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One visit home, we asked my parents what they remembered of the home front; both were born in \u201939 so these would have been early-childhood memories.\u00a0 Neither of them had parents away fighting in the war (Mom\u2019s dad was too old; Dad\u2019s dad was in an essential-to-the-war-effort job), and nothing about it made any impression on Mom, but Dad remembers being sent out to buy groceries and losing the ration book along the way, which caused great trauma and I don\u2019t really remember if he every described how it was resolved.\u00a0 (Yes, small children really were sent out to the store.)<\/p>\n
Because,\u00a0as you may or may not recall from history books or movies or television or family history, the manufacture of tanks and airplanes\u00a0and Jeeps parachutes and military uniforms, and the production of food to be sent overseas came at a cost, as an endless array of food and consumer goods were rationed, with purchases strictly limited and families encouraged to grow food in \u201cvictory gardens\u201d to make up for it.\u00a0 (Dad and his family were better off in that respect, because in addition to his dad\u2019s factory job at Gates Rubber Factory, they had a small farm on which they grew produce and raised chickens.\u00a0 Unless, that is, the ration-ers knew that and subtracted this out.)<\/p>\n
Tires were rationed, and gas was rationed.\u00a0 Clothing was rationed.\u00a0 Women\u2019s nylons were rationed so they could make parachutes.\u00a0 Books were rationed (have you seen wartime books with the notice that they conform to rationing requirements?).<\/p>\n
And this, so far as I can tell, is the future Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes envisions for us with her Green New Deal.<\/p>\n
That being said, let\u2019s look at the Green New Deal, as released today<\/a>\u00a0(or here<\/a>, if the prior link becomes invalid) via a House resolution and a supporting FAQ document.\u00a0 It\u2019s being defended in terms such as, \u201cwell, you have to understand that this is aspirational,\u201d but even with that caveat it still makes no sense.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s look at it, shall we?<\/p>\n The Green New Deal resolution a 10-year plan to mobilize every aspect of American society at a scale not seen since World War 2 to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and create economic prosperity for all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cMobilize.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cAt a scale not seen since World War 2.\u201d\u00a0 This is not voluntary.<\/p>\n This is a plan to get the United States to \u201cnet\u201d 0 emissions [of greenhouse gasses], by means of \u201ccreat[ing] the renewable energy economy as fast as possible.\u201d\u00a0 (I am guessing the \u201cnet\u201d part means tree-planting carbon offsets, though it doesn\u2019t specify.)\u00a0 This means eliminating \u201cfarting cows\u201d and airplanes\u00a0(though with the concession that this may take longer than 10 years; hence the \u201cnet\u201d caveat), decommissioning nuclear plants as well as any energy source that is not \u201cclean\u201d and renewable, \u201cretrofitting all buildings to be energy efficient,\u201d \u201creplac[ing] every combustion-engine vehicle,\u201d \u201cbuild[ing] out high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary,\u201d and more.<\/p>\n And all of this is to occur through direct government action.\u00a0 \u00a0The government will pour incomprehensibly large sums of money into new R&D, the production of energy via solar and wind, the building-retrofit project, and so on.\u00a0 The intention appears to be a combination of ventures run by the government and those contracted out to other providers; the text speaks of extending credit and public banks, as if these projects will be profit making, which doesn\u2019t make a heck of a lot of sense except to the extent that every building-owner would be mandated to front the cost of the building-rehab, new energy systems, etc., electricity-users ultimately pay for the cost of energy production with energy bills, and transportation bills far higher than at present, and so on.<\/p>\n How is it to be paid for?<\/p>\n Money-borrowing.\u00a0 Does AOC plan on this actually being money-printing?\u00a0 In World War II the government sold \u201cvictory bonds\u201d and Marvel viewers will recall that Captain America was put to work pitching these.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the thing:\u00a0 issues of the government directing this massive undertaking in a command-economy fashion notwithstanding, do we even have the productive capacity to do this?\u00a0 To build the renewable-energy power plants on the scale needed?\u00a0 To electrify the miles of track needed (though high-speed or not, no rail can replace flight; all that can do so is stay-cationing\u00a0and videoconferencing\u2013 with the actual outcome presumably being massively increasing the cost of air travel so only the wealthy and political elite can afford it, accompanied by sneering at people who can no longer afford to travel, as unsophisticated hicks)?\u00a0 To rip out and replace the heating system in every home, every office, every building in America?<\/p>\n One imagines that AOC\u2019s comparison to World War II mobilization must necessarily extend to the same sorts of rationing, curtailing the availability of consumer goods, as during that war, in order to access the manpower and raw material needed \u2014 if, indeed, it is possible at all to generate solar and wind energy on such a scale (though, again, presumably the scale is curtailed by diminishing the amount of power used, as people can no longer to heat their homes to temperatures we consider comfortable, or to travel to locations we are no accustomed to traveling to, or maintain in any way the standard of living we\u2019re accustomed to).<\/p>\n And, of course, that\u2019s not even addressing the economy fantasy that she throws in:<\/p>\n Job guarantees with a \u201cfamily-sustaining wage\u201d as well as parental\/medical leave, vacations, and \u201cretirement security\u201d, guaranteed higher education and trade school, \u201caccess to nature\u201d (through Kraft durch Freude camps, maybe?), \u201chealthy food,\u201d \u201csafe, affordable, adequate housing,\u201d and \u2014 the real kicker \u2014 \u201ceconomic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work.\u201d\u00a0 Yes, that wasn\u2019t a typo.\u00a0 Just because you don\u2019t want to work doesn\u2019t mean you shouldn\u2019t have \u201ceconomic security,\u201d apparently.<\/p>\n They are living in a fantasy world.\u00a0 They have watched too much Star Trek, in which material abundance through replicators means that the only reason people work is for self-fulfillment (and presumably, down there on earth but not interesting enough to build into a plot, are large numbers of people who simply play video games all day).<\/p>\n As a bonus, they toss in statements that they will \u201cwork with farmers and ranchers to create a sustainable, pollution and greenhouse gas free, food system that ensures universal access to healthy food and expands independent family farming\u201d \u2014 which, I suppose, is at least better than collective farms.<\/p>\n And, finally, they claim that 92% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans \u201csupport the Green New Deal,\u201d which presumably means that some poll found that level of agreement for either a vaguely defined proposal or one that was presented as, well, substantially less delusional.<\/p>\n So this is a joke.\u00a0 And even for this to be labeled as \u201caspirational\u201d says that AOC and her staffers are not serious.\u00a0 They\u2019re playing at a game, no differently than college kids late at night, thinking that they are wise and have profoundly deep ideas that their elders never thought of.\u00a0 In reality, they ought to be embarrassed by this, because this is so full of nonsense that it destroys their credibility.\u00a0 And maybe they think they\u2019re engaged in an exercise in \u201cmoving the Overton window,\u201d that they can now come out with a less insane plan and be greeted as having moderated their demands, but they don\u2019t deserve to be listened to at all after producing this.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let me start with a story or two about World War II. One visit home, we asked my parents what they remembered of the home front; both were born in \u201939 so these would have been early-childhood memories.\u00a0 Neither of them had parents away fighting in the war (Mom\u2019s dad was too old; Dad\u2019s dad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1189],"class_list":["post-12715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-green-new-deal"],"yoast_head":"\n