Hopium

A Dose of Hopium

I love that term — “hopium” — wonderful actor and activist Joe Taylor gave it to me. Hope is indeed a dangerous drug. It can stop action, or replace it. It’s often deceiving. I fall for the best possible outcome, even when I know the alternatives.

We’ve all been studying the runes these recent weeks. What will Manchin and Sinema do when a final negotiated Build Back Better bill is delivered? Will the Progressive Caucus in the House really torpedo the good-ish infrastructure bill if the holdouts refuse to fund pre-K, lower drug prices, add dental and vision to Medicare, and save the planet? We’re all tuned, even when we don’t want to be.

Meanwhile, the electoral apocalypse approaches and the Jan 6 Commission works diligently, mostly in silence. When oh when do the indictments come? The big ones… For seditious conspiracy…? The Supreme Court Commission reportedly won’t urge Biden to pack the court. They will advise term limits. Will that be for what’s now referred to as the Thomas Court? Will democracy survive for the next Court?

We’re all tired. The crazy was supposed to end. Last year. Instead we got more pandemic, January 6, and now endless drama of studying Joe Manchin’s intestinal contents.

So where, Marty, is the hopium? Voila:

The suicide pact Jayapal and her progressives have formed — no big bill, no small one either — guarantees that the “moderates” will blink. Everyone gets fired next November if there’s no infrastructure deal. So we’re going to get the little one, which deserves the name Pothole Bill #1. And we’re going to get $2 trillion in mostly human investment which can begin to turn our foundering country is some correct directions. Expanding medical care and reducing the cost of drugs. Giving kids a decent start in life, and actually paying their caregivers. Maybe starting to address how all of us get cared for when we age out. And climate — OK, so we can’t have the $300 billion to shut down coal and gas plants. But we will get something pretty serious — a carbon tax is likely a dream too far, but the progressives won’t take nothing. Nor should we. If there’s no serious money for climate, kill both bills. And nuke this administration.

The so-called moderates holding our country and the world in their power-mad hands know what we know. Sinema also knows there’s a serious PAC already up and running, to primary her. Manchin may be safe, but he will be in a tiny minority in a year or so if he blows this. So….Hopium.

As for voting rights — the deadline for infrastructure is, appropriately, Halloween. Then we get Freedom to Vote for Thanksgiving. At least it’ll fill the headlines.

Listen, if the Dems blow infrastructure, there will be little need for voting rights because most folks will be so disgusted (and properly) that they won’t even try to vote in ’22, and possibly again in ’24. That isn’t hopium; that’s Marty when he’s pissed.

There are things afoot in the carbon space that are seriously hopeful. An iron ore mogul in Australia turning his mine green?… Wha? (check out the NY Times piece on this) China is allowing power cuts rather than build more coal plants. Tons of technology work afoot on new methods of carbon capture and manufacturing techniques (think steel fabrication) that doesn’t belch carbon like mad.

And if Manchin has his way, killing electric power plant provisions in BBB (because they truly finish coal) the Dems are going to ram some serious tax benefits for buying electric vehicles down his throat. And that could be a transformative thing. I’m in the market for a new car. I want an EV. Talk to me, Joe…

We have local work to do. In November we’re going to have a meeting around the topic of Sacrifice Communities — the black and brown people huddled around oil refineries and power plants here in So Cal, and indigenous peoples whose communities traddle oil and mineral extraction all over the planet. There are things to do right here, right now. Stay tuned for details and let’s get busy.

Progressives are going to take over the Burbank City Council next year and turn this into one of the leading green cities in the country. You will play a role in that.

So don’t feel bad. Things are grimmer than they ought to be. What’-his-name is still not in jail and his crazies rant every day. That will change. Congress is the same black hole of corrupt intent it’s been, but Primala and friends have our back. So does our own Adam Schiff. (I’m reading his book. Nice work!) All this stuff — equity, planet salvation, caring for the needy — is the work of a generation. Yes, we’re running out of time and democracy is faltering. But we are the folks who will hold the bulwark and buy our species and our world the time to turn away from the final precipice.

Now, don’t you feel better?

That’s hopium.