Class War, California's Prop 23 And The Education Of Arnold Schwarzenegger

A few weeks ago we took a look at the preview of Inside Job, the riveting new film by Charles Ferguson which opens Friday in NYC and in L.A. the following week. It concentrates on the financial meltdown-- and makes the case very convincingly, that it was an inside job-- here in the U.S. But the film starts in pristine, scenic Iceland and may startle some viewers by drawing the straight line between greed-driven sociopaths in the financial sector destroying the environment for the sake of fatter bonus packages. One person who wouldn't be startled by that, at least not now, a few days short of his 7th anniversary of being elected governor of California, is Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. A few days ago Schwarzenegger gave what was probably the most cogent and profound speech of his political career. In the video below Keith Olbermann put it into context. Believe me, it's worth listening to:



As Olbermann explains, "the Citizens United ruling, unleashing private groups to pour millions of dollars into political campaigns has benefited Republicans by a ratio of six to one. The outpouring of money leading to last night's extraordinary outpouring from the Republican governor of California, talking about a political campaign now underway there to, in essence, take over the state with cash in order to undo the legislation he signed 4 years ago to reduce carbon emissions there by 30% by the year 2020..." Arnold:

Does anyone really believe that these companies, out of the goodness of their black, oil hearts and spending millions and millions of dollars to protect jobs? This is like Eva Braun writing a kosher cookbook... I want to talk about the corruption of the democratic process and about forces willing to sabotage the country's economic future for private gain. I want to talk about the Texas oil interests that have descended upon California to overturn a California environmental law, and then, as soon as they've done their dirty work thanks to millions of dollars of scare-tactic advertising, they intend, in the words of their own spokesperson, to fold up their tents and go home... Oil companies like Valero and Tesero and Frontier and Koch Industries are blatantly trying to manipulate the will of the people and the public good... The motivate is... self-serving greed.

Well, right now, polls show self-serving greed-- well financed self-serving greed-- is all tied up with the public interest. Are the public morons? Judge for yourself.

California voters believe global warming is a significant issue and are inclined to trust scientific views on the subject, but they remain closely divided on a November ballot measure that would suspend the state's global warming statute, according to a new Los Angeles Times/University of Southern California poll.

California’s global warming law, passed in 2006, is aimed at slashing greenhouse gas emissions by power plants, factories and vehicles.

The ballot initiative, Proposition 23, would delay implementation of the law until California unemployment drops to 5.5% and stays at that level for a year. Unemployment is now over 12%, and a sustained level at or below 5.5% has rarely been achieved, so environmental advocates argue that the initiative would in effect put the law on indefinite hold.

More than two-thirds of likely voters in the survey said that global warming is a “very important” or “somewhat important” issue to them. And more than four in 10  likely voters said they have “complete” or “a lot” of trust in what scientists say on the subject, with more than two in 10 saying they have a “moderate” amount of trust.

On the ballot measure itself, the survey showed that about one-fifth of likely voters had not yet taken a position. Forty percent favor the initiative and 38% oppose it, essentially a dead heat.

And Big Business, protected by an out-of-whack reactionary Supreme Court, specifically designed to represent corporate interests, has all the money they need to persuade voters-- otherwise occupied with their own difficult struggles-- that whatever serves their bottom lines in truth, even when it is clearly anti-truth.

Framing Prop 23 as the "California Jobs Initiative" is a clever bait-and-switch by out of state oil tycoons like David Koch to halt any and all efforts at the state level to address the climate crisis and save California's already slumping economy.

Voters in California-- and every other state-- need to realize that failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions risks destroying millions of jobs and grinding California's economy to a halt. The effects of climate change need to be thought of as a "negative stimulus" to the economy, leading to reduced profitability, decreased investment, job loss, and falling wages... [T]here are no jobs on a dead planet.