent Annual Report (will press ask NJ Audubon CEO Eric Stiles any critical questions about how this corporate funding impacts their work?).

Does anyone else find it extremely revealing that NJ Audubon groups Foundations with Corporate donors? They share the same ideology and corporate values and corrupt approach to public policy.

Again, I’ve written about this gross corruption and co-optation many times.

Why is it a taboo topic for real activists and NJ media investigation?

6. Capture The Regulators – Gut regulations and Fast Track DEP Rubber Stamp Of Permits

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, so I guess I don’t have to write any more about the above photo. For details of that, see:

• This Is Why We Need Transparency at DEP

We’ll now close this brief overview of what we hope is an expanding story with legs.

We hope that the lame stenographers in NJ media get off their asses and do some investigative work to hold the corporate polluters and DEP accountable.

And that the “green groups” and their corporate Foundation funders and naive members wake up.

[End Note: and I took all these photos – not like the current crop of frauds who download crap from the internet.]

BPU Straw Proposal, Northeast States MOA, and DEP Rule Manipulated to Mislead Readers

Green Cheerleaders Again Set a Very Low Bar

NJ Spotlight today reports on a BPU “Straw Proposal” regarding electrification of the truck fleet. The public comment period on the Straw Proposal expired on June 3, 2021, so the Spotlight story comes way too late. So much for Democracy and public participation.

The Spotlight story misleadingly blends and conflates – without links to or text from the underlying documents – 3 distinct and complex initiatives: (hit the links to read the documents)

1) NJ BPU Straw Proposal

2) Multi-State Memorandum of Agreement

3) NJ DEP proposed regulation

Each initiative has very different emission reduction goals and timetables, applies to different numbers and kinds of trucks, and only the DEP proposed regulation is enforceable (despite loopholes).

Only the DEP regulatory proposal has any chance of reducing emissions at this point in time (and it has not been adopted yet and it projects emissions reduction way out into the future. So, it’s all hypothetical at this point).

The BPU Straw proposal is just that: a proposal. It is not backed by regulatory mandates or dedicated State or private funding. BPU doesn’t have the power to mandate the alleged emission reductions anyway. It’s the legal equivalent of a press release.

The same with the Multi- State MOA – it is a toothless document that merely provides a statement of aspirational goals and voluntary non-binding platitudes. Again, it is the equivalent of a press release.

So, to jumble all this together without explaining that to readers is basically journalistic malpractice. If a high school student wrote something like this in a high school science class she would get at best a D and a stern correction from the teacher.

This is not just sloppy reporting. For a veteran environmental reporter to do that is obviously no mistake, but illustrates an intent to mislead readers.

But what NJ Spotlight reported as a key fact is much worse than simply conflating these apples, oranges, and tomatoes.

Obviously – given the climate emergency – the most important features of all these initiatives are: 1) how much they would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from trucks; 2) how fast they would do so; and 3) whether those reduction would be significant in terms of total emissions and the emissions reductions goals and timetables recommended by scientists or the aspirational goals of the NJ Global Warming Response Act.

I have not written about this, but have repeatedly Tweeted that the DEP’s proposed regulation would – at best, with 100% compliance – force minuscule emissions reductions.

DEP even admits that in the regulatory proposal. DEP wrote: (at p. 46-47)

Get that?

Over a 16 year period, the DEP proposal would reduce just 2.6 million metric tons. That just 162,500 tons per year.

For context, according to DEP’s most recent greenhouse gas emissions inventory, NJ emits a total of 97.7 MMT per year.

The transportation sector emits 40 MMT (40% of total)

So, doing the math, the DEP truck rule would reduce – at best – just 0.17% of total 97.7 MMT.

That translates to just 0.4% of the transportation sector.

Compare DEP’s paltry 0.4% reduction to Tom Johnson’s conflating of the BPU straw proposal as reducing “one-third” of the transportation sector – that would be 13.3 MMT, or 82 TIMES more than the paltry DEP regulation!

DEP regulation – just 0.4% of transportation sector goes unreported, while Spotlight reports an absurd 33% highly speculative emission reduction for which BPU lacks jurisdiction to make happen anyway.

So, did Spotlight reporter Tom Johnson and the Green Cheerleaders he quotes in his story mention these inconvenient facts?

Did those Green Cheerleaders demand more? Or did they set a very low bar and praise Gov. Murphy for doing very little?

Instead of reporting the facts, Spotlight reported this gross distortion – and it must have done intentionally by reporter Tom Johnson.

Read this paragraph closely – see the misleading sleight off hand:

The [BPU] proposal is viewed as complementary to a pending rule by the state Department of Environmental Protection that seeks to shift thousands of trucks — from delivery vans to buses to long-haul tractor trailers — to electric power. The move could curb one-third of the global-warming pollution from the transportation sector, which accounts for 40% of such pollution in New Jersey.

What “move” is Spotlight talking about? Surely not the DEP regulation, the only actual enforceable initiative (and DEP has yet to adopt that proposed regulation).

From the context, Tom is stating the the BPU Straw Proposal could  “curb one-third of the global-warming pollution from the transportation sector, which accounts for 40% of such pollution in New Jersey.”

That one third of transpiration sector emissions would amount to 13.3 MMT per year. (see below)

According to DEP’s most recent greenhouse gas emissions inventory (2019), total annual emissions are 97.7 MMT

The transportation sector emissions are 40 MMT (40% of total).

So, the BPU straw proposal could reduce 13.3 MMT.

Note, I said COULD reduce, if it were backed by enforceable regulation and funding, which it is not.

Compare the emissions reduction Spotlight reported and the Green Cheerleaders applauded – with the minuscule DEP rule. The BPU Straw Proposal Tom favorably reports would apply to 82 TIMES more emissions reductions than the paltry DEP regulation!

Tom Johnson is doing this on purpose, because he wrote a totally misleading favorable story about the DEP regulatory proposal. Tellingly, he did not provide a link to that prior story in today’s story (as is NJ Spotlight’s routine practice). That prior story did NOT quantify potential emissions reductions, and came with a ridiculously misleading heading, see:

• NJ to truck fleets: Time to go all green

That story predicted a “massive fight” by the trucking industry.

Tom then wrote another followup puff piece on the DEP regulatory proposal, where he indirectly corrected his prior prediction of a “massive fight”, by noting – without any explanation why – that there was “surprisingly, little opposition from critics.” That second story again failed to quantify emissions reductions, see:

• Murphy administration picks up speed getting electric trucks on the road

There was no “massive fight” over the DEP regulatory proposal because it would have such a tiny impact and was rife with “flexibility”, loopholes, complex manipulable market based credit schemes, and grace period style enforcement.

So, instead of correcting those prior reporting errors, he’s now trying to mask error by favorably covering the BPU straw proposal and reporting on it’s far more significant potential emissions reductions.

That is disgusting manipulation. At it is not an isolated error but an intentional pattern.

And the Green Cheerleaders continue to go right along with it.

While I try to steer clear of race and social issues, this year’s Independence Day, in the obvious spirit of the moment, we thought we might post some highlights from the past, illustrating the more complex dimensions of our current disasters and hopefully inspiring the consciousness and rebellion of Chris Hedges latest speech, “American Sadism”.

We start with Frederick Douglass (1852)

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.

After the Civil War, liberal abandonment of Reconstruction, and 60 years of Jim Crow terrorism, we move to Langston Hughes’ Let America Be America Again (1935).

Note that Hughes, although celebrated for a black American message, wrote very clearly about much broader concerns than just race and identity:

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Hughes concluded with this honest, despairing, yet hopeful message (ironically a prequel of Trump’s “Make America Great Again”):

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!

Because we are all under the Biden Democrats’ liberal order, we conclude with remarks on liberals from Martin Luther King’s “Letter From A Birmingham Jail” (1963):

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

Let’s hope that the Biden Democrats do not repeat that sad history of liberal capitulation that gave us Jim Crow.

Let’s hope that people will rise up and follow Chris Hedges’ analysis and overthrow corporate power:

It is not until people are reintegrated into the society, not until corporate and oligarchic control over our educational, political and media systems are removed, not until we recover the ethic of the common good, that we have any hope of rebuilding the positive social bonds that foster a healthy society. History has amply illustrated how this process works. It is a game of fear. And until we make the ruling elites afraid, until a terrified Joe Biden and the oligarchs he serves look out on a sea of pitchforks, we will not blunt the culture of sadism and social murder they have engineered.

Rebellion, however, must be its own justification. It is a moral imperative, not a practical one.  It not only erodes, however imperceptibly, the structures of oppression, it sustains the embers of empathy and compassion, as well as justice, within us that defy the sadism that colors every layer of our existence. In short, it keeps us human. Rebellion must be embraced, finally, not only for what it will achieve, but for what it will allow us to become. In that becoming we find hope.

I’m not optimistic.