On Defeat

Something reformists spend little time discussing is the effect defeated campaigns have on movement momentum. We can go a long way back, but let's just start with "single payer healthcare", now morphed into "medicare for all". All that effort come to naught. Massive donations and volunteer hours poured into a failed campaign that sends a message to young, progressive reformers. Moving forward we saw the Dream Act, the Paycheck Protection Act, the For the People Act, the PRO Act and now the Voting Rights Advancment Act all heading down the same toilet I call capitalist "democracy". Spectacular un-politics dressed up to look like popular participation. But thoroughly circumscribed by the economy. We can pretty much predict this is where the Green New Deal is headed as well. Anyway, along with this legislation and these aspirational proposals we can include environmental campaigns that were defeated: Enbridge pipelines in B.C., expansion of tar sands in Alberta, new oil and gas leases here in the west, not to mention day to day struggles over timber sales and habitat loss and water quality, fisheries, predator protection etc. etc. The Enbridge Line 3 will soon be filled with tar sands oil despite all those lockdowns and arrests. Others will be discouraged by this blow. Many will point to the cancelling of the Keystone XL and Standing Rock as victories proving the effectiveness of the movement. Yes, some proposed coal export terminals have been cancelled. But for the most part polluting activities have just been exported overseas and campaigns for reform end up in litigation for years or just get wore down by corporate power and wealth. Standing Rock, just forced a technical delay, it did not stop oil from moving through the Dakota Access pipe. Mainstream progressive organizers believe these campaigns build empowerment but when a campaign goes down in defeat, the exact opposite occurs and we don't hear much about that effect. I am not saying the struggle is over or that it is doomed; only that organizers need to think long and hard about how to build campaigns and not use the same, tired playbook. They need to see the sham of regulation and legislation for what it is.

Innovation

Exxon Mobile is throwing out brilliant little ads about their concern for the climate and the way to a greener future. As they explain it ( soft voice over, warm music, lots of smiling children)this happens through "innovation"; that is, the new technologies that will appear if we just give these corporations lots of money and then get out of the way of the free market. Their first-rate scientists will come up with ways to not only avert the crisis, but provide security and prosperity for all. Why wouldn't we take them at their word? And thanks to the brilliance of capitalist "democracy", Exxon Mobile looks to be recieving about 30 billion of our hard-earned tax money to pursue their "carbon capture" scheme. Yes, that would be the wonderful, Sanders endorsed Infrastructure Bill and Sanders inspired Reconciliation Bill providing this largess ("Most progressive legislation we've seen in decades" blah blah. And what could be wrong with carbon capture and sequestration, you ask? Well the captured carbon is sold back to Exxon Mobile so they can inject it into their wells and squeeze out the last bits of oil. To burn to make more CO2!I said they were brilliant, right? It is not only capitalist corporations looking to innovation to save the system; well-meaning Green types are getting in on the act as well. Respected economist Robert Pollin has been developing plans for various states that allow them to phase out fossil fuels but "still enable cars, trains, buses and airplanes to keep running; and for industrial machinery of all types to keep operating".But is that really the goal? The highly regarded Mark Jacobson, a Stanford researcher, has developed similar plans for "100% Clean Electricity" and Uber optimists like Chris Nelder and Carbon Trackers Kingsmill Bond scoff at the idea that there should be any limits to how much energy humans can produce. As to damaging impacts, they simply assert that these can be "managed". But that's always been the dilemma hasn't it, the crux of the bisquit (as Frank Zappa called it). Managed damage is still damage, just as regulated pollution is still pollution.

The Reign of Comfort

Over at Cushvlog, Matt Christman makes the case that the workers movement and their sense of class belonging was annihilated by comfort, treats and the goodies. That they were bought off at the end of WW11 and assimilated into the ruling order by the availability of these treats during the Great Expansion. As Gramsci would put it, they were thoroughly hegemonized. It is a simple case of the "mind forged manacles" taking the place of physical repression, of co-optation through manipulated consensus. As a direct result, co2 emissions have quadrupled since 1950, basically the output of my generation. What this suggests (and I think there is truth to this analysis)is that what is required to move beyond the status quo is actually discomfort. Those suffering the slings and arrows of exploitation, deprived of the fruits of their labor (toys and Disneyworld), will be less willing to cooperate in their own enslavement. But what THIS suggests is that any reformist agenda, including so-called "non-reformist" or "structural" reforms ( a la Andre Gorz and DSA) is counter-revolutionary. All efforts to help are palliative, symptomatic treatments that leave, or even obscure, the disease. Giving it more chance to fester. No idea is less popular in leftist circles than that of "heightening the contradictions". The basic theory of change adopted by the radical left insists that through this reformist campaign people are organized and having experienced success, will make increasingly radical demands. But history has not born this out. It has been the case that reforms mollify the workers and lend the system of capitalist "democracy" an air of legitimacy. A kinder, gentler, greener capitalism is seen as possible through enlightened policy. The question at this stage of crisis is whether privation will simply send the masses over to fascism and Q-Anon. One way or another, austerity is coming to the middle classes and no matter how distracted people are by their smart-phones, an empty belly or flooded house will bring up the anger. This is why we should be talking about relinquishment rather than 100% electricity.

State of Confusion

Many of the local patriots sport a bumper sticker on their giant flag waving trucks that say: "love my country- fear my government". They have no problem volunteering for the military because that is protecting their country and has nothing to do with government. Right? And they love Trump because even though he was president he wasn't part of the government. The country they love is the landscape they can drive their truck through, the actual dirt and now private property that was stolen from the natives. They don't fear the capitalists that profit off their labor and sell them all the junk they are enslaved by, no, it is the government with its mandates and regulations and bureaucracy that strikes terror in their hearts. Because they would rather die a free man than be forced to wear a mask. And they do, every day. Because masks are for girly men, for wimps who are afraid of a lttle virus, when they should be afraid of legislators and government agencies and the evil civil service people who staff them. Like the Forest Service. And FEMA. Patriots aren't afraid of bankers, because what could a banker really do, except maybe foreclose on your house. And repossess your Truck. And Boat. And Camper and Jet Skis and Snowmobiles. What you should fear is the IRS and the police- no, actually the police are fine- except when they aren't. Whatever. Game wardens, yeah, they're scary. Don't tread on me Warden dude.

"Creating an Understanding"

Reading the excellent report put out by the Indigenous Environmental Network on carbon taxes/ pricing schemes, I found this at the very end in the "what-is-to-be-done" section. Somehow, the work of "creating an understanding" has to take priority. Coincidentally, because this is a subject I have pondered a great deal on, I picked up a couple of books on the subject of ideology and its hegemonic power. This is basically the complex task of "creating an understanding", one which proves popular and spreads, ultimately affecting the political sphere. Capitalism is the near perfection of this process. From its roots as an economic system, it has successfully spread and embedded itself in every sphere, from philosophy to popular culture. And most sucessfully, it has neutered politics, turning them into a Spectacular form of enetertainment for your passive enjoyment ( even joissance). By co-opting the primary sphere in which it was theoretically able to be challenged, it has achieved a hegemony barely dreamed of by its early proponents. That means this project of "creating an understanding" which is countervailing to the imperatives of capitalism is a tricky bit of business. And not as easy as setting up billboards, writing books or blogs, or giving good speeches. The indigenous folk, along with Deep Greens, are prosletyzing, promoting a spiritual cosmovision for us moderns to adopt. Gramsci saw the process unfolding thusly: "The realization of a hegemonic apparatus, in so far as it creates a new ideological terrain, determines a reform of conciousness..." The project is the creation of the New Man, as Durkheim and Che Guavara hoped to achieve. Again, capitalism has been incredibly successful at this project, creating what we can call homo economicus, the satisfied customer/producer.