When Not Writing

Much of my time not writing or fishing is spent in the climate activist world. locally I organize with an ecosocialist working group that is part of western Montana DSA. I also work with a group which calls itself System Change Not Climate Change. They have been around since 2014 and maintain a great website which can be found here. This is where some of my non-fiction can be found. Unlike most of the editorial committee members, I am not a scholar but I enjoy the process of research and citing sources to reinforce arguments. I'm learning huge amounts and get a lot of confidence from working with this amazing group. I also meet with an international organization called the Global Ecosocialist Network. Again, these are respected scholars and writers from many parts of the world and they are way out of my league in terms of credentials. But I think it is important, and inspiring, to hear perspectives from other countries. Their website can be found here. Living in a very conservative, rural part of the country, a radical can easily feel isolated and alone. These folks keep me feeling as though I am part of something larger.While I don't buy the notion there is an "arc of hicstory that bends towards justice", by surrounding myself with smart, dedicated people, I can still believe radical change is possible.

Life : Powered

This organization, Life: Powered, and its parent org, the Texas Public Policy Foundation are the kind of fossil fuel shills I write about in my novel, Oblivion's Cross (now available on Amazon) In the book I call it F.R.E.E , the Foundation for Research on Energy and the Economy. The idea is, the industry rounds up a bunch of psuedo- intellectual ghouls willing to whore themselves for a cushy job, which is not hard to do. They write position papers and lobby legislatures and write op eds to support the industry which "supports" them financially. Your basic propaganda machine. Much of the novel is centered around James Beam, a founder of FREE, and big-wig ceo hell-bent on accumulating profit and prestige. As I developed this character I was interested in the degree of cynicism vs authentic belief he wrestled with, that is, what is the true nature and role of ideology. Wish I could get as glowing a review in the NY Times as Vauhini Vara got for her debut novel The Immortal King Rao. Good to see anti-capitalist climate fiction making its way into the mainstream. Kim Stanley Robinson has been leading the charge and his novel Ministry For the Future does a good job of making a political point while keeping the reader ( mostly) engaged. There are some places where it lags.

A Liberal's Idea of "Structural"

Again NY Times. In an opinion piece about homelessness, liberal columnist Farhad Manjoo opines about the "structural causes of homelessness" which he defines as "underdevelopment". This is because he doesn't understand the meaning of structure. Or he does but wants to keep his job and so obfuscates instead. As an intelligent person he of course notices there is plenty of development. It is just obscenely unequal, or what a Marxist would call uneven. Farhood does notice that there are untold numbers of people who are working "full time" ( to be considered worthy, you need to work 40 hours a week!) but are still unhoused. His solution is to give to charities, the classic liberal response, especially around the holidays. In this ideological construct "there will always be poor amongst us", just a sad fact of life, and so the fortunate ones give to the less. And then write virtuously about it. Nothing feels better than giving and that's the whole point ,isn't it? Feeling better? The "structure" is actually the way society organizes production and allocation. It is the property relations developed over centuries. NIMBY vs YIMBY is the result of the structure. Local zoning codes and the so-called "politics" around them are the result of the structure. Don't confuse cause and effect. We all know that Farhad goes to plenty of homes where each family member enjoys five or even ten thousand square feet. Where they each have three or four bathrooms. Homes that you could fit hundreds of tents in. But he never writes about that little issue.

Our Fate is in the Hands of Children

Not in a good way. After viewing the Times' DealBook interview of Sam Bankfraud, and following the links to other Silicon gurus, I'm realizing those Tech commanding heights are controlled by children. That is, Gen X ers who never grew up, because they didn't have to. These are Peter Pans in jeans and t shirts hauling in billions with a B and inventing NEW THINGS. For instance, the old altruism wasn't cool so they invented "effective altruism". It's NEW. So it must be better. Crypto itself is NEW and it was supposed to be revolutionary, because, you know, it's a NEW currency. So it would really undermine capitalist inequality and injustice, by eliminating central banks. The libertarian children thought of this. Leaving it to old normies to fix things like climate change or healthcare or housing, these kids want to solve NEW problems like artificial intelligence. I mentioned the constant grousing the NYTimes and other media does about China's Covid restrictions. How the bad government is interfering with the liberty of The People. Sound eerily familiar? Well now that they are easing up on restrictions the Times is worried about vulnerable old people. About a severe outbreak. The real worry, as always, is the global economy.