thenation--2020-12-16--How to Defeat the Fossil Fuel Industry

How to Defeat the Fossil Fuel Industry

As Donald Trump gave in to the demand that the transition process to the Biden years officially begin , the administration and its fossil-fuel allies doubled down on their efforts to implement destructive environmental policies that President Biden might try to reverse .
Those initiatives have included a campaign to jump-start oil drilling in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ; the approval by the US Army Corps of Engineers of the long-delayed Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline in Minnesota ; and a push by utility companies to obtain funding and permits for the construction of 235 gas-fired power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expectancy .
In response , horrified progressives have sought to pressure the president-elect to appoint officials committed to blocking these and other similar projects .
But the strategy of pressuring leading Democrats hasn ’ t worked particularly well for environmentalists in the past and doesn ’ t seem to be working now .
Despite the movement ’ s full-court press for a real environmentalist presence in the administration , Biden designated Congressman Cedric Richmond as his “ liaison ” with that very movement .
Richmond voted in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he was the fifth-largest recipient of fossil-fuel cash .
Fortunately , a more promising strategy for defeating new fossil-fuel projects has been quietly bearing fruit , even in the Trump era .
Climate and Indigenous organizers have been attacking Big Energy companies and their investors , using economic pressure , boycotts , lawsuits , and disruptive direct-action tactics to impede drilling , interrupt the transportation of oil and gas , and choke off the flow of financing to , and insurance for , such projects .
This multipronged strategy has been so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sources of funding—have begun divesting from fossil-fuel extraction and infrastructure .
As our desperately overheated planet continues setting records , understanding the largely unnoticed success of recent resistance movements is crucial if we hope to prevent total ecological collapse .
Why the Fossil-Fuel Industry Is Vulnerable , But the End of Fossil Fuels Isn ’ t Inevitable The fossil-fuel industry and its champions in Congress recently complained that financial institutions were “ discriminating against America ’ s energy sector.
” Specifically , banks were “ folding to activist environmental groups ’ pressure ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new oil and gas operations.
” Trump ’ s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ( OCC ) responded by trying to force Wall Street to fund drilling in the Arctic Refuge and undertake other new fossil-fuel initiatives .
Why have the banks suddenly become so unwilling to invest in a longtime favorite sector of theirs ?
One reason is that easy-to-access fossil fuels are getting scarcer .
In this era of “ extreme ” energy , companies have found themselves investing striking amounts of Wall Street capital ( and wreaking environmental @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and transport hydrocarbon deposits from deep oceans , the Arctic , oil sands , and shale .
At a time when oil prices were reliably above $ 80 per barrel , such projects were enormously profitable .
But the fracking boom of the Obama years burst that bubble , with oil prices dropping as low as $ 40 per barrel by 2015 and remaining well under $ 80 during the first three years of the Trump administration .
Meanwhile , renewable energy sources ( especially wind ) were growing cheaper by the month @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reducing the demand for carbon-based power .
The global spread of Covid-19 tanked energy demand , turning the drop in oil prices into a nosedive .
The pandemic itself , the economic lockdowns , the lack of travel that went with them , and a Saudi-Russian price war drove oil to a calamitous low of $ 19 per barrel in April 2020 .
The result was widespread bankruptcies among shale producers and weakening viability among major banks saddled with $ 300 billion in shaky hydrocarbon loans .
To prevent further losses , those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ projects , while oil companies wrote down the value of their reserves , implicitly acknowledging that many of them may never be extracted .
A number of experts are now predicting that the “ fracking revolution ” has entered a period of terminal decline .
This potentially dire situation helps explain the latest Trump initiatives .
In order to lock in the next generation of major fossil-fuel projects , the industry ’ s partisans must convince the major oil companies to borrow and invest the many billions of dollars needed to complete them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increasingly reluctant banks to fund the projects and induce insurers to underwrite ventures that are enormously risky .
This is a daunting but not impossible undertaking .
The history of capitalism is strewn with the carcasses of major industries that fell into terminal crisis and were overtaken by new competitors .
When it came to manufacturing , water power was replaced by electric power , just as fossil-fueled transportation replaced horses .
But history is also littered with industries that somehow survived the challenge of apparently superior substitutes .
The nuclear power industry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its monumental costs , poor performance , and the environmental catastrophes associated with it .
The reason : The US government invested vast resources in it , forced other institutions to do the same , and suppressed political and economic resistance to it .
The same thing could happen with fossil fuels .
The major carbon corporations wield so much power and remain so deeply embedded in the US economy that they can call on governments for subsidies to keep them afloat , no matter the economic ( let alone environmental ) irrationality @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s gambit in the Arctic Refuge , like his entire energy policy , has been anchored by attempts to increase such subsidies and so prolong the fossil-fuel era .
The industry giants are also using the current crisis to acquire bankrupt competitors at low prices and consolidate production into a ruling oligopoly .
The survivors could emerge even more powerful and so potentially even more capable of demanding handouts from the public .
Why Fossil Fuels Might Be Defeated Ironically , the Trump administration ’ s latest initiatives on behalf of fossil fuels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defeated .
Because investors are increasingly reluctant to fund troubled extraction and infrastructure projects , the industry has enlisted the US government to force them to do so .
The Arctic Refuge , a pristine wilderness area in Alaska where the Trump administration ’ s OCC and the industry have , absurdly enough , invoked antidiscrimination law ( alleging discrimination against both fossil-fuel producers and Indigenous Alaskans ) to try to compel the banks to invest , is the most obvious case of this .
Their desperation reflects just how effective the resistance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years .
All across the United States and Canada , climate and Indigenous organizers have successfully raised the level of risk attached to such investments .
The industry is highly vulnerable to delays in both drilling and the construction of the transportation infrastructure necessary to deliver oil and gas .
Delays raise production costs , while creating long-term uncertainty about the competitiveness of fossil fuels .
Green resistance movements have created a credible threat of chronic delays to and interruptions of such projects , leading major lenders to begin shifting from reluctance-to-invest to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ efforts to strong-arm lenders are based on its recent finding “ that some of the nation ’ s largest banks had stopped doing business altogether with one or more major energy industry categories.
” As Alaskan lawmakers put it grimly , the banks were increasingly “ folding to activist environmental groups ’ pressure.
” Why has that pressure worked ?
By obstructing drilling and the construction of infrastructure ( especially pipelines and power plants ) , the green movement has added to the industry ’ s operating costs in increasingly bad times , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ associated with those projects .
In this way , it ’ s won victories , even in a moment when the Trump administration was aggressively promoting fossil fuels , when a far-right majority controlled the Supreme Court , and when most congressional Democrats were sitting on their hands .
The movement has applied four mutually reinforcing strategies that , together , have often succeeded in blocking or at least delaying such projects and , in doing so , have rendered them ever less viable .
First , resistance groups mounted disruptive protests at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proposed oil and natural gas pipelines .
Actions against the Keystone XL and Dakota Access ( DAPL ) pipelines , led by Indigenous communities seeking to protect their lands from devastation , have been the most visible examples of this .
In addition to forcing months of delays in construction , these on-site protests inspired a broader movement against fossil fuels and gave added impetus to demands for regulators , judges , and politicians to intervene .
Second , the movement targeted regulators in an effort to prevent or postpone the issuing of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Obama era , federal regulators had mostly acted as “ rubber stamps ” for new fossil-fuel projects .
But the Standing Rock Sioux campaign against DAPL successfully pressured the Army Corps of Engineers to announce a new environmental review of the pipeline , delaying it until Trump took office .
Third , the movement has filed lawsuits based on industry violations of the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act ( NEPA ) and other laws .
Such suits often challenged the validity of permits already issued , which slowed down industry operations and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ point when regulators and politicians proved unresponsive .
Finally , it targeted the “ money pipeline , ” pressuring banks , insurers , and other large institutions to divest from fossil fuels .
Initially , this strategy was largely symbolic , but no longer .
It ’ s now adding to the financial difficulties of Big Energy .
Shell Oil Company , for instance , recently labeled the divestment movement a “ material risk.
” In the case of the Arctic Refuge , the movement ’ s pressure on Wall Street has made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ led investment firms to put pressure on insurance companies to steer clear of projects there .
This four-pronged strategy has yielded many victories and now poses a credible threat to future fossil-fuel projects .
In July 2020 , for instance , the business media announced a cascade of ominous news affecting four important pipelines : • A federal judge ruled that the DAPL permit was in violation of NEPA and ordered a time-consuming full environmental review .
Though the pipeline had been successfully built in North Dakota despite much resistance , it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anyway .
• An Indigenous landowners ’ lawsuit arguing that a second North Dakota pipeline , Marathon Oil ’ s Tesoro High Plains line , illegally trespassed on their territory led the Bureau of Indian Affairs to order its closing after 67 years of operation .
• The US Supreme Court upheld a ruling by a Montana district court judge that had stopped construction of the Keystone XL pipeline .
• Dominion Energy and Duke Energy cancelled their Atlantic Coast pipeline project “ after years of delays and ballooning costs.
” In response @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Energy Dan Brouillette complained that “ the obstructionist environmental lobby has successfully killed the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.
” His attitude reflected a growing exasperation among industry leaders who have recently decried the “ rising tide of protests , litigation , and vandalism ” against pipelines and warned that the movement is reaching a new “ level of intensity ” with “ more opponents ” who are “ better organized.
” Indeed , the resistance has increased pessimism among industry executives and their investors .
According to Bloomberg News , typically a gauge of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ energy companies are ever more often concluding that “ the mega-projects of the past are no longer feasible in the face of unprecedented opposition to fossil fuels and the infrastructure that supports them.
” The July decisions on the two North Dakota pipelines were especially significant since they threatened already operating projects .
As one former pipeline executive put it , this meant that even projects that successfully weathered a storm of protests and secured the necessary permits to operate remained vulnerable and might be shuttered long before repaying their immense debts .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s going to be incredibly difficult for anybody to invest in any kind of [ fossil-fuel ] infrastructure.
” Echoing his view , North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum warned that the DAPL ruling might be “ a tipping point , which actually could really cripple production in North Dakota.
” Even if the industry ultimately wins some of its current battles , it might not be able to keep investors on board .
The prospect that some future judicial decision could imperil their existing investments deprives them of “ certainty from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lobbying group warned in March .
This threat is compounded by the prospect that , in the Biden years to come , other parts of the government may finally begin taking action to stop climate destruction , which could leave fossil-fuel assets “ stranded.
” If the green movement can continue to disrupt the certainty that investing in oil fields and pipelines will return big profits , count on this : Capitalists will begin to desert fossil fuels big-time .
Billionaire investment strategist Jeremy Grantham predicts a tipping point in the near future @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the mounting threats to the fossil-fuel industry “ very slowly ” for a while and then “ all at once.
” The point of resistance , then , is to increase the delays , closures , and disruptions that make fossil fuels a risky investment , therefore ensuring that the “ all at once ” tipping point arrives before humanity crosses the threshold of irreversible catastrophe .
What does all this mean for the current movement to win a Green New Deal ?
Electing pro-GND candidates has helped place it on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ avoid the trap of investing all its energy and resources in electoral campaigns and lobbying .
The Democratic Party leadership , including President-elect Biden , has mocked the Green New Deal and committed itself instead to a dangerous “ all of the above ” energy policy that includes plenty of oil , gas , and nuclear power .
Even if Democrats were to win a Senate majority from the two January runoff elections in Georgia , Green New Deal legislation would remain a hard lift at best .
The environmental movement can , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a Green New Deal through the very same strategy that brought it victories during the Obama and Trump eras .
By obstructing fossil-fuel projects at every turn , it can deprive the industry of the Wall Street investments it needs and lead private investors to view renewables , ever cheaper to produce , as a safer option .
The government itself will be forced to invest in renewables in order to meet society ’ s energy needs and provide jobs to replace those lost when fossil-fuel projects are blocked , as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resistance to fossil fuels is the shortest and surest path to a renewable energy transition .
When you make the building of more pipelines and gas-powered plants so much harder , you also make the Green New Deal and a livable planet so much more possible .

Richard Lachmann, Michael Schwartz, Kevin Young

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
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As Donald Trump gave in to the demand that the transition process to the Biden years officially begin, the administration and its fossil-fuel allies doubled down on their efforts to implement destructive environmental policies that President Biden might try to reverse. Those initiatives have included a campaign to jump-start oil drilling in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; the approval by the US Army Corps of Engineers of the long-delayed Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline in Minnesota; and a push by utility companies to obtain funding and permits for the construction of 235 gas-fired power plants, each with a 30-year life expectancy.
In response, horrified progressives have sought to pressure the president-elect to appoint officials committed to blocking these and other similar projects. But the strategy of pressuring leading Democrats hasn’t worked particularly well for environmentalists in the past and doesn’t seem to be working now. Despite the movement’s full-court press for a real environmentalist presence in the administration, Biden designated Congressman Cedric Richmond as his “liaison” with that very movement. Richmond voted in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline and, among Democrats in the House, he was the fifth-largest recipient of fossil-fuel cash. Looking for last-minute holiday gifts with a conscience? Check out The Nation Shop and help support The Nation’s journalism while you complete your list.
Fortunately, a more promising strategy for defeating new fossil-fuel projects has been quietly bearing fruit, even in the Trump era. Climate and Indigenous organizers have been attacking Big Energy companies and their investors, using economic pressure, boycotts, lawsuits, and disruptive direct-action tactics to impede drilling, interrupt the transportation of oil and gas, and choke off the flow of financing to, and insurance for, such projects. This multipronged strategy has been so surprisingly successful that the companies themselves—especially their sources of funding—have begun divesting from fossil-fuel extraction and infrastructure. As our desperately overheated planet continues setting records, understanding the largely unnoticed success of recent resistance movements is crucial if we hope to prevent total ecological collapse.
Why the Fossil-Fuel Industry Is Vulnerable, But the End of Fossil Fuels Isn’t Inevitable
The fossil-fuel industry and its champions in Congress recently complained that financial institutions were “discriminating against America’s energy sector.” Specifically, banks were “folding to activist environmental groups’ pressure” by adopting “policies against investing in new oil and gas operations.” Trump’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) responded by trying to force Wall Street to fund drilling in the Arctic Refuge and undertake other new fossil-fuel initiatives. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung
Why have the banks suddenly become so unwilling to invest in a longtime favorite sector of theirs? One reason is that easy-to-access fossil fuels are getting scarcer. In this era of “extreme” energy, companies have found themselves investing striking amounts of Wall Street capital (and wreaking environmental devastation) to find, extract, and transport hydrocarbon deposits from deep oceans, the Arctic, oil sands, and shale. At a time when oil prices were reliably above $80 per barrel, such projects were enormously profitable. But the fracking boom of the Obama years burst that bubble, with oil prices dropping as low as $40 per barrel by 2015 and remaining well under $80 during the first three years of the Trump administration. Meanwhile, renewable energy sources (especially wind) were growing cheaper by the month and siphoning off investment capital, further reducing the demand for carbon-based power.
The global spread of Covid-19 tanked energy demand, turning the drop in oil prices into a nosedive. The pandemic itself, the economic lockdowns, the lack of travel that went with them, and a Saudi-Russian price war drove oil to a calamitous low of $19 per barrel in April 2020. The result was widespread bankruptcies among shale producers and weakening viability among major banks saddled with $300 billion in shaky hydrocarbon loans. To prevent further losses, those banks started to withhold funding for new projects, while oil companies wrote down the value of their reserves, implicitly acknowledging that many of them may never be extracted. A number of experts are now predicting that the “fracking revolution” has entered a period of terminal decline.
This potentially dire situation helps explain the latest Trump initiatives. In order to lock in the next generation of major fossil-fuel projects, the industry’s partisans must convince the major oil companies to borrow and invest the many billions of dollars needed to complete them. They must also convince or coerce increasingly reluctant banks to fund the projects and induce insurers to underwrite ventures that are enormously risky. Current Issue View our current issue
This is a daunting but not impossible undertaking. The history of capitalism is strewn with the carcasses of major industries that fell into terminal crisis and were overtaken by new competitors. When it came to manufacturing, water power was replaced by electric power, just as fossil-fueled transportation replaced horses. But history is also littered with industries that somehow survived the challenge of apparently superior substitutes. The nuclear power industry, for instance, has survived despite its monumental costs, poor performance, and the environmental catastrophes associated with it. The reason: The US government invested vast resources in it, forced other institutions to do the same, and suppressed political and economic resistance to it.
The same thing could happen with fossil fuels. The major carbon corporations wield so much power and remain so deeply embedded in the US economy that they can call on governments for subsidies to keep them afloat, no matter the economic (let alone environmental) irrationality of continued fossil-fuel production. Trump’s gambit in the Arctic Refuge, like his entire energy policy, has been anchored by attempts to increase such subsidies and so prolong the fossil-fuel era. The industry giants are also using the current crisis to acquire bankrupt competitors at low prices and consolidate production into a ruling oligopoly. The survivors could emerge even more powerful and so potentially even more capable of demanding handouts from the public.
Why Fossil Fuels Might Be Defeated
Ironically, the Trump administration’s latest initiatives on behalf of fossil fuels also reveal how the industry can be defeated. Because investors are increasingly reluctant to fund troubled extraction and infrastructure projects, the industry has enlisted the US government to force them to do so. The Arctic Refuge, a pristine wilderness area in Alaska where the Trump administration’s OCC and the industry have, absurdly enough, invoked antidiscrimination law (alleging discrimination against both fossil-fuel producers and Indigenous Alaskans) to try to compel the banks to invest, is the most obvious case of this.
Their desperation reflects just how effective the resistance to fossil-fuel projects has been in recent years. All across the United States and Canada, climate and Indigenous organizers have successfully raised the level of risk attached to such investments. The industry is highly vulnerable to delays in both drilling and the construction of the transportation infrastructure necessary to deliver oil and gas. Delays raise production costs, while creating long-term uncertainty about the competitiveness of fossil fuels. Green resistance movements have created a credible threat of chronic delays to and interruptions of such projects, leading major lenders to begin shifting from reluctance-to-invest to outright refusal.
The OCC’s efforts to strong-arm lenders are based on its recent finding “that some of the nation’s largest banks had stopped doing business altogether with one or more major energy industry categories.” As Alaskan lawmakers put it grimly, the banks were increasingly “folding to activist environmental groups’ pressure.”
Why has that pressure worked? By obstructing drilling and the construction of infrastructure (especially pipelines and power plants), the green movement has added to the industry’s operating costs in increasingly bad times, while leaving investors fearing the risks now associated with those projects. In this way, it’s won victories, even in a moment when the Trump administration was aggressively promoting fossil fuels, when a far-right majority controlled the Supreme Court, and when most congressional Democrats were sitting on their hands.
The movement has applied four mutually reinforcing strategies that, together, have often succeeded in blocking or at least delaying such projects and, in doing so, have rendered them ever less viable.
First, resistance groups mounted disruptive protests at extraction sites and along the routes of proposed oil and natural gas pipelines. Actions against the Keystone XL and Dakota Access (DAPL) pipelines, led by Indigenous communities seeking to protect their lands from devastation, have been the most visible examples of this. In addition to forcing months of delays in construction, these on-site protests inspired a broader movement against fossil fuels and gave added impetus to demands for regulators, judges, and politicians to intervene.
Second, the movement targeted regulators in an effort to prevent or postpone the issuing of permits for the projects. Even during the Obama era, federal regulators had mostly acted as “rubber stamps” for new fossil-fuel projects. But the Standing Rock Sioux campaign against DAPL successfully pressured the Army Corps of Engineers to announce a new environmental review of the pipeline, delaying it until Trump took office.
Third, the movement has filed lawsuits based on industry violations of the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other laws. Such suits often challenged the validity of permits already issued, which slowed down industry operations and provided the movement with an alternative choke point when regulators and politicians proved unresponsive.
Finally, it targeted the “money pipeline,” pressuring banks, insurers, and other large institutions to divest from fossil fuels. Initially, this strategy was largely symbolic, but no longer. It’s now adding to the financial difficulties of Big Energy. Shell Oil Company, for instance, recently labeled the divestment movement a “material risk.” In the case of the Arctic Refuge, the movement’s pressure on Wall Street has made big loans harder to obtain and also led investment firms to put pressure on insurance companies to steer clear of projects there.
This four-pronged strategy has yielded many victories and now poses a credible threat to future fossil-fuel projects. In July 2020, for instance, the business media announced a cascade of ominous news affecting four important pipelines:
A federal judge ruled that the DAPL permit was in violation of NEPA and ordered a time-consuming full environmental review. Though the pipeline had been successfully built in North Dakota despite much resistance, it is now at risk of being permanently closed anyway.
An Indigenous landowners’ lawsuit arguing that a second North Dakota pipeline, Marathon Oil’s Tesoro High Plains line, illegally trespassed on their territory led the Bureau of Indian Affairs to order its closing after 67 years of operation.
The US Supreme Court upheld a ruling by a Montana district court judge that had stopped construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Dominion Energy and Duke Energy cancelled their Atlantic Coast pipeline project “after years of delays and ballooning costs.”
In response to that last cancellation, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette complained that “the obstructionist environmental lobby has successfully killed the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.” His attitude reflected a growing exasperation among industry leaders who have recently decried the “rising tide of protests, litigation, and vandalism” against pipelines and warned that the movement is reaching a new “level of intensity” with “more opponents” who are “better organized.”
Indeed, the resistance has increased pessimism among industry executives and their investors. According to Bloomberg News, typically a gauge of Wall Street sentiments, the core big energy companies are ever more often concluding that “the mega-projects of the past are no longer feasible in the face of unprecedented opposition to fossil fuels and the infrastructure that supports them.”
A Tipping Point?
The July decisions on the two North Dakota pipelines were especially significant since they threatened already operating projects. As one former pipeline executive put it, this meant that even projects that successfully weathered a storm of protests and secured the necessary permits to operate remained vulnerable and might be shuttered long before repaying their immense debts. With that prospect, “I think it’s going to be incredibly difficult for anybody to invest in any kind of [fossil-fuel] infrastructure.” Echoing his view, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum warned that the DAPL ruling might be “a tipping point, which actually could really cripple production in North Dakota.”
Even if the industry ultimately wins some of its current battles, it might not be able to keep investors on board. The prospect that some future judicial decision could imperil their existing investments deprives them of “certainty from the government,” as one industry lobbying group warned in March. This threat is compounded by the prospect that, in the Biden years to come, other parts of the government may finally begin taking action to stop climate destruction, which could leave fossil-fuel assets “stranded.”
If the green movement can continue to disrupt the certainty that investing in oil fields and pipelines will return big profits, count on this: Capitalists will begin to desert fossil fuels big-time. Billionaire investment strategist Jeremy Grantham predicts a tipping point in the near future. He expects that investors will respond to the mounting threats to the fossil-fuel industry “very slowly” for a while and then “all at once.” The point of resistance, then, is to increase the delays, closures, and disruptions that make fossil fuels a risky investment, therefore ensuring that the “all at once” tipping point arrives before humanity crosses the threshold of irreversible catastrophe.
What does all this mean for the current movement to win a Green New Deal? Electing pro-GND candidates has helped place it on the legislative agenda, but the movement must avoid the trap of investing all its energy and resources in electoral campaigns and lobbying. The Democratic Party leadership, including President-elect Biden, has mocked the Green New Deal and committed itself instead to a dangerous “all of the above” energy policy that includes plenty of oil, gas, and nuclear power. Even if Democrats were to win a Senate majority from the two January runoff elections in Georgia, Green New Deal legislation would remain a hard lift at best.
The environmental movement can, however, still move this country closer to a Green New Deal through the very same strategy that brought it victories during the Obama and Trump eras. By obstructing fossil-fuel projects at every turn, it can deprive the industry of the Wall Street investments it needs and lead private investors to view renewables, ever cheaper to produce, as a safer option. The government itself will be forced to invest in renewables in order to meet society’s energy needs and provide jobs to replace those lost when fossil-fuel projects are blocked, as the climate movement has long demanded. Direct resistance to fossil fuels is the shortest and surest path to a renewable energy transition. When you make the building of more pipelines and gas-powered plants so much harder, you also make the Green New Deal and a livable planet so much more possible.


thenation--2020-12-17--Shakespeare’s Contentious Conversation With America

Before Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton asserted that slavery had been a “ necessary evil ” and urged that the US military be deployed in American cities “ in an overwhelming show of force , ” he made a quieter but equally extreme proposal during an appearance on the Fox News show Sunday Morning Futures .
While railing against allowing STEM students from China to study at US universities , he staked a claim for what counts as our foundational national texts .
“ If Chinese students want to come here and study Shakespeare and the Federalist Papers , that ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America , ” he said .
Shakespeare in a Divided America : What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future Using Shakespeare as an ideological cudgel is rooted in the country ’ s history of conflict , and Cotton ’ s screed confirms what literary scholar James Shapiro shows in his latest book , Shakespeare in a Divided America : For a couple of centuries—at least since Tocqueville noticed that in America “ there is hardly a pioneer ’ s hut that does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the same canon .
While Cotton may be wielding Shakespeare for another volley in the conservative culture wars , progressives have used the plays for their own ends , too .
Just this July , for instance , New York ’ s Public Theater teamed up with the city ’ s public radio station , WNYC , to transform its canceled Shakespeare in the Park production of Richard II into a superb podcast , the action framed by discussions with actors and with scholars like Shapiro .
With a predominantly BIPOC cast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Saheem Ali ’ s production boldly invited us to hear race and gender in a story , as Shaprio points out , that begins with a politically charged killing that the authorities refuse to take responsibility for and that sets off an uprising .
Describing how such bipartisan utility requires a shared idea of the work ’ s value , Shapiro notes , “ Shakespeare ’ s plays remain common ground , one of the few places where Americans can meet and air their disparate views.
” Looking for last-minute holiday gifts with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Shop and help support The Nation ’ s journalism while you complete your list .
Shapiro surveys the battlefield by looking at what he calls “ eight defining moments in American history ” when disputes over Shakespeare revealed deep and abiding sociopolitical rifts .
Other Shakespeareans have responded to our times by seeking lessons in the plays for how we might comprehend , cope with , and maybe climb our way out of the current political abyss .
Stephen Greenblatt ’ s polemical Tyrant : Shakespeare on Politics , for instance ( expanded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eve of the 2016 election ) , never names Donald Trump , but it evokes him on every page as Greenblatt shows how Shakespeare “ grappled again and again with an unsettling question : how is it possible for a whole country to fall into the hands of a tyrant ?
” Jeffrey R. Wilson ’ s Shakespeare and Trump more bluntly examines the uses of the plays in a MAGA world , probing , for example , the Shakespeare-quoting political punditry of the 2016 election cycle .
Shapiro , in contrast , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ predate our current crisis , not so much mining the plays for nuggets of contemporary insight as assessing them as cultural artifacts that have acquired layers of meaning by dint of their bipartisan utility over time .
Most of all , he argues , they have been used as a means for Americans to engage race , class , gender , sexuality , and immigration , issues they otherwise don ’ t know how to talk to one another about .
For decades , Marxism , feminism , queer theory , and critical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voluminous field of Shakespeare studies to reveal how the plays and their performance traditions have grappled with these very matters .
Shapiro is certainly informed by such work—the bibliography for each of his eight chapters mentions his indebtedness to some of the scholars focusing such lenses—but it is not where he turns to make his case .
Rather , as in his previous books , A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare:1599 and The Year of Lear : Shakespeare in 1606 , he entwines cultural analysis with character-driven narrative .
In A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ It is no more possible to talk about Shakespeare ’ s plays independently of his age than it is to grasp what his society went through without the benefit of Shakespeare ’ s insights.
” Apparently , the same is true of the United States in any age .
The seeds for Shapiro ’ s new book were planted in a 2014 anthology he edited for Library of America : Shakespeare in America , a nearly 800-page collection of essays , parodies , diatribes , comedy routines , letters , and poems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ century that expound upon the plays in one way or another .
Some of these primary materials animate Shapiro ’ s latest project , among them John Quincy Adams ’ s essay objecting to Desdemona ’ s marriage to Othello as “ a violation of the law of nature ” ; John Wilkes Booth ’ s letter quoting Julius Caesar to justify his plan to assassinate Abraham Lincoln ; and “ A School Boy Hamlet , ” a 1946 short story—by a Japanese American , Toshio Mori , incarcerated in an internment camp—that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the way Shakespeare was staged .
In Shakespeare in a Divided America , Shapiro narrates around such texts to bring their authors into scenes of conflict with contemporaries who expressed opposing views about Shakespeare , which is to say , about politics .
We see , for example , the emergence of “ Manifest Destiny ” in 1845 as an aggressive , masculinist vision of America competing with a gentler image of manhood through the contrast between a production of Othello and another of Romeo and Juliet .
The former took place @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mexican border , where soldiers sought to expand the territory for slavery ; a young , lithe Ulysses S. Grant had been cast as Desdemona but was replaced by an imported actress before he could go on .
In contrast , the butch lesbian Charlotte Cushman was enjoying international success playing Romeo , more capable than any man at the time of conveying both his tender heart and his derring-do .
Class conflict and anti-abolitionism were at the core of the infamous Astor Place Riots of 1849 , in which proletarian New Yorkers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new opera house as well as its presumed support for abolition , by violently disrupting a production of Macbeth and then breaking up a nearby meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society .
Protests escalated three nights later ; scores were killed and hundreds wounded .
In 1916 , as part of celebrations marking the tercentenary of Shakespeare ’ s death , an adaptation of The Tempest , called Caliban by the Yellow Sands , cast hundreds of diverse New Yorkers ( and locals in other cities where it was performed ) in an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power of moral education—even as lawmakers were hatching national quotas for immigration , promoting eugenics , and holding up Shakespeare as a banner of the Anglo-Saxon character of the United States .
Over time , Shapiro notes , “ It turns out that who gets to perform in Shakespeare ’ s plays is a fairly accurate index of who is considered fully American.
” An eye-opening analysis of Kiss Me Kate shows how the daring 1948 musical based on The Taming of the Shrew—cowritten by a woman and a closeted gay man—was tweaked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a back-to-the-kitchen fable of suburban whiteness only five years later , scrubbed clean of its Black characters and queer innuendo .
Shapiro ’ s discussion of the blockbuster 1998 film Shakespeare in Love—which he juxtaposes against the concurrent Bill Clinton sex scandal—details how debates over the film ’ s ending hinged on attitudes toward women .
Producer Harvey Weinstein unsuccessfully pressed for a conclusion in which a heterosexualized Shakespeare ( Joseph Fiennes ) could keep his mistress ( Gwyneth Paltrow ) on the side by offering her parts in his plays from time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s the actor John Wilkes Booth who is the book ’ s most appalling figure .
In a gripping middle chapter , Shapiro traces Booth ’ s and Lincoln ’ s parallel passions for Shakespeare up to their violent intersection at the Ford Theater in April 1865 , by which point Booth had been thoroughly radicalized by white supremacists .
Booth likened himself to Julius Caesar ’ s Brutus , imagining that he was saving America from a tyrant and would be remembered as a hero ; instead , Lincoln was mourned as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leader felled by a cruel assassin .
As a play that addresses how a republic should respond to threats of autocracy , Julius Caesar makes a fitting bookend to the volume as well .
Shapiro begins by recounting the uproar over the 2017 New York production at the Public Theater ’ s Shakespeare in the Park and returns to it at the end to draw a pessimistic conclusion .
Featuring a blustery , orange-tinted Caesar in a blue suit and long red necktie , whose high-fashion wife spoke with a distinctly Eastern European @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from right-wing media , which alleged that it advocated the assassination of the president .
An Obama stand-in would never have been tolerated as Caesar , conservative pundits huffed , ignoring an unperturbed 2012 coproduction by the Acting Company and Guthrie Theater that was set in contemporary Washington , D.C. , cast a lanky African American in the title role , and gave him fist-bumping counselors .
Shapiro served as an adviser to the Shakespeare in the Park Julius Caesar , so he can offer an inside view of how the controversy intensified @ @ @ @ @ @ @ run : fulminations on Breitbart and Fox News ; performance interruptions , death threats against cast members , and menacing phone calls to the wife and daughter of director Oskar Eustis ; the pulling of corporate sponsorship by Delta Airlines and Bank of America ; and a disavowal from the National Endowment for the Arts , which announced that none of its funds had supported the play .
Even theaters in other cities that had nothing to do with the production but simply had “ Shakespeare ” in their names ( there are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States ) were attacked by Trump supporters .
This sort of lashing out by a rabble too amped up to consider the facts—not least that the play shows political violence to be counterproductive and morally indefensible—leads Shapiro to despair .
After all , he reasons , those raging against the production weren ’ t simply disagreeing with its interpretation ; they were refusing to acknowledge what actually happens in the plot .
And by proudly disdaining any need to engage the work itself , he notes , they were abandoning the two-century-long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plays .
That ’ s a sign that Americans ’ common ground has collapsed into a sinkhole of political muck , Shapiro warns , going so far as to suggest that we may be facing the kind of civil war that , in 1642 , closed England ’ s theaters altogether for nearly two decades .
I hope this prediction is too dire .
The right has not actually abandoned Shakespeare to the extent Shapiro fears .
Not all of it , anyway .
Republicans are divided between those who decry art ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a liberal conspiracy and those who still hold tight to the conservative end of the rope in what Shapiro calls the ongoing “ tug-of-war over Shakespeare in America.
” So Shapiro can take heart : Shakespeare is not likely to be canceled anytime soon .
The National Endowment for the Arts keeps funding its Shakespeare in American Communities program ( begun in 2002 under George W. Bush ) , and his work is so frequently staged in this country that when American Theatre magazine publishes its annual list of most produced plays , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as not to skew the results .
With our own theaters closed amid the Covid-19 pandemic and much of the country sheltered at home , Shakespeare has been the go-to playwright for bringing back as well as for rebuke—after all , he wrote King Lear while quarantined during an outbreak of bubonic plague .
Well , actually , as Shapiro ’ s earlier work clarifies , Lear was written during a respite from the periodic eruptions of plague that closed the theaters for various stretches during Shakespeare ’ s lifetime .
He turned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up images of pestilence , cankers , and “ potent and infectious fevers.
” In this period , Shapiro has noted , his work was subject to rejectionists every bit as vituperative as the disruptors trying to shut down Caesar in the Park .
Anti-theatrical Puritans railed against the theaters constantly ; one , Shapiro recounts in The Year of Lear , reasoned that since “ the cause of plagues is sin ” and “ the cause of sin are plays , ” then “ the cause of plagues are plays.
” One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to do with how it made a mockery of their beliefs .
It flouted Levitical proscriptions against cross-dressing ( especially in the convention of adolescent boys playing female characters ) , while acting itself ran counter to the idea of identity as a God-given immutability .
More than any of his contemporaries , Shakespeare called attention to these representational fissures of the genre , winking at the contradictions between what one sees and hears—that a bare wooden platform stage is a battlefield or a forest or the cliffs of Dover , that a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for that matter , that an Elizabethan man the ruler of ancient Rome or prince of late medieval Denmark .
So while a tangled plot might seem to be straightened out in the end , with order restored by , say , a marriage , the means of its telling injects doubt into that resolution : The bride is still a boy .
There ’ s spectatorial pleasure—which riled the Puritans—in holding two things in the mind at the same time .
It is this capacious incitement of the imagination , more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ universality , ” that has kept them so vital and volatile for centuries .
And that , along with Shakespeare ’ s tendency to use stories of the past to address issues of his present , have left them open to radical possibilities today .
Both of these expansive factors scale up the simple but all-important fact that these are plays : a dialectical form in which characters with a range of conflicting views gain our empathy , even our identification .
If conservatives are losing the tug-of-war that Shapiro chronicles so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plays—especially in production—resist the constricting closure the right insists on , while more diverse Americans are laying claim to them .
Senator Cotton may be trying to deny federal funding to any school that teaches the 1619 Project , but he blithely misses the progressive potential of the one author named as part of the common core : Shakespeare .

Before Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton asserted that slavery had been a “necessary evil” and urged that the US military be deployed in American cities “in an overwhelming show of force,” he made a quieter but equally extreme proposal during an appearance on the Fox News show Sunday Morning Futures. While railing against allowing STEM students from China to study at US universities, he staked a claim for what counts as our foundational national texts. “If Chinese students want to come here and study Shakespeare and the Federalist Papers, that’s what they need to learn from America,” he said. Books in Review Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future By James Shapiro Buy this book
Using Shakespeare as an ideological cudgel is rooted in the country’s history of conflict, and Cotton’s screed confirms what literary scholar James Shapiro shows in his latest book, Shakespeare in a Divided America: For a couple of centuries—at least since Tocqueville noticed that in America “there is hardly a pioneer’s hut that does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare”—reactionaries and radicals alike have fired from the same canon. While Cotton may be wielding Shakespeare for another volley in the conservative culture wars, progressives have used the plays for their own ends, too. Just this July, for instance, New York’s Public Theater teamed up with the city’s public radio station, WNYC, to transform its canceled Shakespeare in the Park production of Richard II into a superb podcast, the action framed by discussions with actors and with scholars like Shapiro. With a predominantly BIPOC cast and a woman playing Bolingbroke, director Saheem Ali’s production boldly invited us to hear race and gender in a story, as Shaprio points out, that begins with a politically charged killing that the authorities refuse to take responsibility for and that sets off an uprising. Describing how such bipartisan utility requires a shared idea of the work’s value, Shapiro notes, “Shakespeare’s plays remain common ground, one of the few places where Americans can meet and air their disparate views.” Looking for last-minute holiday gifts with a conscience? Check out The Nation Shop and help support The Nation’s journalism while you complete your list.
Shapiro surveys the battlefield by looking at what he calls “eight defining moments in American history” when disputes over Shakespeare revealed deep and abiding sociopolitical rifts. Other Shakespeareans have responded to our times by seeking lessons in the plays for how we might comprehend, cope with, and maybe climb our way out of the current political abyss. Stephen Greenblatt’s polemical Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics, for instance (expanded from an op-ed he published on the eve of the 2016 election), never names Donald Trump, but it evokes him on every page as Greenblatt shows how Shakespeare “grappled again and again with an unsettling question: how is it possible for a whole country to fall into the hands of a tyrant?” Jeffrey R. Wilson’s Shakespeare and Trump more bluntly examines the uses of the plays in a MAGA world, probing, for example, the Shakespeare-quoting political punditry of the 2016 election cycle. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung
Shapiro, in contrast, mostly looks back to Shakespearean disputes that predate our current crisis, not so much mining the plays for nuggets of contemporary insight as assessing them as cultural artifacts that have acquired layers of meaning by dint of their bipartisan utility over time. Most of all, he argues, they have been used as a means for Americans to engage race, class, gender, sexuality, and immigration, issues they otherwise don’t know how to talk to one another about.
For decades, Marxism, feminism, queer theory, and critical race theory have been opening up the voluminous field of Shakespeare studies to reveal how the plays and their performance traditions have grappled with these very matters. Shapiro is certainly informed by such work—the bibliography for each of his eight chapters mentions his indebtedness to some of the scholars focusing such lenses—but it is not where he turns to make his case. Rather, as in his previous books, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare:1599 and The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606, he entwines cultural analysis with character-driven narrative. In A Year in the Life he wrote, “It is no more possible to talk about Shakespeare’s plays independently of his age than it is to grasp what his society went through without the benefit of Shakespeare’s insights.” Apparently, the same is true of the United States in any age.
The seeds for Shapiro’s new book were planted in a 2014 anthology he edited for Library of America: Shakespeare in America, a nearly 800-page collection of essays, parodies, diatribes, comedy routines, letters, and poems from the American Revolution to the 21st century that expound upon the plays in one way or another. Some of these primary materials animate Shapiro’s latest project, among them John Quincy Adams’s essay objecting to Desdemona’s marriage to Othello as “a violation of the law of nature”; John Wilkes Booth’s letter quoting Julius Caesar to justify his plan to assassinate Abraham Lincoln; and “A School Boy Hamlet,” a 1946 short story—by a Japanese American, Toshio Mori, incarcerated in an internment camp—that criticized how racism shaped both the country and the way Shakespeare was staged.
In Shakespeare in a Divided America, Shapiro narrates around such texts to bring their authors into scenes of conflict with contemporaries who expressed opposing views about Shakespeare, which is to say, about politics. We see, for example, the emergence of “Manifest Destiny” in 1845 as an aggressive, masculinist vision of America competing with a gentler image of manhood through the contrast between a production of Othello and another of Romeo and Juliet. The former took place at a US Army camp on the Mexican border, where soldiers sought to expand the territory for slavery; a young, lithe Ulysses S. Grant had been cast as Desdemona but was replaced by an imported actress before he could go on. In contrast, the butch lesbian Charlotte Cushman was enjoying international success playing Romeo, more capable than any man at the time of conveying both his tender heart and his derring-do.
Class conflict and anti-abolitionism were at the core of the infamous Astor Place Riots of 1849, in which proletarian New Yorkers fought the upper crust’s restricted new opera house as well as its presumed support for abolition, by violently disrupting a production of Macbeth and then breaking up a nearby meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Protests escalated three nights later; scores were killed and hundreds wounded. In 1916, as part of celebrations marking the tercentenary of Shakespeare’s death, an adaptation of The Tempest, called Caliban by the Yellow Sands, cast hundreds of diverse New Yorkers (and locals in other cities where it was performed) in an outdoor pageant celebrating the “civilizing” power of moral education—even as lawmakers were hatching national quotas for immigration, promoting eugenics, and holding up Shakespeare as a banner of the Anglo-Saxon character of the United States. Over time, Shapiro notes, “It turns out that who gets to perform in Shakespeare’s plays is a fairly accurate index of who is considered fully American.”
An eye-opening analysis of Kiss Me Kate shows how the daring 1948 musical based on The Taming of the Shrew—cowritten by a woman and a closeted gay man—was tweaked and twisted for the movie version into a back-to-the-kitchen fable of suburban whiteness only five years later, scrubbed clean of its Black characters and queer innuendo. Shapiro’s discussion of the blockbuster 1998 film Shakespeare in Love—which he juxtaposes against the concurrent Bill Clinton sex scandal—details how debates over the film’s ending hinged on attitudes toward women. Producer Harvey Weinstein unsuccessfully pressed for a conclusion in which a heterosexualized Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) could keep his mistress (Gwyneth Paltrow) on the side by offering her parts in his plays from time to time.
Still, it’s the actor John Wilkes Booth who is the book’s most appalling figure. In a gripping middle chapter, Shapiro traces Booth’s and Lincoln’s parallel passions for Shakespeare up to their violent intersection at the Ford Theater in April 1865, by which point Booth had been thoroughly radicalized by white supremacists. Booth likened himself to Julius Caesar’s Brutus, imagining that he was saving America from a tyrant and would be remembered as a hero; instead, Lincoln was mourned as Macbeth’s Duncan, a rightful leader felled by a cruel assassin.
As a play that addresses how a republic should respond to threats of autocracy, Julius Caesar makes a fitting bookend to the volume as well. Shapiro begins by recounting the uproar over the 2017 New York production at the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park and returns to it at the end to draw a pessimistic conclusion. Featuring a blustery, orange-tinted Caesar in a blue suit and long red necktie, whose high-fashion wife spoke with a distinctly Eastern European accent, the performance drew immediate denunciations from right-wing media, which alleged that it advocated the assassination of the president. An Obama stand-in would never have been tolerated as Caesar, conservative pundits huffed, ignoring an unperturbed 2012 coproduction by the Acting Company and Guthrie Theater that was set in contemporary Washington, D.C., cast a lanky African American in the title role, and gave him fist-bumping counselors.
Shapiro served as an adviser to the Shakespeare in the Park Julius Caesar, so he can offer an inside view of how the controversy intensified over the show’s nearly four-week run: fulminations on Breitbart and Fox News; performance interruptions, death threats against cast members, and menacing phone calls to the wife and daughter of director Oskar Eustis; the pulling of corporate sponsorship by Delta Airlines and Bank of America; and a disavowal from the National Endowment for the Arts, which announced that none of its funds had supported the play. Even theaters in other cities that had nothing to do with the production but simply had “Shakespeare” in their names (there are some 150 summer Shakespeare festivals in the United States) were attacked by Trump supporters.
This sort of lashing out by a rabble too amped up to consider the facts—not least that the play shows political violence to be counterproductive and morally indefensible—leads Shapiro to despair. After all, he reasons, those raging against the production weren’t simply disagreeing with its interpretation; they were refusing to acknowledge what actually happens in the plot. And by proudly disdaining any need to engage the work itself, he notes, they were abandoning the two-century-long fight over the shifting meanings of the plays. That’s a sign that Americans’ common ground has collapsed into a sinkhole of political muck, Shapiro warns, going so far as to suggest that we may be facing the kind of civil war that, in 1642, closed England’s theaters altogether for nearly two decades.
I hope this prediction is too dire. The right has not actually abandoned Shakespeare to the extent Shapiro fears. Not all of it, anyway. Republicans are divided between those who decry art (and science) as a tool of a liberal conspiracy and those who still hold tight to the conservative end of the rope in what Shapiro calls the ongoing “tug-of-war over Shakespeare in America.” So Shapiro can take heart: Shakespeare is not likely to be canceled anytime soon. The National Endowment for the Arts keeps funding its Shakespeare in American Communities program (begun in 2002 under George W. Bush), and his work is so frequently staged in this country that when American Theatre magazine publishes its annual list of most produced plays, it eliminates Shakespeare from the count so as not to skew the results. With our own theaters closed amid the Covid-19 pandemic and much of the country sheltered at home, Shakespeare has been the go-to playwright for bringing back as well as for rebuke—after all, he wrote King Lear while quarantined during an outbreak of bubonic plague.
Well, actually, as Shapiro’s earlier work clarifies, Lear was written during a respite from the periodic eruptions of plague that closed the theaters for various stretches during Shakespeare’s lifetime. He turned toward writing tragedies then, sometimes conjuring up images of pestilence, cankers, and “potent and infectious fevers.” In this period, Shapiro has noted, his work was subject to rejectionists every bit as vituperative as the disruptors trying to shut down Caesar in the Park. Anti-theatrical Puritans railed against the theaters constantly; one, Shapiro recounts in The Year of Lear, reasoned that since “the cause of plagues is sin” and “the cause of sin are plays,” then “the cause of plagues are plays.”
One reason the Puritans protested the theater had to do with how it made a mockery of their beliefs. It flouted Levitical proscriptions against cross-dressing (especially in the convention of adolescent boys playing female characters), while acting itself ran counter to the idea of identity as a God-given immutability. More than any of his contemporaries, Shakespeare called attention to these representational fissures of the genre, winking at the contradictions between what one sees and hears—that a bare wooden platform stage is a battlefield or a forest or the cliffs of Dover, that a boy is Cleopatra or Juliet or, for that matter, that an Elizabethan man the ruler of ancient Rome or prince of late medieval Denmark. So while a tangled plot might seem to be straightened out in the end, with order restored by, say, a marriage, the means of its telling injects doubt into that resolution: The bride is still a boy. There’s spectatorial pleasure—which riled the Puritans—in holding two things in the mind at the same time.
It is this capacious incitement of the imagination, more than an Enlightenment idea of the plays’ “universality,” that has kept them so vital and volatile for centuries. And that, along with Shakespeare’s tendency to use stories of the past to address issues of his present, have left them open to radical possibilities today. Both of these expansive factors scale up the simple but all-important fact that these are plays: a dialectical form in which characters with a range of conflicting views gain our empathy, even our identification.
If conservatives are losing the tug-of-war that Shapiro chronicles so nimbly, it’s because the plays—especially in production—resist the constricting closure the right insists on, while more diverse Americans are laying claim to them. Senator Cotton may be trying to deny federal funding to any school that teaches the 1619 Project, but he blithely misses the progressive potential of the one author named as part of the common core: Shakespeare.


thenation--2020-12-17--Throw Money at the Problem

Throw Money at the Problem

When austerity-minded politicians of both major parties run out of arguments for refusing to fund human needs , they inevitably default to the line , “ You can ’ t just throw money at the problem.
” They ’ re wrong .
Savvy economists have recognized for a long time that one of the best things to do during a time of crisis is to get money , lots of it , to people who are suffering .
That ’ s why the Coronavirus Aid , Relief , and Economic Security Act that was approved in March included direct payments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for individuals , $ 2,400 for couples , and $ 500 per child under age 17 .
And that ’ s why 60 grassroots groups—including People ’ s Action , Public Citizen , Center for Popular Democracy Action , MoveOn , Indivisible , and the Working Families Party—last week argued , “ Congress can not continue to ignore the hunger , pain and economic uncertainty that millions of people are facing .
People need access to cash to survive the next round of job losses , to pay for rent and food , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ order to meet the gravity of this crisis , Congress must prioritize direct economic relief that families and workers desperately need right now.
” Looking for last-minute holiday gifts with a conscience ?
Check out The Nation Shop and help support The Nation ’ s journalism while you complete your list .
Progressives in Congress heard the call and ramped up pressure on congressional negotiators who were preparing a coronavirus relief package that did not include direct payments .
With a sense of moral and practical urgency sufficient to meet a moment when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and tens of millions are experiencing hardship and uncertainty , Senator Bernie Sanders , Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Pramila Jayapal , Representative Ro Khanna , and their allies on the left demanded that the stimulus package feature direct payments to working families .
It appears that their efforts worked .
The roughly $ 900 billion coronavirus relief deal that Congress is expected to consider before its holiday recess will include a new round of payments to cash-strapped Americans , along with enhanced unemployment benefits .
The Washington Post reported Wednesday afternoon , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ include hundreds of billions of dollars in aid for ailing small businesses and jobless Americans ; tens of billions of dollars in aid for other critical needs , such as vaccine distribution and schools ; and a one-time check of between $ 600 and $ 700 for millions of Americans below a certain income threshold.
” Republicans Will Take Their Assault on Democracy to Congress—and It Will Be Awful Bernie Sanders : ‘ Democracy Has Gotten a Reprieve With Biden ’ s Victory .
That ’ s All It Is.
’ Senator Ron @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Has a Boss , a Don That ’ s less than what progressives have been demanding .
But it ’ s an acknowledgement of the need for direct payments—and a critical starting point for demanding more .
While much of the media is portraying this development as the product of 11th-hour discussions between Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell , Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer , House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy , the reality is that direct payments wouldn ’ t be part of the package if progressives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in particular , was unenthusiastic about proposals to steer money to working families .
The majority leader wanted a stimulus package focused on aiding business , and it looked for a time like he would get it .
The $ 748 billion proposal that a bipartisan working group released at the start of the week included no plan for sending checks to Americans .
Progressives looked at the proposal and cried foul .
Sanders was especially ardent : As a result of the pandemic , tens of millions of Americans are facing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ afford to pay their rent and face eviction , they can ’ t afford to go to the doctor , they can ’ t afford to feed their children and they are going deeper and deeper into debt .
Congress can not go home for the Christmas holidays until we pass legislation which provides a $ 1,200 direct payment to working class adults , $ 2,400 for couples , and a $ 500 payment to their children .
This is what Democrats and Republicans did unanimously in March through the CARES Act .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ today .
Blunt statements came from House members , such as Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar , who asked , “ Why is it that whenever it is down to last minute negotiations the people that are being compromised are the ones that are hardest hit ?
” Her answer : “ Americans need direct cash payments to be able to feed their children .
That shouldn ’ t be up for negotiation .
And I won ’ t vote for it.
” Jayapal announced , “ The Progressive Caucus is united in our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ include survival checks and enhanced unemployment assistance—the two most effective ways to put money directly in people ’ s pockets.
” The Seattle Democrat and leading members of the caucus backed that message up with a letter to leadership that explained : We know that direct cash payments provide real economic support for individuals and families , and they put this money right back into the economy .
Studies on the impact of the CARES Economic Impact Payments showed that within the first 10 days , households spent an average of 29 cents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the majority of their spending went towards paying for basic necessities , such as food , rent , and bills .
This was especially the case for low-income individuals and households .
A relief package should include direct payments of at least $ 2,000 for all working individuals and families .
In contrast , the letter noted , the payments to businesses favored by McConnell and many moderate Democrats “ had far less of a targeted impact due to the inefficiencies of the program.
” The call for direct payments was amplified by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Representative Barbara Lee ( D-Calif. ) , who tweeted , “ Stimulus checks can ’ t wait.
” Referencing McConnell ’ s scheming to protect multinational corporations from accountability for harming workers , former Progressive Caucus cochair Mark Pocan of Wisconsin declared , “ The American people don ’ t need liability shields for crooked corporations .
They need survival checks NOW.
” It ’ s clear : Congressional leaders and the groups of bipartisan negotiators crafting a deal felt the pressure and didn ’ t want a revolt against the relief package @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they started to move .
But they haven ’ t moved enough .
As Khanna , the California Democrat who has been the House ’ s leading advocate for direct payments , says , “ Any deal must have a survival check and expanded UI .
But a single $ 600 check will not cover the last 8 months of rent .
We need to also keep pushing for $ 2000 monthly checks until the crisis ends.
” With Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan , Khanna has for months worked to enact the Emergency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plan the pair cosponsored to provide a $ 2,000 monthly payment to every qualifying American over the age of 16 for up to 12 months .
“ Americans need sustained cash infusions for the duration of this crisis in order to come out on the other side alive , healthy , and ready to get back to work.
” Khanna calls the progress that ’ s been made “ a step in the right direction , ” adding , “ We now have the benchmark that any future Covid deal has to have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only way , he says , “ to truly support the American working class.
” In this crisis moment , direct payments make economic , social , and political sense—because there are times when the right solution to a problem is , in fact , to throw money at it .

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When austerity-minded politicians of both major parties run out of arguments for refusing to fund human needs, they inevitably default to the line, “You can’t just throw money at the problem.”
They’re wrong. Savvy economists have recognized for a long time that one of the best things to do during a time of crisis is to get money, lots of it, to people who are suffering. That’s why the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act that was approved in March included direct payments to Americans of up to $1,200 for individuals, $2,400 for couples, and $500 per child under age 17. And that’s why 60 grassroots groups—including People’s Action, Public Citizen, Center for Popular Democracy Action, MoveOn, Indivisible, and the Working Families Party—last week argued, “Congress cannot continue to ignore the hunger, pain and economic uncertainty that millions of people are facing. People need access to cash to survive the next round of job losses, to pay for rent and food, to keep their families alive. In order to meet the gravity of this crisis, Congress must prioritize direct economic relief that families and workers desperately need right now.” Looking for last-minute holiday gifts with a conscience? Check out The Nation Shop and help support The Nation’s journalism while you complete your list.
Progressives in Congress heard the call and ramped up pressure on congressional negotiators who were preparing a coronavirus relief package that did not include direct payments. With a sense of moral and practical urgency sufficient to meet a moment when millions of Americans are struggling to survive, and tens of millions are experiencing hardship and uncertainty, Senator Bernie Sanders, Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Pramila Jayapal, Representative Ro Khanna, and their allies on the left demanded that the stimulus package feature direct payments to working families.
It appears that their efforts worked. The roughly $900 billion coronavirus relief deal that Congress is expected to consider before its holiday recess will include a new round of payments to cash-strapped Americans, along with enhanced unemployment benefits. The Washington Post reported Wednesday afternoon, “The package emerging is expected to include hundreds of billions of dollars in aid for ailing small businesses and jobless Americans; tens of billions of dollars in aid for other critical needs, such as vaccine distribution and schools; and a one-time check of between $600 and $700 for millions of Americans below a certain income threshold.” Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung More From John Nichols A GOP Debate Without Trump Is the Definition of Pointlessness August 11, 2023 A Win for Abortion Rights, a Win for Democracy: Ohio Voters Reject Issue 1 August 9, 2023 The Biggest Threat to Donald Trump Could Be the Constitution Itself August 4, 2023
That’s less than what progressives have been demanding. But it’s an acknowledgement of the need for direct payments—and a critical starting point for demanding more.
While much of the media is portraying this development as the product of 11th-hour discussions between Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, the reality is that direct payments wouldn’t be part of the package if progressives hadn’t played hardball.
McConnell, in particular, was unenthusiastic about proposals to steer money to working families. The majority leader wanted a stimulus package focused on aiding business, and it looked for a time like he would get it. The $748 billion proposal that a bipartisan working group released at the start of the week included no plan for sending checks to Americans.
Progressives looked at the proposal and cried foul. Sanders was especially ardent:
As a result of the pandemic, tens of millions of Americans are facing economic desperation. They can’t afford to pay their rent and face eviction, they can’t afford to go to the doctor, they can’t afford to feed their children and they are going deeper and deeper into debt. Congress cannot go home for the Christmas holidays until we pass legislation which provides a $1,200 direct payment to working class adults, $2,400 for couples, and a $500 payment to their children. This is what Democrats and Republicans did unanimously in March through the CARES Act. This is what we have to do today.
Blunt statements came from House members, such as Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar, who asked, “Why is it that whenever it is down to last minute negotiations the people that are being compromised are the ones that are hardest hit?” Her answer: “Americans need direct cash payments to be able to feed their children. That shouldn’t be up for negotiation. And I won’t vote for it.”
Jayapal announced, “The Progressive Caucus is united in our position: any COVID relief package must include survival checks and enhanced unemployment assistance—the two most effective ways to put money directly in people’s pockets.”
The Seattle Democrat and leading members of the caucus backed that message up with a letter to leadership that explained:
We know that direct cash payments provide real economic support for individuals and families, and they put this money right back into the economy. Studies on the impact of the CARES Economic Impact Payments showed that within the first 10 days, households spent an average of 29 cents from every dollar received, and that the majority of their spending went towards paying for basic necessities, such as food, rent, and bills. This was especially the case for low-income individuals and households. A relief package should include direct payments of at least $2,000 for all working individuals and families. Current Issue View our current issue
In contrast, the letter noted, the payments to businesses favored by McConnell and many moderate Democrats “had far less of a targeted impact due to the inefficiencies of the program.”
The call for direct payments was amplified by leading progressives in Congress, such as Representative Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who tweeted, “Stimulus checks can’t wait.”
Referencing McConnell’s scheming to protect multinational corporations from accountability for harming workers, former Progressive Caucus cochair Mark Pocan of Wisconsin declared, “The American people don’t need liability shields for crooked corporations. They need survival checks NOW.”
It’s clear: Congressional leaders and the groups of bipartisan negotiators crafting a deal felt the pressure and didn’t want a revolt against the relief package that highlighted its many inadequacies. So they started to move.
But they haven’t moved enough. As Khanna, the California Democrat who has been the House’s leading advocate for direct payments, says, “Any deal must have a survival check and expanded UI. But a single $600 check will not cover the last 8 months of rent. We need to also keep pushing for $2000 monthly checks until the crisis ends.”
With Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan, Khanna has for months worked to enact the Emergency Money for the People Act, a plan the pair cosponsored to provide a $2,000 monthly payment to every qualifying American over the age of 16 for up to 12 months. “Americans need sustained cash infusions for the duration of this crisis in order to come out on the other side alive, healthy, and ready to get back to work.”
Khanna calls the progress that’s been made “a step in the right direction,” adding, “We now have the benchmark that any future Covid deal has to have direct payments.” It’s the only way, he says, “to truly support the American working class.”
In this crisis moment, direct payments make economic, social, and political sense—because there are times when the right solution to a problem is, in fact, to throw money at it.