eco shenanigans

I hope everyone holds their noses and pretends to vom when they take the "I VOTED" selfies this time around, now that the adrenaline from the Mizeur campaign has dissipated and the progressive movement it was supposed to herald has done very little to influence state politics since. When the wrong people get elected/the wrong policies get implemented, it isn't because not enough people voted. It's because not enough people organized to build the  counterpower  that would allow citizens (not corporations or developers) to direct policymaking. We still buy into the myth of the "good" politician - the idea that when the right person comes along, you just vote and everything changes - or wait until the next messiah comes. But good politicians are shaped by the people who know how to play their pressure points, not inherent goodness.  Here's a meme from CCAN that I just got in my inbox as I was writing this. It's ridiculous, because all this co

Image: Single Mothers Self Defence at a protest organized by Fuel Poverty Action UK in 2013 This is a really brief response to Brentin Mock's piece on Grist about a recent resolution by the National Policy Alliance, an organization of black politicians, on solar energy. Here's the controversial text from the NPA's resolution: "WHEREAS, net metering policies allow customers with rooftop solar or other DG systems to unfairly profit from exporting excess energy back to the grid while penalizing customers with basic energy needs who cannot afford rooftop solar or other DG systems; and WHEREAS, African American households experience disproportionate levels of poverty, exceeding the national average, and have lower household income than their non-African American counterparts; and WHEREAS, a lack of electric power affordability disproportionately impacts economically disadvantaged sectors and threatens the long term financial stability of our country; …"