The Green New Deal: Poverty for Everyone!

by Eric Rozenman  *  August 5, 2019 at 4:00 am

"The interesting thing about the Green New Deal... is it wasn't originally a climate thing at all... Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing." -- Saikat Chakrabarti, the outgoing chief of staff for freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)

Chakrabarti seems to have deduced two things. First, he saw a glass largely full and still filling but for some still empty, and concluded he must first shatter the glass. After that, he apparently failed to consider that the dystopian streets of San Francisco -- homeless people living in tents and defecating on sidewalks near high-rent high-rises, and the middle class and affordable housing squeezed by heavy taxes and constrictive zoning -- might be a result of local "progressive" politics. The problem is that if his "change-the-entire-economy-thing" would ever be imposed, America as a whole might resemble those dystopian streets. If Soviet Russia, Cuba or Venezuela come to mind, consider India before 2014, when its prime minister, Narendra Modi, was elected.

A free economy, in which countless healthy, growing businesses can spring up and actually hire countless people, and that way offer economic advancement for everyone? Not for Bose in the 1940s. And not, it seems, for today for many who have not looked at how socialism really works -- or unfortunately does not work.

Epitomizing today's progressives -- one might even call them reactionaries of the left -- is Saikat Chakrabarti, outgoing chief of staff for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Chakrabarti was recently photographed wearing a shirt embossed with the face of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Bose was an Indian nationalist who opposed Mahatma Gandhi and spent World War II collaborating first with Nazi Germany, and later with Imperial Japan. Pictured: Bose shares a laugh with German military officers, in a photo taken ~1941-1943. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

"A liberal is intolerant of other views. He wants to control your thoughts and actions." -- President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1967.
Johnson, the Texas Democrat who extended Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal with his own Great Society, was an old-school liberal, certainly on domestic policy. The political activist-agitators LBJ impugned then as "liberals" are today's progressives--one might even call them reactionaries of the left.

Epitomizing them is Saikat Chakrabarti, the outgoing chief of staff for freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y). Chakrabarti recently starred in a Washington Post article. The spotlight left a key to the influential staffer's undemocratic mentality in shadows.
Continue Reading Article

"Lo interesante del Green New Deal ... es que originalmente no era una cuestion climatica en absoluto ... porque realmente pensamos en ello como una cuestion de como cambiar la economia entera". - Saikat Chakrabarti, el jefe de gabinete saliente de la estudiante de primer ano, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)

Chakrabarti parece haber deducido dos cosas. Primero, vio un vaso lleno y todavia lleno, pero para algunos todavia vacio, y concluyo que primero debia romper el vaso. Despues de eso, aparentemente no tuvo en cuenta que las calles distopicas de San Francisco, las personas sin hogar que viven en tiendas de campana y defecan en las aceras cerca de edificios altos de alquiler, y la clase media y las viviendas asequibles presionadas por los altos impuestos y la zonificacion restrictiva. podria ser el resultado de una politica local "progresista".

El problema es que si alguna vez se impusiera su "cambio de la economia completa", Estados Unidos en su conjunto podria parecerse a esas calles distopicas. Si le viene a la mente la Rusia sovietica, Cuba o Venezuela, considere la India antes de 2014, cuando fue elegido su primer ministro, Narendra Modi.