Political News is Filtered Through Lens of Well-Off White Political Junkie

That the House Republican farm bill would quite literally starve low-income families while shoveling billions in subsidies to agribusiness corporations? BOOOO-RING.

But hey, did you hear who's going to a pancake breakfast in Iowa this weekend? The Iowa caucus is only 30 months away! Never mind that it's failed to predict the Republican nominee two cycles in a row. HORSE RACE! It's on!

Your national political news is almost always filtered through the lens of someone who's white, middle to upper income, lives in the DC or New York City suburbs, drives more than relying on walking/biking/transit, never worries about where their next meal will come from, cares much more about political spin than policy impact, and thinks everyone sees the world the exact same way.

As Ezra Klein often says, "The first rule of being a political junkie is to always remember that you are a very weird person, and most people are not like you." Seems like very few political journalists ever get that introspective.

Another Inconvenient Truth: Sometimes American Politics Kill People

As the carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere rocket past 400 parts per million this week, what's more evident than ever is the inability of our political systems to respond to this crisis that's killing Americans right now and growing worse by the day.

Politicians and the reporters who cover them do NOT like hearing that. They absolutely hate being told that the American political system isn't responding fast enough to a crisis and that people might die as a result. This is how we do things! How dare you ask us to change just for your issue? The folks in industry don't tell us that we're accomplices in mass death and they throw really killer parties.

But we knew that cigarettes killed tens of millions of people and tobacco companies covered it up ... and Washington took decades to respond. We knew lack of health insurance killed millions of people and bankrupted millions of other families ... and Washington took decades to respond.

The climate crisis cannot be solved by horse trading. It cannot be solved by trying to say yes to everyone - to cutting carbon pollution AND to whatever Big Oil and Big Coal are demanding. And it cannot be solved by We'll Have to Leave It There journalism that tells viewers, "Scientists say this, polluter front groups say that, who can say what's true?"

We need what Grist's David Roberts calls wartime mobilization - an all of the above approach to cutting carbon emissions. Can Washington answer that call to action?

Impact Of Polluter Spending On Energy Policy Can't Be Ignored

It's always interesting when reporters try to make sense of politicians' energy positions while ignoring the influence of money in politics.

At the Washington Post's WonkBlog today, Brad Plumer says the Democratic platform is getting more oil- & coal-friendly because ... maybe locking in $4 a gallon gasoline with expensive "unconventional oil" isn't so bad? And jobs or something?

But energy policy isn't created in a vacuum - it's caught in the current of a river of oil money. Oil barons continue pouring ungodly amounts of money into bullying politicians:

The Koch brothers-backed nonprofit Americans for Prosperity and pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future combined to spend about $23.4 million against President Barack Obama during the second half of August.

That’s nearly 10 times the $2.44 million that Priorities USA Action, the main super PAC supporting Obama, spent against Romney, federal records show.

Now, one might think such spending would make Democrats fight for clean energy that much harder. But many Democrats still think appeasement works, and in some ways, that's reflected in the party platform. (Note that climate change is mentioned 18 times in the Democratic platform, so Democrats aren't exactly running away from tackling the climate crisis.)

Since 1990, energy & natural resources industries (mostly Big Oil, electric utilities & mining companies) have combined to give $640 million directly to candidates, a greater majority going to Republicans with each passing year. And in the last 15 years, electric utilities and oil & gas companies have combined to pour $3 billion dollars into lobbying.

All that money doesn't just influence politicians. How many polluter-funded commercials - from Koch-sponsored political ads to BP's image-scrubbing spots - does the average American see in a given week? Dozens?

Starbucks CEO's Political Advice: Stunningly, Self-Defeatingly, Cynically Wrong

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz blaming "Washington" for our problems is stunningly wrong. "Washington" did not take our economy hostage by creating a debt ceiling crisis. Republicans did. "Washington" did not turn down a $4 trillion deficit reduction package in the name of anti-tax orthodox. Republicans did.

I'm not saying all Democrats are blame-free, but reasonable Americans should not be mad at, say, Bernie Sanders. They should be mad at Republicans.

Saying reasonable Americans should stop contributing to all politicians regardless of sanity is self-defeatingly wrong. A friend approvingly posted Schultz's comments to Facebook, saying, "Stop feeding the monster."

But if you're reading this, you aren't one of the ones feeding the monsters. Just 150 wealthy people & couples have fed new Tea Party favorite Gov. Rick Perry $37 million and have seen a handsome return for their investment. Now as much as ever, America needs reasonable people to be engaged and reasonable politicians to be supported. Grover Norquist and the Koch brothers are not going to stop injecting huge sums of cash into funding Tea Party insanity. Telling reasonable people to boycott politics is equivalent to calling for only the forces of good to be disarmed.

Finally, refusing to assign blame to Republicans is cynically wrong. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) was the prime mover behind the Tea Party's creation of the voluntary debt ceiling crisis, and Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) & Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) went along with what they knew was bad politics & policy to avoid losing their leadership positions to the Tea Party hordes.

So why isn't Schultz blaming Republicans by name? It would be terrible for business! Can you imagine how much it money it would cost Starbucks if its CEO accurately blamed Republicans for creating political gridlock in an attempt to weaken Democrats & President Obama in advance of the 2012 election? Within minutes, GOP talking heads from Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity would be telling their millions of followers to get their lattes from Dunkin' Donuts until Schultz was fired, which he would be in short order. I don't see Starbucks' Wall Street investors standing up for him, do you?

Instead, Schultz takes the easiest of routes - blaming "Washington" and literally asking people to do nothing. Soak in praise from the frustrated while not having to actually stick your neck out to change anything.

Look, if change is going to come to Washington, it's not going to come from a billionaire who screwed over Seattle SuperSonics fans. It's going to come from millions of reasonable Americans deciding that even after a long day of getting the kids ready, getting the kids to school, going to work, putting up with their boss' shit, coming home, making dinner, cleaning up, and getting the kids to bed, they still have enough energy to put pen to paper and write their members of Congress letters asking them to stop fighting about how much to gut education spending and start talking about how much we can reasonably bring taxes back to Clinton-era levels to help build a better America.

And if your members of Congress don't listen to you, find someone to run against them and give them money and knock on doors for them. It's hard work and it takes a long time and you don't always win. But if you want to change things in Washington, we need more reasonable people to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work, not fewer.

Green Groups Giving Up Carrying The Torch For Carbon Pollution Limits?

In yesterday's post on how we need a climate bill not just individual action on Earth Day, I wanted to include a link to email your member of Congress to ask them to pass clean energy & climate legislation.

So I checked the website of the Sierra Club ... then Repower America ... then NRDC ... then the National Wildlife Federation ... then Greenpeace ... then Friends of the Earth ... and there could have been more ... before I finally found a climate bill action alert at the Environmental Defense Fund. I'm not saying there are definitely no climate bill email links at those groups' sites, but I couldn't find them with a few clicks & quick scanning.

If national conservation organizations aren't going to keep talking about limiting carbon pollution, who will?

I understand House Republicans aren't going to do much of anything that's positive on energy or environmental issues at all this year, never mind try to solve our biggest problems. When it comes to protecting public health & wildlife, we're playing defense this year, beating back attacks on the Clean Air Act & Clean Water Act. And after years of rallying around a climate bill, I can understand mixing in some other issues as well to keep people's eyes from going crossed.

But what I don't understand is the conservation groups' continued focus on compromises like renewable energy standards. If we're in a political climate in which nothing is achievable, why focus on the achievable? If you're going into a negotiation and you know the other person's going to say no, why water down your ask? Why not ask for what you really want?

The next milepost in this debate is January 2013. The House can only get more friendly to tackling the climate crisis, the Senate has about a 50/50 chance of staying where it is or getting friendlier, and President Obama is a good bet for reelection against a weak GOP field.

Now is the time to push the reset button and set the goal for the debate after the 2012 election (there can be plenty of watering down after that). Where do conservation groups want the carbon pollution debate to start? A carbon tax? Cap and trade? Cap and dividend? In a dreary time, let's dream big.