It's not AOC's fault: the Green New Deal is Garbage.

what's what is your role in this how did
you get involved yeah so I work at a think tank called new consensus and so ongoing political discourse about the green New Deal is misleading in two important respects one it was not written by Alexandria Ocasio Cortes in short this is a good thing because that means it's not her fault - there's a lively debate about whether or not this law would cost ten trillion dollars or a hundred billion dollars whether or not the astronomical sums people are attaching to what his estimates could be justified and the amount this bill would cost the United States of America is zero because legally this bill does absolutely nothing aside from expressing a sentiment if you haven't formally studied political science this may surprise you but actually in the United States many of the most important laws have only expressed a sentiments well important if you're someone like me who cares about human rights and progress of civilization in 2009 the United States passed a law regretting the conquest oppression enslavement and genocide of the indigenous peoples means a lot to me it's just a sentiment there's absolutely nothing about that law that's enforced it has no consequences it didn't cost the taxpayer any more than the cost of printing it on paper Bill Clinton very memorably passed a law a federal law that's on the books apologizing for the unethical way in which the United States annexed the island of Hawaii it's a very complex convoluted episode of history that can't easily be summed up as conquest or genocide nevertheless very immoral regrettable thing and that law states that the government United States America regrets it it is enough ecology expressed in law didn't cost the taxpayers $1 it's just a sentiment it is mind-blowing that this debate is going on with all sides apparently not recognizing that the green New Deal is absolutely nothing more than an expression of sentiment and it's possible that the authors of the green New Deal who are again not aoc herself that they're unaware of this because they are rank amateurs you know I understand you won't take my word for it so here is a quick screenshot from the New York Times highlighted there in pinkish red the resolution is non-binding so even if Congress approves it nothing in the proposal would become law hunger for young people people of color to be activists but once it becomes like moves out of that space everyone's like okay now the real adults will come and fix it which actually means get out here the white man you know if you read the bill in American politics you say something as a bill before it's been passed into law if you read it carefully what it is actually expressing is that the United States recognizes certain things that's just like Bill Clinton passing a law saying the United States recognizes the terrible suffering of the indigenous people or the native people of light nothing wrong with that but it's very false and misleading to suggest that this would cost ten trillion dollars ten billion dollars or even ten million dollars this is absolutely nothing more than a contest over what we in the political science trade call motherhood statements now where does that phrase come from it comes from the tendency of some politicians at some points in the past to get up on stage and give speeches extolling the importance of motherhood reaching out the audience's saying you know what really makes America great as the mothers you know where would we be today without motherhood speechifying on something where there is really nothing to be won and nothing to be lost where there are no consequences for moral grandstanding that is precisely what the green new deal is now the mean discovery I made in researching for this video was that it's quite false to accuse a OC of having paid a private research group to write this on her behalf that was my initial concern and put up some screenshots here various people some left-wing some right-wing some just concerned observers have suggested that there is a moral quandary surrounding who got paid how and why to write the green new deal no point one even if it were true that AOC paid a consultancy firm to write this law for her in American politics that wouldn't just be legal that would be normal if someone like myself gets elected and I pay a lawyer to help me write something incorrect legalese there's nothing remarkable that almost every major politician in the last hundred years in the United States has paid someone to write his or her speeches for them quite often other people write legislation whether in broad outline or in detail or both that is like doing the organizing the people power part of it there's another aura called justice Democrats that essentially works with electeds and candidates to do it and then new consensus we develop the policy for the green new deal now maybe that should be illegal maybe there should be oh you could have a very interesting referendum or constitutional resolution that made politicians should have to write their own speeches and write their own laws but currently they're the states nobody expects that and that's norm so to start with that controversy is a bit of a tempest in a teapot but what I really discovered new in the research of this video is that the direction of the Association there is 180 degrees wrong the author of the green New Deal whose fingerprints are all over it in terms of its specific wording its tone its tenor everything about this is a woman named Rihanna gun right and um mysteriously she suddenly has been getting less and less positive press from her own colleagues because she took the dramatic step of endorsing Elizabeth Warren not Bernie Sanders whereas obviously aoc endorsed Bernie Sanders in recent democrat party competition for who might run for the ex president but that was up until quite recently rihanna gun-rights name has very much been front and center as the face of and the author of the green New Deal and if you look up the interviews she gave it's very clear that what really happened was this green New Deal pre-existed the political phenomenon of aoc rising to power so without getting into details new consensus is this somewhat questionable political consultancy firm that is now credited as authoring the green new deal and is employing Rihanna gun right to author the green New Deal however the authors at new consensus the sunrise movement and the Justice Democrat organization they all existed prior to and quite independent from AOC and her meteoric rise to both power and fame so it's not the case that this was a o'seas idea it's not the case that she authored it it's not the case that she hired this firm new consensus to write it for her those are false but plausible assumptions I understand why people whether they're left-wing right-wing moderate I understand why people would assume that given the role a OCS today in being you know the public face for announcing propounding the great huge evil but you really had nothing to do with her and from my perspective that is a very good thing I am profoundly committed to ecology if you were gonna write this law that calls for a 100 percent elimination of the use of fossil fuels and say let me let me taste like we could eliminate tobacco 100 percent people can stop smoking we could eliminate alcohol as a beverage 100 percent we could eliminate the eating of meats the drinking of Dairy Milk we could eliminate all those things that I'm presenting you know what's really hard to do it's really hard to replace all of the 18 wheel trucks that the United States of America relies on with some kind of truck that doesn't burn any fuel at all you know what's really hard to do is to go city by city coast to coast and find out where people's electricity comes from and generate all of that electricity with zero emissions right I'm sorry but if you if you want to use the word impossible as opposed to possible the fantasy of a vegan utopia it's actually much more possible and attainable than than any of the dreams that are set down in writing in the green New Deal all right the only problem with having a society that consumes zero meat is that people are addicted to meat it's the same problem with having a society that smokes your cigarettes all right but I am profoundly committed to ecology I was interested and committed to environmentalism ecology long before I became vegan was really as a consequence of that you know have to take responsibility for own actions in this life and it recognized the exponential difference it makes the difference you can make by being vegan personally but being a part of the vegan movement all right if it's less when I look at this law the first thing that was obvious to me is that the people who wrote it were amateurs and when I looked at the rhetoric that's used to sell this law to the public it was very very clear to me that these people are painfully ignorant in both politics and the science of economics so you may have noticed a Oh see herself Bernie Sanders himself everyone who is following the PlayBook set down by Rihanna gun right and Daman drummer they all repeat this rhetoric about World War two that all the United States needs to do is to be willing to get itself into debt to the same levels that happened during World War two show the same commitment that the United States had to making thousands of aircraft and thousands of tanks to defeat the Nazis in World War two and then this problem can be overcome and they present this without even the merest back-of-the-envelope calculation showing that for example you can go city by city and replace all the eighteen wheel trucks and replace all of the power plants that that's possible that achieving this hundred percent goal is possible at any price or what that price would be or how that compares to building a bunch of tanks well there is no there's no calculus it's just a moral assertion that if the United States were as committed as that were to world war two and we're willing to go into debt to the same level there won't do I got bad news for you right now the United States is in debt to the same extent that you were during World War two and that's why it's mind-blowing to me that all these people if they kind of put on these performances time and time again but they never actually show you the charts they never show you numbers they never do the math right if you look up the current United States GDP to federal debt ratio you're above 105 106 it's only gonna get worse under Donald Trump the absolute pinnacle of indebtedness in World War two tell you what a hundred and twelve point seven percent so you're already within a rounding error of being as close to bankruptcy as deeply in debt as you World War two and as you know there's no particular emergency in the United States of America you're already at the breaking point without trying to say conquer Western Europe Japan and etc you're not taking on any such well you know got a few wars in the last 10 or 20 years but in case you weren't paying attention you were already now in a situation just as dire and desperate as you were economically and politically in the United States of America at the peak of your debt crisis created by World War two so this is the rhetoric and its really worth pointing out the rhetoric already is broken now when I said before it's kind of natural and normal for someone like a OC to pay for a scriptwriter to pay for a researcher to pay for a consultancy front firm to draft legislation that's what they're paying for they're hoping that someone like Brianna done right with her impressive zoning degree from the University of Oxford they're hoping that someone that is going to provide them with youth useful rhetoric of this kind but Rihanna Gunn right is a nincompoop the people who were in charge of this particular very newly created organization new consensus all right these were not people who were in any way qualified or prepared to make the move from popular street activism just say agitation for politics to actually writing legislation and it was immediately strikingly obvious to me in reading the the law itself the bill itself that these were people whose experience was entirely in making bold proclamations on Twitter and they weren't even people who spend time reading legislation let alone writing legislation there is in fact a very good reason why street activists turn to kind of hardened experienced professionals when they get involved with the legalese and the details of writing law that's actually actionable that's actually implementable that can make a difference in the real world and that isn't just a declaration of good intentions of pious wishes for the world to be a better place that isn't just full of aspirations about racial equality and economic equality by the way if you have read it that's most of what the green util is about it reflects the personal philosophy of Rihanna gun right and the thematic interests of them on drummer it doesn't have a whole lot to do with ecology alright it's quite disappointing in that respect also it certainly doesn't reflect years of careful research into how to in an economically sustainable way bring about a transformation or a transition from a gasoline reliant economy to an economy that doesn't rely on gasoline that would be the sort of area that someone like AOC probably should pay a consultancy firm probably should pay researchers probably should pay experts to do millions of the horse of research she probably should be playing people to provide her with you know detailed guidelines in rhetoric and to draft laws for her the problem is she paid the wrong people the problem is she remained in bed width by which I mean politically entangled with a bunch of amateurs who just happened to be linked to the Justice Democrats and I'm sorry the sunrise movement prior to her rise to fame so the good news is I don't blame AOC for what's wrong with the green New Deal I hope for her this is kind of going to be a learning moment that she moves on from where she recognizes you know if you pay peanuts you work with monkeys like there's a reason why when you go to Washington DC you stop dealing with people who are just well-intentioned amateurs who have some kind of street cred for organizing protests connected to the Justice Democrats and you turn to and talk to people who really have some kind of profound depth of experience with the ways that politics work it's really tragic that at the beginning of a Oasys career she came into power surrounded by a bunch of amateurs who from my perspective just sincerely did not know the difference between making bold proclamations on Twitter and writing legislation that's going to make a real difference in the real world I'd love to say this is just the beginning of a OCS career and she's gonna have lots of other opportunities to make a big difference the world but we don't know that we don't know how many times she'll be able to hold up a bill and say that it's in the front page of every newspaper we don't know how many times she's gonna be able to capture the public interest or the sympathy of people within the elite the institutional support to really take an idea and run with it through the halls of power so AOC I hope this isn't your last chance this was your first chance and with all due respect you blew it