[Pen-l] Waxman-Markey - Trapped in a slamming Overton Window

[Gar Lipow <gar.lipow@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://tinyurl.com/WaxMark2
http://www.grist.org/article/mainstream-environmentalists-enthusiasm-for-waxman-markey-ensures-it-will-g/
23 May 2009

Mainstream environmentalists who take the position that the
Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill "could be worse" help ensure that it
will be.  Publicly proclaiming willingness to live with the bill in
its current firm gives nobody any leverage to strengthen it. It is the
same mistake first time buyers make in car lots when they accept an
offer from the nice man in the loud suit. It turns that neither the
first time car buyer nor the mainstream environmentalist have actually
closed a deal.  They simply let the other side construct their offer,
turning what they thought was a compromise into their own negotiating
position which the other side can now bargain against. Proclaiming "It
could be worse" makes the bill in its current form the ASKING PRICE
for the environmental movement. It becomes the unrealistically leftist
goal, which moderates will dilute to something more "reasonable".

I know a lot of well-meaning environmentalists think that because
version that passed out of committee already gives concessions to the
coal, electricity and nuclear sectors that "moderate" Democrats will
support it.  This misunderstands what "moderation" in the Democratic
Party is today. Democratic Party "moderates" are not moderate in the
sense they look at policy and try to find sensible alternatives
between extreme possibilities. Nor are they moderate only in the sense
they are slightly deeper in corporate pockets than most politicians.
Democratic party moderates are "moderate" in the sense that they find
reasons to oppose their own party on most critical issues, either
straight-out adapting the Republican position, or taking a position
just a shade different from that of the most lunatic fringes of the
Republican party. Their "moderation" is an automatic positioning to
the right of most of the Democratic Party on issues of importance, an
automatic attempt to move the Overton window towards the Republicans.
What part of that is genuine reactionary conviction, and what part
playing to media love of Republican leaning "bipartisanship" is hard
to say.

If you seriously are willing to live with the current bill, but don't
want it to get worse, your public position should be:

>Hmm, I have some hard choices to make here. We need to do something, but this is so awful. I don’t know if I can live with it. Watch me agonize publicly over my moral dilemma. Isn’t my internal struggle fascinating? If only someone would improve this bill and make it better. Then I could reluctantly support it. Why oh why won’t you extremists move a little to salve my delicate conscience and win my last minute support..

If you think you are qualified to play an inside game, then please
show that you know the rules. Don’t leave the Kabuki to the Ben
Nelsons, Mary Landrieus, Charlie Melancons, Tim Holdens, Colin
Petersons and Evan Bayhs.

And maybe even consider that this bill has a bad enough architecture
not to be worth trying to save  (
http://www.grist.org/article/waxman-markey-bill-would-do-more-for-climate-without-cap-and-trade-provisio
)
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