By Richard Mellor in California
Angelle Bradford is a PhD candidate, a Doctoral student in physiology and medicine at Tulane University School of Medicine. According to a bio of her she researches atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. She is a useful member of society and her work hopefully will benefit all of us.
On June 15th of this year she appeared before the US Senate Environment and Public Works committee hearing to present a case for ending the production of plastics. It is a real short clip so I don’t know how far she went in to it.
But what inflamed me in this short clip is the smug millionaire senator Markwayne Mullin who questioned her. He opened up by saying he doesn’t “mean to be condescending” then he goes on to be condescending.
Apparently, she has made statements about the need to end plastic production and Mullin, being the loyal corporate hack that he is, goes on the offensive in order to undermine her basic tenet that we have to not simply curb plastics but stop producing it.
Fossil fuel and plastics industry lobby
The fossil fuel and chemical industry investors like him. He basically attacks her for not putting her money where her mouth is. She should stop using plastic, her glasses rims are plastic, the cap on her bottle is plastic, and so on.
My impression of Ms Bradford, given the limited information I discovered about her, is that she is a liberal, that she clearly wants to change things for the better and use her skills to that end. She is, as many liberals are, a little naïve, particularly when it comes to politics.
Mullin, on the other hand, is a millionaire businessman in one of the two big business parties (Republican) and he is a member of one of the most corrupt, rotten bunch of people on the planet. Putting it in a nutshell, Ms Bradford is a decent well-meaning, albeit naive person, who wants to improve the environment and our lives. Mullin is a self-serving representative of capital protecting the destructive forces of production owned by the class that he represents.
Mullin is a horrible character and he is a liar. If he were sincere, if he were actually representing the interests of the US working class or the “American people” in the Senate, he could have helped Ms Bradford develop her thoughts on this issue more, as there is no doubt that plastics are a real environmental problem and environmental destruction leading to a potential humanitarian crisis is real. Instead, without admitting his real intentions, defence of the fossil fuel and chemical industry and their profits, he wanted to make her argument look silly.
Now there’s a few of things I need to stress about this. I don’t fault Ms Bradford for being a little idealistic and also lacking some political savvy; we all have our pluses and negatives and she is in a real quagmire there, a real den of iniquity. Also, to be honest, I don’t know too much about atherosclerosis.
Imagine if there were real workers’ representatives there
Secondly, I was so frustrated that I was not there, to go after this cretin, Mullin and come to her aid in the argument and expose him for what he is doing, rather than accept that this activity in the Senate has some sort of principled, almost divine aspect to it – the so-called sanctity of the office and the institution.
Then imagine how different it would be, were there representatives from an independent working class party present, even a reformist one with a program that claimed to make capitalism more humane, which is not possible. It would affect the balance of class forces; it would open up the debate more.
Meanwhile, this Mullin millionaire can treat this woman this way about a subject that if, not dealt with, can lead to the end of life on earth as we know it, and there’s no uproar. The right winger that posted this video short loved it [hence the title on the video, see above] and while I have some issues with Greta Thunberg, her class background and limitations, I praise her for her efforts and also for not backing down despite massive abuse from right wing forces. Ms Bradford’s life activity is socially useful, Mullin’s is parasitical.
The heads of organized labour in the US are equally guilty, criminally negligent to be honest. They are the dogs that never bark, instead whining about the need to elect candidates from the “other” Wall Street party in the hope that might ease some pain, as we all slip backwards, no matter which of them is in power.
Biden and co just showed how much of a friend of labour they are by denying the railroad workers the right to strike, through introducing anti-union/worker legislation. They can pass legislation very quickly when profits are at stake.
Lastly, this episode is a perfect example of the dead end of identity or race politics and the primacy of the class struggle. Mullins is a Native American apparently, and an “enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation” whatever that means. He claimed that his buddy Trump had the election stolen from him. As a staunch opponent of abortion under any circumstances even rape or incest, many of the victims of that legislation will be Native American women. Where’s the solidarity there?
From the US socialist website Facts for Working People. The original can be found here.
