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by Jesse Harasta & Trevor Faria
Jesse Harasta and Trevor Faria are the Ecosocialist Committee’s Co-Chairs.
It is disappointing, but hardly surprising, to see Texas Gov Abbott blaming Socialism, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the Green New Deal for the heartbreaking suffering among Texans during this climate change-driven winter storm. Desperate to divert attention from the GOP, Abbot has blamed Green New Deal policies that have never been implemented in the state. The fact of the matter is, that the GOP has controlled every branch of Texas’s state government for nearly twenty years and bears complete responsibility for the state’s infrastructure failures.
While Abbot and company grope for scapegoats, the disaster in their backyards is the product of their own dogmatic adherence to deregulation and other capitalist principles that put corporate profit over public good. In the Democratic Socialists of America – in Syracuse, Texas and elsewhere – we are working to fight this theft, and protect vulnerable people and our climate by transferring these companies over to democratic public ownership. Heat and electricity are human rights, and the tragedy in Texas shows that without them, people die.
We, as socialists, stand in solidarity with the suffering working people of Texas and encourage them and our own neighbors here in New York to reject GOP propaganda and the false assumption that we can either have economic prosperity or environmental sustainability. What terrifies GOP politicians and their corporate allies most about the Green New Deal is that it is a path to both.
February 18, 2021