THE PATRIOT POST - ALEXANDER'S COLUMN 02/13/2019

Red Old Deal Recycled as Green New Deal

The Left's ruinous "Rainbows and Unicorns Resolution of 2019."

Mark Alexander

"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts." —Patrick Henry, 1775 Marketing experts insist that the words "green" and "new deal" invoke a favorable consumer response. So do the words "rainbows" and "unicorns." The Democrat Party's so-called "Green New Deal" (GND), better known as the "Rainbows and Unicorns Resolution of 2019," is, as I wrote previously, like a watermelon — "green on the outside, but red on the inside." It's the ludicrous Millennial effluent of the Leninist "Earth Day" mindset. This behemoth "climate change" charade is, as are all others, about the implementation of socialist economic policies. That consequence is evident in the fact that the absurd mandates of the GND (as outlined in its FAQ document, which was quickly removed from public view) would result in catastrophic worldwide economic collapse. GND is so colossally asinine that it's difficult to know where to start — so let's go back to the beginning, with a brief assessment of what ensued. This example of abject ecofascist ignorance was fronted by the "new face of the Democrat Party," as DNC Chairman Tom Perez described Miss Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the leftist Millennial heartthrob who arrived in Congress just three weeks ago. Perez must think Democrat voters are idiots and will buy into the fresh-faced facade. Her sycophantic Leftmedia admirers now refer to her simply as "AOC," which, perhaps fittingly, is also an initialism for "American Organized Crime." She and her cohort, Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-MA), both chronically manifesting Trump Derangement Syndrome, described their plan as "a national, social, industrial and economic mobilization at a scale not seen since World War II," attempting to frame it as an extension of FDR's failed "New Deal" policies. (More on that in a moment.) Their GND is the latest Demo "BIG Lie" for "fundamentally transforming the United States of America," a masterpiece of ignorant propaganda backed by the usual socialist deniers. But Ocasio-Cortez may ultimately be a socialist contagion. Wall Street Journal political analyst Kimberley Strassel declared, "By the end of the Green New Deal resolution (and accompanying fact sheet) I was laughing so hard I nearly cried. If a bunch of GOPers plotted to forge a fake Democratic bill showing how bonkers the party is, they could not have done a better job. It is beautiful." While it may be laughable, it's no laughing matter. The GND is not the stuff of dreams but of socialist-induced nightmares. Democrat Party neophytes romanticize such nightmares, refusing to accept the reality that socialist governments, like those of the USSR and most recently Venezuela, are destined to empower tyrants and usher in economic calamity before they inevitably fail. Columnist David Harsanyi outlined some of the most insane requirements of the GND, including its mandate to ban affordable energy, eliminate nuclear energy, eliminate 99% of cars, gut and rebuild every building in America, and eliminate air travel and substitute for rail (which, coincidentally, California just killed). Of course, its replete with "social welfare" objectives to guarantee a job for people willing to work (and "economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work"), and housing, free education, and healthy food for all. (You can read more details hereand here.) Notably, the Bezos WaPo refused to do any of its vaunted fact-checking: "We won't be awarding any Pinocchios in this kerfuffle." Enter Donald Trump. On the heels of his well-received State of the Union, in which he declared, "Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. We are born free, and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country." Trump was quick to offer an acerbic endorsement of the GND: "I think it is very important for the Democrats to press forward with their Green New Deal. It would be great for the so-called 'Carbon Footprint' to permanently eliminate all Planes, Cars, Cows, Oil, Gas & the Military — even if no other country would do the same. Brilliant!" Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell followed up with a commitment to call for a vote on the GND resolution to get Democrats on record: "I've noted with great interest the Green New Deal. And we're going to be voting on that in the Senate. Give everybody an opportunity to go on record and see how they feel about the Green New Deal." Ironically, the Demo GND resolution may not even get a vote in the Demo-controlled House. Freedom Center Journalism fellow Bruce Thornton notes that it has turned into "The Democrats' Dangerous Gong Show." Demo Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered this less-than-lukewarm reference to the GND after its unveiling: "The green dream, or whatever they call it — nobody knows what it is, but they're for it, right?" That is reminiscent of Pelosi's comment about Barack Obama's so-called Affordable Care Act: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." Recall that Pelosi added, "In [passing this legislation], we will honor the vows of our Founders, who in the Declaration of Independence said that we are 'endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'" Seriously, she said that. Of course, Pelosi is just using the GND as a political ploy to circle back with a "moderate" version as a consensus-building negotiation ploy. Laughably, Pelosi invoked "God" to justify the Democrats' "climate change" agenda: "We have a moral responsibility to protect God's creation for generations to come. That is why today, we named members to the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis." (Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley responded: "Does God's creation not include protecting babies as well Madame Speaker? A committee on that issue would be welcome.") In fact, more than 65 House Democrats have already signed on to the resolution. And top Democrat lawmakers in the Senate, some of whom have committed to 2020 presidential runs, including Elizabeth "Fauxcahontas" Warren, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Cory "Spartacus" Booker, have also signed on. According to Spartacus, those not supporting the "10-year national mobilization" are not dreamers: "There's a lot of people now going back on the Green New Deal. They're like, 'Oh, it's impractical. Oh, it's too expensive. Oh, it's all of this.' If we used to govern our dreams that way, we would have never gone to the moon. 'God, that's impractical! You see that ball in the sky? That's impractical!' We are a nation that has done impossible things before." (Somebody should inform Booker about how much glorious fossil fuel we used to get to the moon.) Leftist cadres insist the GND is a litmus test for 2020 Demo candidates. In reality, it's a litmus test for identity-politics idiocy, and all the candidates who signed on are banking on the idiocy of their constituents. Of course, the GND is also backed by leftist billionaires such as George Soros, Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, and Jeff Bezos — who, along with their Leftmedia propagandists, form the archenemies of American Liberty. And, given their insatiable narcissistic pursuit of power, they're committed to promoting this socialist agenda. Finally, as promised regarding FDR's "New Deal," let's take a quick stroll down History Lane... The GND socialist charade is an attempt to re-warm President Franklin Roosevelt's populist "New Deal," but a quick review of the facts, such being anathema to Democrats, makes clear that FDR's statist policies failed — and that the so-called "Green New Deal" is destined to fail catastrophically. Of course, Democrats never let pesky facts get in the way of their political agendas. FDR's attempt to tax, spend, and regulate the nation out of the Great Depression between 1933 and 1936 largely failed with each new initiative. While his Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Civil Works Administration (CWA) provided labor jobs and sustenance to people willing to work, this didn't end the Depression. His Farm Security Administration (FSA), the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA), and the Social Security Administration (SSA) provided support for farmers, the unemployed, youth, and the elderly, but did not end the Depression. FDR also ended the "gold standard" backing of currency in an effort to stop deflation, resulting in the fiat currency we use today, but that didn't work either. He then focused on bank reform by way of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which did improve banking confidence but did not end the Depression. In his words, FDR defined his failed centralized government folly as "bold, persistent experimentation," adding, "It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another." That's crisis management by trial and error. FDR even attempted to pack the Supreme Court by expanding the number of justices in order to ensure affirmation of his extra-constitutional government programs, but fortunately, Congress reined in that effort. (Recently, after Trump's successful SCOTUS nominations of jurists who support Rule of Law, Democrats are again proposing to increase the number of justices in order to recover their rule-of-mentyranny by judicial diktat.) After he'd purchased his reelection with massive government expansion and wealth-redistribution schemes, the nation was hit with the "Roosevelt Depression" of 1937. Clearly, his first-term "3 Rs" policies — government intervention to provide relief for the unemployed and poor, recovery of the economy, and reform of the financial system — had failed, and unemployment then climbed to 22%. So FDR responded by wildly expanding government deficit spending from 1% of GDP to almost 5% of GDP, and that superficially stabilized the economy. But the simple fact is that the end of the Great Depression came with the massive spending increases we undertook to win World War II and the job creation that accompanied our wartime economy. The net result of FDR's "policy solutions," however, was an irrevocable expansion of government bureaucracies defined by his "New Bill of Rights" in 1944 and a political realignment that gave the Democrat Party majorities in Congress and a stranglehold on the White House for seven of the nine presidential terms from 1933 to 1969. And in the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson's so-called "Great Society" programs proved to be yet another case study in failed socialist policies. Ominously, LBJ said of his statist expansion, "We have built up new instruments of public power. In the hands of a people's government this power is wholesome and proper. But in the hands of political puppets of an economic autocracy such power would provide shackles for the liberties of the people." Today's Democrats are little more than autocratic puppets. For the record, FDR's response to collapsing confidence in our financial system in 1933 was similar to Obama's response in 2009 — similar in that both Democrat presidents proposed socialist "policy solutions" that, in fact, served only to extend the economic misery. In the case of Obama, his solutions were in response to the 2008 financial crisis that was, ironically but not coincidentally, the direct result of prior Democrat statist regulatory policies related to mortgage markets. As was the case with those statist policies, the "Green New Deal" in any portion is likewise designed to result in another crisis of economic confidence, opening a much grander opportunity to break the back of free enterprise and replace it with evermore socialist policies. Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776