350.org Again. I know.

I have spilled considerable digital ink criticizing 350 and its "leader" Bill Mc Kibben and this is just one more shot...but it occurs to me they have utterly failed at mobilizing any kind of climate movement and we see no sign that they have in any way re-considered their ideological underpinnings nor strategy. Today's email message is a call to "send thousands of comments within hours of Pruitt's announcement" to "send a strong message". Yeah right. They absolutely don't get it. The EPA, Pruitt, Trump, none of them give a rat's ass about "comments". But having boxed themselves into the regulatory corner, 350 now finds itself impotent and useless. And slowly taking the whole climate movement down with it.

But it is hardly alone. Look at the anti-war movement, Black Lives Matter, Fight for 15, Occupy, Indivisible, the Bernie folks, etc.., all the "progressive campaigns" that Rebecca Solnit finds inspiring, and tell me where they are hiding. Because I can't see them. Like 350, they chose to fight on the terrain of capitalist "democracy" and they are all sending useless "comments" to those who mock them. They litigate in courts whose judges mock them. They write letters to editors, they click online petitions, and send donations. They field candidates for the Democratic Party. But they pose absolutely no threat to anyone in a position of real power, have no idea where power really abides and have no desire to take power themselves.

350 will defend itself by pointing to "all the great thinks being done on the local level". Well I'm looking out my window and I see nothing changing. Maybe a few more hybrid vehicles, maybe a solar panel or two. The failure in messaging strategy is illustrated by this latest email as well. It proclaims: "The Clean Power Plan would prevent up to 6,600 premature deaths and 150,000 asthma attacks."

In the first place, the Plan was just a rule put in place by an agency, not legislation, so we knew that what the agency giveth, the agency taketh away. In other words, the big "change" they thought they had won was just an illusion. In the second place, not to minimize the seriousness of asthma attacks, but we are facing an existential crisis here, civilization collapse, a terrifying future on a global scale. But if you signal to people it is only about asthma and "premature deaths" (whatever that means), you both confuse them and pacify them. You make those telling the truth sound hyperbolic and you make people think a Presidential Agency Rule can save the earth. Which is bullshit.