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I’ve already posted about one of these, earlier, and neither is really yet at the point of being anything like what you could call a real “mission accomplished,” and etc., etc., so-on so-forth.

But I think the combination of these two positive policy developments, on the same day, is enough to really demand a brief note. Not often do we get even one item of good news like these, however compromised, let alone both:

• Obama Administration Rejects Keystone Pipeline Proposal
• Sopa: US backers end support for anti-piracy bill

That’s not too bad. Both of these proposals epitomize the “migod can we just not do this completely stupid unhelpful horrible abomination” ideas that are all-too common in American politics. Yeah, sure, the list of reasons for restraining the urge to celebrate is long and familiar: Neither measure is really necessarily “dead” yet; industry-backed monstrosities like these are never really truly “dead” anyway. Even if stopped, for now, they’ll sneak back. Neither measure’s defeat really amounts to any kind of actual progress. Nor do these limited little “non-defeats” come close to being “enough” relative to the big-picture of the challenges we’re facing. Nothing ever seems like it is or will be enough.

All true, but, aside from the fact that if this is about as good as we ever actually do we might as well take the opportunity to celebrate when we can because otherwise we’ll eventually just die without ever having let ourselves enjoy the feeling of winning…

I also, in particular, want to make note of these events because (not entirely by coincidence) this was also a day when a friend of mine went online to basically just announce complete despair at any hope for American politics, ever, and declare that “money always wins, every time, without exception.” I tried to offer up a rather hair-splitting argument that “I think you go a little bit too far on the pessimism” and he wasn’t even having that.

And it’s hard to definitively refute his argument about the protests against SOPA, that they don’t mean beans, and this thing is only looking wobbly because other big rich corporations have lined up in opposition to the big rich corporations who want it passed.

But, hey, look! Today has offered up a second example of effective popular resistance to atrocious corporate-sponsored legislation… and… I think the Obama administration’s “no thanks” to Keystone XL looks a lot tougher to dismiss as “money canceling out money.” Where’s the big money interest in obstructing the Keystone XL pipeline? You can say what you want about the resistance to Keystone, you can say it’s a misfit combination of differing interests aligned by happenstance, you can say this move is just a cynical election-year calculation by Obama, I can’t disprove any of this. But I think it’s very tough to say that what’s happening, on this issue, is anything other than rich, determined corporations losing.

So let ‘em stick that in their pipeline and smoke it.

P.S. I just visited the White House web site, to send a note of thanks (employ positive reinforcement!) and had a look at the White House blog. They’ve got posts on both of these measures, and while there’s a cover-your-ass quality to them, the closing paragraph of the post on Keystone XL is pretty doggone good:

…the idea, as some in Washington have tried to suggest, that building a pipeline is the ultimate answer to the question of American energy security and job creation is nothing more than a pipe dream. The truth is that just two of the Administration’s programs – the DOE Loan Guarantee Program and the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards – will create more than 10 times the amount of jobs generated by the Keystone XL pipeline, which will only generate a few thousand temporary jobs. In terms of reducing America’s dependence on oil, the Administration’s fuel economy standards alone will save more than twice the amount of oil the Keystone pipeline would deliver.

So good job, administration; keep the faith and don’t get scared to keep saying these things when Republicans start waving the Keystone veto around like a bloody shirt this fall, and condemning it for “causing high gas prices” and “preventing job-creation.”