A WWII ration book. People could supplement this by growing their own food (Victory Gardens). Similar books for gasoline, sugar…
Among the many DNC platform planks forced on the Hillary Clinton campaign by the Bernie campaign was a forceful item on climate and fighting global warming:
We believe the United States must lead in forging a robust global solution to the climate crisis. We are committed to a national mobilization, and to leading a global effort to mobilize nations to address this threat on a scale not seen since World War II. In the first 100 days of the next administration, the President will convene a summit of the world’s best engineers, climate scientists, policy experts, activists, and indigenous communities to chart a course to solve the climate crisis.
The bromide “World War II Style mobilization to solve climate change” has been repeatedly shared by Democrats (and voters who are disgusted with the climate denial coming from the Trump campaign). There’s no denying that Trump (and Gary Johnson of the Libertarian party) are in denial on climate change/global warming. But I’ve had problems with the Democrats’ stance on warming, which I’ve noted before. And everyone who’s read my work knows that I stand by the viewpoint that we’re on the way to Near Term Human Extinction. So although I believe the Democrats are ‘better’ on climate issues, they cannot do enough to unwind the warming problem we find ourselves in.
But the ‘better’ assumption about Clinton assumes she cares about the climate. That’s a big risk and is not guaranteed. Per one of her ‘paid speeches’, she excoriated environmental activists and treated their/our concerns as irrational. I’d point you to this article, where Clinton told protesters to ‘get a life’. In one of her other speeches, Clinton told listeners hat the Russians were behind the protests. The money quote:
On June 18, 2014, at a speech hosted by a promotional company called tinePublic, Clinton claimed “phony environmental groups” are “funded by the Russians.” She said the groups are pushed “to stand against any effort, oh that pipeline, that fracking, that whatever will be a problem, and a lot of the money supporting that message was coming from Russia.”
In short, Clinton ain’t a believer. That’s too bad, because it means she (and her acolytes) have NO CLUE what a World War II mobilization would look like.
I do.
I went through my parents’ things a few years ago after they had passed, and I came up with the ration books and cards my Grandfather had kept during the war. People really forget how much PERSONAL sacrifice was called for during the war years, but it was a lot.
There were wartime coupon books for gasoline and beef and milk and sugar.Cheese and cooking oils were also in short supply–people were encouraged to plant ‘victory gardens’.
- Gasoline rationed. Some folks didn’t drive from Pearl Harbor day to VJ day.
- No new autos built from 1942 to 1945. If your car needed to be replaced, you were out of luck.
- Tires in really low supply.
- Shortages in all sorts of consumer products–women’s hemlines went up because the fabric was going for uniforms and bandages. Women didn’t wear sheer stockings because the materials were being used for parachutes.
My grandfather spent the war years figuring out how to scam the system.He had found a scam where he could get an extra sugar ration if he raised bees on his tiny backyard. It was one of several such ‘deals’ he participated in. His little ‘war efforts’ also made it possible to buy a new tire for his car when his car hit a pot hole (the roads weren’t being maintained because asphalt is oil, and tires were rationed as well).
the ‘Murican people are freaking out about f*cking LIGHT BULBS and defending the FREEDOM to eat ourselves to an early grave thanks to junk food, and the DNC is saying we’re up for a mobilization that had Hollywood starlets not wearing sheer stockings to save materials for parachutes. We don’t have the collective will for people to get out of their cars in order to walk to the mailbox in their cul-de-sac–where’s the intestinal fortitude to limit gas purchases to a few gallons a month? Forget about the NTHE we all know is inevitable. people have forgotten how to do without.
And people put up with it during the war years only because they saw this as a limited time event–nobody would have ever accepted this as the permanent status quo. People in my dad’s hometown went apesh*t when the first 1946 model cars came out. The celebrations for the servicemen coming home didn’t stop because the beer ran out. There were Huzzahs (one of my nieces’ favorite words) in 1946. But if we’re serious about stopping warming (again, arguably it can’t be stopped), there will not be some joyous return to normal. Our austere ways will be the new normal.
And again–Hillary doesn’t believe it’s necessary. She comes from a political entity called the DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE, which used ‘centrist’ politicians like the Clintons and the Gores to throw New Deal Democrats under the bus when Reagan came on the scene. Look at how Clinton undercut his own majority leader, Dick Gephhardt, in order to get the trade bills passed and promote the ‘superpredator’ meme and the crack epidemic. DLC members triangulated the GOP and tried to steal their thunder on things like Welfare reform and law and order. At the heart of the negotiating tactic best used by Bill Clinton was the idea of creating ‘win-win’ policies that rewarded the big stakeholders by watering down the laws needed at the expense of the general population.
And that’s the problem with Global Warming–there is NO WAY to create ‘winners’. The war mobilization is a very apt metaphor, and Big oil interests will fight it every step of the way. You’re also going to have to see an end to practices like building suburban sprawl. There’s a whole host of things that will have to change. The ‘change’ candidate for the Dems was Bernie Sanders, and the corporate entities invested with Clinton would never accept a Sanders presidency. This is an election where people are looking for big change, and the other ‘change’ candidate is Trump, whose campaign promises a roll-back on the weak-tea environmentalism that already guarantees the planet will burn.
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..this is an excellent piece. Keep them coming TBCJ……………………………………….
Climate change requires strong international cooperation. US leadership needs to be a big part. The problem with Trump is that he will set back the whole world, not just the US.