A funny parody about how absurd it would be if the tables were turned! Hypocrisy is often easily exposed by shiftly switching the parties to the conflict in the rhetoric and seeing if it makes any sense at all. As someone who was raised Christian, I know that progressively minded religious and spiritual folks often greatly outnumber the small, isolated, yet vocal groups of intolerant bigots. We need to elevate those moral voices and drown out the bigoted ones!

From The Nation magazine: “Labor’s War on Global Warming” by Jeremy Brecher, Tim Costello & Brendan Smith:

“Figuring out how to respond to global warming has been difficult for organized labor. The issue can pit union against union and unions against environmentalists. Now, however, a new alliance is developing around the idea of “green jobs”–the jobs that will be needed to rebuild our economy and drastically reduced greenhouse gasses.

Seemingly from nowhere, “green jobs” have emerged as a key issue in the presidential election. Barack Obama calls for a $150 billion investment in green-collar jobs. Hillary Clinton refers to renewable energy employment as “jobs of the future” that can create five million jobs. Even John McCain calls for research and development of green technology, calling it the “path to restore the strength of America’s economy.”

The stealth “green jobs” issue did not emerge from nowhere. Its prominence in the presidential debates results in good measure from the commitment of some, though by no means all, environmental and labor leaders to building an alliance for jobs that fight global warming.”

Green Jobs. Green Pathways Out of Poverty. Green Collar Jobs. A movement for a Green Economy. A Green Revolution. These terms are all starting to enter the corporate media - a very good sign. I can’t thing of anything more important or inspiring than what amounts to the growing foundations of a national anti-poverty movement.

How can this be pushed even further? Well, simple. What would a Clean, Green, and Democratically-Planned Economy look like? That’s the next series of questions progressives should bring to the movement debate. Americans will always love democracy and the democratic tradition. Using democratic language, and language of equality, liberty, human dignity, control of your own life, and justice will allow us to bring fundamentally transformational politics to the national scene. The sooner we begin the better.