Language Baboons Loose and Running Amok
Disclaimer: this is not an April Fools joke post. This is real. I think.
Has the English language outlived its usefulness? Might as well butcher it and hang it up in a meat locker.
That’s the apparent attitude of a mysterious “working group” who seek to reconstruct our common tongue for what looks suspiciously like political purposes.
I don’t know who these baboons are, or how they got out of their cages, but would somebody please call the zookeeper and let him know?
New Report: Environmental Justice and the Green Economy
Team WE ACT, March 22, 2010 [here]
Can the climate be stabilized without a fundamental transformation of the global economy? Can we go green while billions go hungry? Can the environment be made healthy for those who can afford it, while people of color and the poor continue to live in degraded conditions? A group of US environmental justice leaders say “no” to all of the above. In a newly released report, these leaders advance a vision in which sustainability and justice - “justainability” - must be simultaneous results; that one simply cannot happen without the other.
The report includes case studies from low income communities and communities of color in Los Angeles, Navajo Nation, Harlan County Kentucky, Miami, Chicago, San Diego, New York, and Richmond California. Our cases show a diverse environmental justice movement shaping the future of the green economy at a very critical stage. As Stimulus funds are distributed and green economy resources are earmarked for “infrastructure” projects, it is vitally important for tools such as this report to be available and visible. The report concludes with 3 broad categories of recommendations for policy makers at all levels that:
1. Strive for full democratic participation.
2. Build capacity for a truly sustainable infrastructure and green economy.
3. Create and share “green” wealth.
We hope that you will use this publication in your organizing, leadership development, policy making, research, and public education efforts. Please help distribute this report to all who are striving towards a “justainable” future. …
We are now on the cusp of a great transition, as profound as that of the Industrial Revolution. Whether we emerge as a sustainable and healthy new world or fall into ecological collapse depends on the choices we make in this moment. President Obama has set a new tone for our democracy, based on making the right choices for our children and generations to come.
The unprecedented American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (“Stimulus” or ARRA) is a unique opportunity to promote change on a scale that has not been seen since the New Deal. How we spend $787 billion of our Federal funds may be the start of the greatest legacy our generation leaves to the future. …
As the “canaries in the coal mine” coming from “fence-line” communities, environmental justice communities have tremendous experience fighting unfair burdens and shaping sustainable and just alternatives.
My translation? Self-appointed ACORNistas want a piece of Porkulus, so they make up a new words like “justainability” and “fence-line communities” to impress the bureaucrats who are mucking out the Federal Treasury.
Team WE ACT are more like leaches than canaries. The great transition is your money to their pockets. They are Obama’s spawn. They wish to share your wealth.
The green economy will look a lot like the red economy of the Soviet Union under Stalin.
The saving grace here is that Team WE ACT are dumpster divers who had to collect spare change on the sidewalk to fund their website. They are not a force to be reckoned with.
But what do I know? It could be that Bill, Denise, Kalila, Penn, Burt et al will be millionaires a year from now. Welfare is the new boom industry. And we could all use a little more justainability in our lives, right?
Excuse me while I go burn my dictionary.
