#TBT #1323 Maui Fire and Power to the People: The Future of Public Ownership and Local Control (Throwback)
Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy
Jay Tomlinson
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 18 August 2023
⏱️ 74 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Original Air Date 12-7-2019
In the context of the devastating fire on Maui, we are replaying this throwback episode to look at the reaction to decades of the fetishization of privatization in the form of a reinvigorated movement for public ownership of institutions meant to serve the public such as utilities, banks, train systems and so on. But this isn't your grandfather's top-down public ownership, the new movement has bottom-up, accountable, democratic control of institutions at the very core of its mission.
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SHOW NOTES
PG&E declared bankruptcy amid a number of lawsuits related to the wildfires. We speak with California Congressmember Ro Khanna, who is calling for the California state government to take over control of PG&E.
Ch. 2: When Power Goes Out, Who Is Held Accountable? - Building Local Power - Air Date 10-31-19
PG&E’s negligence and how a distributed energy system could avoid future outages and detrimental fire damage.
Ch. 3: Public Ownership 2.0 - Weekly Economics - Air Date 2-18-19
Public ownership is back on the agenda. But if privatization has failed, what kind of public ownership should replace it?
Ch. 4: From Private Profits to Public Alternatives - The Next System Podcast - Air Date 1-24-19
The conversation runs the gamut from the pitfalls of the privatization of goods and services to the social benefits of public ownership and envisioning democratic governance thereof.
Ch. 5: The Future of Banking - Ralph Nader Radio Hour - Air Date 6-29-19
Ralph welcomes Walt McRee President of Public Banking Associates, who explains how public banks should be the future of banking.
Ch. 6: Trinity Tran on Public Banking - CounterSpin - Air Date 10-11-19
Trinity Tran, co-founder and lead organizer for Public Bank LA and a founding member of the California Public Banking Alliance.
Ch. 7: Who’s Afraid of Public Ownership? - The Laura Flanders Show - Air Date 1-28-19
Laura in conversation with Thomas Hanna, research director at The Democracy Collaborative and author of “Our Common Wealth: The Return of Public Ownership in the United States”.
MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions)
Produced by Jay! Tomlinson
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to this throwback edition of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast, where |
| 0:07.3 | we remember the past and choose to repeat it. |
| 0:10.4 | Today's episode was originally published on December 12, 2019, and I wanted to play it |
| 0:15.6 | now because we are all still watching in horror as the extent of the devastation from the |
| 0:20.8 | Alahina wildfire on Maui is being measured in deaths and destruction. |
| 0:26.4 | While searching for the cause of the blaze, attention is quickly focused on the Hawaiian |
| 0:29.8 | Electric Utility, the privately owned company that supplies power to Maui and maintains |
| 0:35.0 | the electrical infrastructure. |
| 0:37.0 | Though no conclusive cause of the fire has yet been determined, there is early evidence |
| 0:42.0 | pointing to potentially sparking power lines as a possible starting point, prompting criticism |
| 0:48.2 | of the management of the company, similar to the criticism of the California utility Pacific |
| 0:53.9 | Assam Electric after they caused a wildfire in 2019. |
| 0:58.2 | Now the Wall Street Journal, no major critic of corporations, is one of many outlets to |
| 1:03.7 | write an article about this mismanagement. |
| 1:06.7 | There's was titled Hawaiian Electric New of Wildfire Threat, but Waited Years to Act. |
| 1:14.8 | In the article, they intimate that the utility was overly focused on converting to clean |
| 1:20.1 | energy, and that this was the cause of them taking their eye off the ball when it comes |
| 1:24.5 | to fire safety. |
| 1:26.1 | And this is exactly the takeaway, some much more explicitly right-wing outlets are echoing |
| 1:31.0 | from the article with headlines like Hawaiian Electric focused on climate change, comma |
| 1:35.9 | neglected wildfire risk, true but wildly misleading. |
| 1:41.3 | And that was one of the most innocuously framed versions of those right-wing headlines. |
... |
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