By Petr Navovy | Politics | October 29, 2019 |
By Petr Navovy | Politics | October 29, 2019 |
The Green New Deal is a legislative program with the twin goals of averting the worst of the ravages of climate change brought on by sociopathic corporate interests, and ameliorating income inequality and the dire state of the job market in the US. It aims to do this through an ecological industrial strategy and mass mobilisation of resources and job creation on a huge scale akin to the vast pivoting that occurred when the country entered WWII.
Popularised most recently by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it has become as much of a talking point among the right-wing as the left—albeit for naturally different reasons. The left see it as a tangible, if small, step towards a less extinct future; the right use it as a glib soundbite and something to mock in order to—I dunno—own the lame libs who don’t want to watch their children choke to death on wildfire smoke by the time they’re ten?
There is no substantive critique of the GND offered by the right. It’s all vacuous insinuation and toxic, partisan rhetoric. Similarly, no matter how hard they try the right can never muster up any actual criticism of their other favourite boogeyman—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez herself. Any time they attempt to do so, they either reveal their misogyny, racism, classism, or just plain old capitalist colours—and the fear they all feel when someone dares to come for their power. Often, in trying to deliver satire, they just shoot themselves in the foot. Satire is a weapon that is wielded by the dispossessed, by the powerless, against the powerful; not the other way round.
Much the same way as the infinite gallery of aggrieved, wealthy white male comedians releasing Netflix specials complaining about ‘PC culture run amok’—all titled Triggered—the right wing are just painfully—yet unintentional hilariously—inept at delivering satirical takedowns of those who wish to level the playing field a little bit. Because that’s not the way it works you blinkered dingbats. I will leave you with an example of right-wing satire of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the GND, via what I guess is meant to be a depiction of a horrifying hellscape, but which just ends up making it look like that scene in The Simpsons when they imagine a world without lawyers where all the peoples of the Earth dance together in peace and love underneath a rainbow:
nice pic.twitter.com/Hf5GkAQlVh
— Current Affairs (@curaffairs) October 28, 2019