It’s probably time to start paying some attention to Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawai’i. He looks a lot more like the future than Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Sure, he claims to be Hawaiian, but where’s the birth certificate?
Interesting profile.
I wonder, though, why they chose to use the phrase “new world order” in their opinion piece in Foreign Affairs?
Don’t they know that phrase is catnip? Or should I call it “wingernip”?
I’m guessing that words like peace and diplomacy don’t go over well with that audience. However, Schatz should be careful will throwing around terms like “new world order” as positives because they lead to the sort of mind rot that ends up endorsing regime change through military force.
I’m actually quite surprised at that choice of words, and that no one thought to point out to them how a phrase like that is perceived by many. It is so loaded and using it even once, such as in this case, could be a millstone around their necks forever.
Agree. I too found the use of such language disturbing. Particularly since it was packaged with a fantasy that bi-partisanship is a worthy and reasonable goal.
OTOH, among Schatz’s age peers in the Senate, 70% are rightwing Republicans and those might be the people he’s going to have to work with for possibly a very long time.
Oh Martin, you’re just partial to philosophy majors.
Seriously, Schatz is one of the good ones and in the fine tradition of his predecessor. Have to thank Abercrombie for the appointment and the people of Hawaii for confirming him. (Recall that Akaka and Inouye voted against the Iraq war resolution.) It was a bold choice for Abercrombie. Where others saw the short-list as a choice between an older and more experienced female of Japanese ancestry or a younger white man, Neil saw a DINO or a progressive.
Rules for progressive Democrats. Don’t use other people’s ideas or buzzwords without thinking them through.
Pseudo-market mechanisms like a carbon tax have become less practical and less saleable than straightforward regulation. What is needed in regulations is some what to pierce the corporate veil to hold individual decision-makers accountable for their harmful decisions. The CEO of Exxon-Mobil himself as an individual should have personal financial liability for the fact he has driven Exxon-Mobil to buying politicians instead of shifting to renewable energy. That strategy should have some personal consequences on him and all in the chain of command who implemented his decision.
Carbon markets and carbon taxes have not decreased CO2 pollution because the first are based on too large a permittable level of pollution and the second are rarely behavior changing but just another cost of doing business as usual.
Second, you don’t show a fresh approach to foreign affairs while using the cliche “new world order” that already has a lot of baggage at all points of the spectrum. What you are actually doing is trying to create a better system of relations in what is essentially an anarchic system of nations. The UN might be hub of those conversations, but it is very far from being a world government even though it has an international bureaucracy much like the European Union’s bureaucracy in form and style.
Also, any conversation about the global political system that does not inform the American people about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, NATO, UNASUR, African Union, and Arab League is not really acknowledging where the possibilities of a workable transformation of foreign policy lie that would allow the US to scale down its military expenditures dramatically and still preserve national security.
Whoever represents the future must break more decisively from business as usual and do so with clearly understood rhetoric and not weasel words.
Otherwise we will not be able to distiguish the future from the past.
” He looks a lot more like the future than Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma.”
Au contraire: Imhoff IS the future of the Party of Old White Men. He is into climate denial, and as LITTLE JIMI has stated many times: WAYY smarter than the BUM in the White House! WHO else is sooo smart to break Senate rules while throwing snowballs in the chamber to show the BUM in the White House there is NO global warming.
And MOST importantly, just like Mr. Wilson and Huckelberry Butchmeup( Lyndsy), has NEVER met a war he didn’t want to send somebody else’s children to.
Ohh, and did I mention Obama Derangement Syndrome, which any self respecting Republican Must have!
Inhofe has plenty of wingnut company among the GOP ‘younguns in the Senate. So, as if right now, he is more like the future.
Does Inhofe have Obama Derangement Syndrome? I really can’t tell, since he’s been fully deranged since I first heard of him.
He was elected to make the other OK Senator, Coburn, appear to be sane.
SOO, can these two dull OKIE matches light anything but their own bovine poop?
That’s giving Inhofe too much intellectual weight. Coburn (now former Senator Coburn) isn’t dumb like Inhofe and is somewhat less crazy. Have no idea how his successor stacks up against either of these bozos, but dumber and crazier than Inhofe (which unbelievably enough is possible) can’t be dismissed.
“which unbelievably enough is possible”
And still be considered sentient? Noooo!