Obama: We've Been Outflanked, Cap & Trade Dead

[babsbunny]

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010062416/obama-weve-been-outflanked-cap-trade-dead

By Dave Johnson

June 16, 2010 - 1:10pm ET

The headline of my local paper today is Obama: Act on clean energy. (But a different headline online - do they do that just to mess up bloggers?)

In the speech the President paid homage to President Carter's efforts to change America's energy policies, saying,

For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered. For decades, we’ve talked and talked about the need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil fuels. And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires. Time and again, the path forward has been blocked -- not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor.

Outflanked

[hedgehog]

1. Maybe instead of cap & trade we should just tax CO2 across the board

and force reduction across the board. I always thought cap& trade belonged to the Republicans, anyways.

[howaboutme]

4. Agreed - cap and trade is a scheme

Cap and trade is a scheme that allows the financiers of Wall Street to once again skim the cream of our economy off for their own gain. Wall Street isn't about creating jobs or capitalizing industry, it is a casino scheme that is about making gobs of money for their own.

[emulatorloo]

2. Good article, everybody read it all - final paragraph (CALL YOUR SENATORS)

Here is the problem. Action on energy requires direct government action and rejection of deficit hysteria to do it. But every single initiative of the Obama Presidency has been blocked by powerful interests, playing on the use of the filibuster on almost every major bill in the Senate. Health care reform was severely weakened by the pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies. Financial reform has been severely weakened by the financial lobbies. Jobs measures and further stimulus have been blocked by a strategic lobbying campaign to make people think the Bush-created deficit must be cut first. Now cap and trade may have been killed by the oil and gas lobbies.

We are in a direct confrontation between the big corporations and We, the People over who will run things and control the resources of the United States, and We, the People are losing. There is time to turn it around, but only if we recognize this battle for what it is.

[Laelth]

3. Indeed. We, the People, are losing.

I fully understand what the battle is--what it has always been.

"The same political parties which now agitate the U.S. have existed through all time. Whether the power of the people or that of the (aristocracy) should prevail were questions which kept the states of Greece and Rome in eternal convulsions, as they now schismatize every people whose minds and mouths are not shut up by the gag of a despot." Thomas Jefferson - 1813

It has always been the few against the many--the rich against the not-nearly-as-rich. Right now, we are losing, but the rich always hang themselves in time. There is still hope.

:dem:

-Laelth