Too Much, Too Many, Too Fast

Remember the term "sensory overload"? Being bombarded with information and events and opinion is not what most human brains are developed for. There is such a thing as too much coming at us with too little time for processing. The MAGAs have adopted this as a strategy, simply flood the field and watch as people's filters become overwhelmed and breakdown, causing a profound spike in anxiety, fear and basic incoherence. One such event is global migration and ecological breakdown. A notable reaction to this disorder is the turn to a Malthusian critique, grasping at a simple mathematical explantion and saying there's simply too many people. Check any comments section of any article on any aspect of the polycrisis and you will see the calls for fewer humans. Not explicit advice on how to reduce the population...that gets a bit dicey. This goes hand in hand with a generalized nostalgia for what never was. Of course conditions were less dire back when there were fewer people but let's not confuse correlation with causation. Lots of things are different now. But the tendency is scary, because if you believe there are too many (black, brown Others) you will have little motivation to protect them when they are threatened. As many are and many more will soon be. Then there is too fast. The AI guys are telling us to be ready for a speed up, emblamatic of the way every technology affects our lives. Back to information, which is coming at us constantly and at warp speed. Cultural shifts are coming at us every few years, rather than generationally, leaving no time to process. Think of challenges to patriarchy and white supremacy and Geo-politics, with the rapidly changing maps as we break into smaller tribes. Emblamatic of all this exponential change is Sand Hill road in Palo Alto. As a teenager, I used to drive up that windy road into the foothills to drink cheap wine and smoke Mexican pot when I was cutting class with friends. This is late sixties, early seventies before Silicon Valley kicked into high gear. Steve Jobs and Wozniak were one year behind me at my high school in Cupertino. Palo Alto was still a lot of grassland, orchards and open space, although the bulldozers were running all day to flatten it out and mow it all down. Now Sand Hill Rd is home to the most powerful venture capital firms in the world. These people exist to convert the too much too many too fast into profit and their version of progress and super-modernity. So it goes.

Shooting CEOs

As a famous author and pundit of The Left, I'm required to weigh in on the murder/ heroic act of retribution of the Insurance exec last week. Depending on if you are a morally outraged believer in law and order or a wanna be revolutionary, you can see the shooting as an act of dangerous anarchy or liberatory revenge. The basic justice warrior take is that CEOs who profit from immiseration and death and make immoral choices,and, well, what comes around goes around. At my book group last night the point was made that having these CEO's watching their backs wasn't a bad thing. Fine. But it isn't the revolution. Until there is a mass movement, any type of radical flank, much less lone wolf action will go nowhere and have no effect. If one goes down, a new CEO is waiting in the wings. The same argument can be made about the Palestinian attack of Oct.7. Hard to justify on moral or tactical grounds. Things haven't exactally improved for the Palestinian people or the movement for liberation. There is a long history of this kind of political murder but it is telling that the suspect was reading old Ted Kaczynski. Look at the revolution he fomented. Don't like your healthcare? You can always rage against the machine! You can denounce the system! Then order something on Amazon. Or go get a Starbucks coffee. But until you can define "the machine" or "the system" you are fighting a ghost, an abstraction and emotion. Until you see how the CEO you hate is related to Capital, your hate will remain displaced. And you can't shoot Capital.

Promise Me Anything

The NY Times did an opinion poll with fourteen "working class" Trump voters and it shows total incoherence, as you might expect. They look to him for "common sense", "patriotism" and "change". Probably hope as well. "He runs the country like a business" , one blue-collar guy said. No one admires the boss more than the worker. This is what the liberal press will never understand. They still think you have to make sense, be reasonable, conform to the old "reality". Take this perfect example: "But as he prepares to move back into the White House, his penchant for extravagant ungrounded claims will challenge his ability to translate bravado into reality." Reality? Really? When did reality have anything to do with it? Despite all we've witnessed, they still think "the public" will notice this "challenge". It's a bias and blindness that can never be cured, because in a liberal capitalist "democracy", power must reside in "the people". And "the people" are the ones with common sense. Unfortunately, as the same paper reports, "American workers lack basic skills such as reading a thermometer." Or finding Syria on a map. Or Argentina. Speaking of, look at Milie's approval rating in Argentina as he slashes social spending. There the working class is bullish on austerity. They too love their "wild man". That's the new "common sense", or, as the Talking Heads advised, Stop Making Sense. Abandon the old failed logics and embrace the simulation. AI can solve all the problems. Billionaires have your best interests at heart. The future looks bright. It's reality if you believe it.

Global Black Friday

It's a green light sale and everyone is rushing the mall for deals. With Trump promising to "drill baby drill" we can expect the good times to start really rolling. Lowered taxes and de-regulation of everything means it's time to pop the corks and start the party! This was supposed to be the decade of change, the final chance to cut emissions and slow global warming. Forget that noise. It is now an all out race to the cliff with the American consumer leading the charge. You can't blame those on the global development periphery from wanting more energy/goods. They've been screwed since colonial and now neocolonial forever. But don't expect the global "middle class" to cut back in any way just to stay within some kind of "carbon budget". Ain't gonna happen. They're gonna be first in line at the "door bustin" grab fest. As for the rich, those we are now calling "elites", they will have to invent new luxuries just to be able to unload their income fast enough. Remember how "Occupy Wall Street" was a supposed wake-up call around inequality? Yet another sad joke. The combined personal wealth of Trump's cabinet picks is over 13 billion. And don't expect them to pay taxes. The Donald himself is worth 6.4 bil and then we add in his friends and advisors from Silicon Valley; Musk, Thiel, Andreeson and the rest. The new revolutionaries. Trump's voters were tired of being pushed around by "elites" and so they "voted for change". Plus, "they are eating the cats, they're eating the dogs." At the end of the day, all that is left is the Chesire cat's smile and a parched landscape. But it was sure fun while it lasted!

Treats

The fashion critic for the Times tries to square the circle of pathological consumerism: "To be sure, there is nothing wrong with shopping, nothing wrong with the concept of treats and extras. There is a human desire for beauty and its delight and self-expression. People should have access to that pleasure, at whatever price point they can manage. There is something comforting and reassuring about abundance, especially at a time when there seems to be a free-floating sense of malaise in the air." She knows how pathetic this sounds, having access to pleasure at the right price point, and she spends much of her piece contradicting her own thesis by describing societies ills: "There’s a tendency to be preachy about the sustainability of all this. And there’s no question it is an issue:" Yes it is an "issue". One for which she has no answer. “Win the culture, win the country,” Mr. Kirk said. Charlie is the dog who has caught the car. Now what? Fun winning the contest but now all the wicked problems are yours. Failed nation states increasing expotentially, a militant disgruntled population with very high expectations, insurance companies folding, Freddie Mac and Fannie May deep in risky mortgages, etc. etc.... Richard Seymour: "Capitalist democracy is an inherently contradictory and unstable formation, in which each half of the chimera operates on entirely different principles." It works to the degree it has created those consumerist subjects, homo economicus, who can overlook injustice and repression and exploitation if given enough treats. But at some point the treats run out. Abundance is exposed as generational theft. The whole con is exposed and people get pissed.

Uneven Development and COP

The poor countries are a bit verklempt because the wealthy countries are being stingy with their climate finance. I guess there was some expectation they would be willing to share in the name of fairness and equity? Really? I might be missing something but this seems like a profound misreading of global capitalism and its imperatives. Another COP concludes with the so-called "developed" countries putting forth yet another last second proposal, so as to avoid what the media would call a failure. It's a "promise" of some paltry sum of public money which they have no intention of paying ( especially the U.S.) combined with a bunch of loans and some fantasy of private capital filling the gap. The whole premise of the COP negotiations is that "we are all in this together" but nothing could be further from the truth. Some have a great deal of wealth and power and some have shit. Winners and losers. This is not a bug in the system, this is a feature, how it is designed. Will the rich throw out a few crumbs to keep the teeming masses strong enough to labor and allow themselves to feel noble? Sure. But they ain't about to share. Those calling for a "new global finance architecture" believe the rich will be incentivised to pay now because of the threat of paying much more later. In other words, a rational approach. Please. That has never happened before and is unlikely to happen now. As Bruno Latour put it, the rich have no interest in saving anyone other than themselves. Sitting on the top deck of the Titanic, they have reserved all the lifeboats for themselves. The champaign is flowing, the band plays on, Elon is filling spaceships with caviar. I would argue that even those in the bottom berths or working down in the hull reject any notion of "equity". In their understanding it's a competitive world and the rich outcompeted the poor. The natural order, like Darwin and Ayn Rand. The poor countries should take their 300 billion with a smile and a curtsy. Thankyou for your generous largess master. We will try not to squander it, so sorry to trouble you. Eighty years of "developmentalist" programs have led to extreme inequality and massive debt around the so-called "third world". Think World Bank loans, IMF, structural adjustment, neoliberalism. But let's not forget the obscenely rich within those countries. You can ask but I suspect it will take them looking at the barrel of a gun before they cough up any dough.

Something Somehow Must Be Done

I'm trying hard to sympathize with the well-meaning progressive reformers I have tried so hard to find common ground with, it aint easy. To build alliances with these local folks I have purposely kept the anti-capitalist rhetoric to a minimum. I have listened politely to their plans for "campaigns" toward building "local solutions". I have gone out of my way not to dampen their enthusiasm for the Inflation Reduction Act or COP agreements or the price of renewables coming down. But at some point you have to wonder if they can ever be shaken from their liberal theory of change. How many times does Lucy have to pull the ball up at the last second before Charlie Brown understands the program? They now tell us to "go ahead and feel sad" but then keep organizing- using the same strategy that has failed for 80 years. Vote harder. Send out better petitions. Come up with fresh chants.The 350.org website is a perfect example. "Join our campaign to demand climate ambition". Yes indeed, demand our leaders get more ambitious around Nationally Determined Contributions! How? "Sign our open letter!" Send us money. Get more involved. It's a form of pathology to suddenly expect different results from a tactic you have tried and failed at thousands of times. Look at Jon Stewart, at Oprah, at Rachael Maddow, all the liberal opinion makers grasping at excuses. The big problem is that liberal incrementalism started late and ran out of time. This was predictable but ignored by those who lack the capacity to envision actual justice at scale. The ticking clock has always meant delay increases cost. So now we reach tipping points and daily cyclone bombs and atmospheric rivers ( Oblivion's Cross, anyone?) and on and on and.... Wait a minute, I know what we can do! What if all the celebrity muscicians got together for a big fundraising concert? "We are the world..."

Not Stupid, Just Ignorant

Having read mainstream pundit critique for the last three weeks, I have to add my two cents to the post-mortem. Where I live, people are jubilant that the Great Entertainer is filling his cabinet with freaks and billionaires. Watching the stock market sizzle, they sense that America is already greater! And what fun watching libs mourn! These are people who drive around in brand new 70,000 dollar pickups and bitch about the price of eggs. These are people who are still looking for the Weapons of Mass Destruction, are fearful of a woke communist takeover and the imposition of Sharia Law. They have no idea of the U.S. role in the Middle East, no idea of how we intervened in Latin America, no knowledge of history. They couldn't find Iran on a map. These people, trying hard not to gloat too much, are plastering their hybrid cars with bumper stickers that say: "I'm saving fuel so I can buy more guns". They believe climate change is either a hoax and/or uber-wealthy high tech entrepreneurs like Elon Musk will fix it. Whatever. It turns out the low paid exploited worker craves status and enjoys a "share in mastery" over neocolonial subjects like starving Africans or Palestinians, just as poor whites lorded it over black slaves in antebellum South. Voting for the "change" candidate they desire tradition and its sedimented roles. Go figure. We can sympathize with these fellow workers but shouldn't condescend or patronize. As Roxanne Gay puts it, these people: "are granted a level of care and coddling that defies credulity and that is afforded to no other voting bloc." Making excuses for them only demeans them futher. They believe stupid things because it is in the interest of the capitalist state, which wants wants consumers, not citizens. They believe as they are told to believe and because they are convinced more treats will come their way. Plus, they are enjoying the thrill of being successful revolutionaries ( yes, I'm jealous) and having something like a political community, no matter how incoherent and contradictory its manifesto. Joisannce mixed with schadenfreude, what could be better! According to Left pundits, Ye shall know the revolutionary subject by her education level/wage and she shall overturn the power structure by withholding her labor in a general strike. Also, "youth" are workers. In other words, keep waiting for Godot. Ye shall not engage in incremental reformism but the stready march through institutions (building a Party, running for office) is fine. Workers will embrace transgender athletes in collective struggle because they both are oppressed. Somehow, this time around, the transitional demands of social democracy such as public services, living wage and progressive taxation( not to be confused with incremental reforms) will lead to socialism rather than the usual backlash ie..capitalist strike and reaction, and/or worker compacency. Unlike the history of mass mobilization and protest in the last two decades (Iraq war, Occupy, BLM, Womens March, abolition, Palestine ) this time around the tactic will lead to revolutionary change. Grab a sign, learn a chant. Somehow, ecosocialists can challenge capitalist cultural production through political education. While the Left manifesto advocates adaptation, it promotes a program that would be recognizable to revolutionaries 20, 50 or 100 years ago. This despite the fact our adversary, capitalism, has revolutionized itself in profound ways. On Saturday, Yasir O. Al-Rumayyan, the chairman of the board at Saudi Aramco, the state petroleum company, sat ringside with Mr. Trump at a U.F.C. fight in Madison Square Garden in New York City. Investors are fleeing renewable energy in favor of fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia is sabotaging the pledge from the last COP to transition away from fossil fuels. The current COP is failing to find the money to help that so-called transition. That's enough for tonight. .

Disaster Nationalism

Just starting Seymour's latest book and I ran across this: "Patriotic rituals revere it( the flag) as the embodiment of a bloodthirsty totem god who organizes killing energy." Carolyn Marvin and David Ingle I'm thinking of the militaristic displays before football games, the fly overs by gunship helicopters or fighter jets right after the national anthem is sung. The crowd roars with patriotic zeal and bloodlust He also explains how "conspiracy theory...is responsive to the depression and boredom of late capitalist life, suggesting hidden or unexhausted possibilities in an Exhausted Age. The title of my next book! Seymour is not afraid to mix in a little Lacanian psychoanalysis with his political economy and I find it adds a lot to his explanation of hard Right ascendancy. We have to think of MAGA and Trumpism in a global context, as a symptom of a widespread dis- ease. We are dealing with a pathology and saying the price of eggs was too high is to avoid the problem. Again.

Israelis or Jews?

As more details about the attack of Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam are released, the murkier the dominant narrative of "antisemitism" becomes. As I read it, beligerant Israeli soccer hooligans came to town to cause trouble; shouting "death to Arabs" (which is technically anti-semitic). Being assholes, they hassled cab drivers and waved flags until other fans had had enough and began to beat them down. Of course the media and certain politicians went full ADL, claiming the idiots were targeted because they were Jews. But all we know, and all the those doing the beating knew, is that they were Israeli and proud Zionists. They could have been Christians. Or athiests. Or Hindu, for all anybody knew. Those doing the beating didn't ask for identification to make sure it was only Jews they were chasing. But just as they did with the campus protests over the genocide in Gaza, the media immediately latched on to "anti-semitism" as the cause of violence. I don't know what it is about soccer culture that attracts violent, xenophobic morons, but this is hardly the first such episode. What I do know is that if you are an Israeli or a Jew or anybody who supports that genocide, you should expect some harsh reaction. Because you deserve it. And if you shout your hate from the rooftops...yeah. "In real subsumption, territorial empires gave way to empires based on control of market access, reshaping labour processes and supply-chains on a more consistently capitalist basis and incorporating workforces into financial and consumer systems to an unprecedented degree." Richard Seymour

Bomb Bomb Iran

Some may remember John Mc Cain's little ditty. With Rubio, Stefanik and Huckabee running the Middle East desk, he may, posthumously get his (death) wish. It appears Biden/ Harris were punished for accomplishing the barest minimum ie infrastructure, climate. It turns out the less competent the government is, the more it is rewarded. Getting nothing done is the whole point. Petty squables, government shutdowns, endless ethics hearings: there's your "wrecking ball". Wrecking ball to the fantasy of a "two state solution". Wrecking ball to the fantasy of "international law". Wrecking ball to the fantasy of "green capitalism". Yes it's terrible and there will be untold death and misery and suffering but these are your choices: terrible or horrible. But hey, at least it's not Somalia! Some on the far left are defending the rubes who voted for the real estate/tech-billionaire government, saying their protest votes expressed legitimate dissatisfaction. Whatever. Their revolution will not be televised. The fun and games will only last so long. David Brooks sees the education divide - highschool vs college - as the best explanation, but neither team, nor most NYTimes pundits, understand the current conjuncture. Symptoms are not the disease. Some of the biggest suckers are the "Muslims For Trump" who thought he would help their cause. Right. Then ask your waiter at Applebees what he thinks of Project 2025. Then ask him what big event is happening in Azerbaijan this week. Then ask him to find Azerbaijan on a map. Craig Singleton, a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies", believes if Trump can "stay disciplined, he just might be crazy enough to confront China — and win." And if unicorns can fly, we can ride them to the moon! You can't spit without hitting a psychotic moron today. This freak served for decades in the defense establishment. The Kubuki continues unabated.

Better Late Than Never?

Not really. The dominant post-election narrative promulgated by both U.S. "political" parties and the vast commentariat is that the Dems lost the socio-economic group known as "the working class" to the Repubs. A group, by the way, that never got much airplay prior to this bizarre election. Now it's all you hear! We abandoned the Working Class! Win back the Working Class! For the last several decades we heard a lot about the "middle-class". Until a few weeks ago, this was who all the "politicians" were supposedly fighting for. The class everyone wanted to see prosper. This class is different from workers even though they work. They are simply better educated and make more dough and are willing to help the environment as long as there is no cost to them personally. According to sociologists and people who study these things. The problem, unfortunately, is that the working class is so thoroughly atomized and individuated, they have no class consciousness nor sense of class belonging. They are alienated consumers and totaly transactional in their "politics". Sadly, appeals to solidarity or economic justice or even "democracy" fall flat. Like everyone, they simply want treats. Promise them treats, even fossil-fueled treats, especially fossil-fueled treats and you get their vote. A chicken in every pot works but a guaranteed family vacation to Disneyworld will make you Emperor For Life. Try asking them if they identify as workers and see the funny look you get. The reason I put "politics" in scare quotes is because in a liberal capitalist "democracy" ( more scare quotes), the sphere of The Political is so truncated, so denuded, as to debase the true meaning of the term. It is used (constantly, repeatedly) to make people believe they are self-governed. A lovely thought, right? "Of the People, by the People, for the People!" Legislation and policy! As Master of your own destiny you get to choose between a Party who offers you a trip to Disneyworld or one who offers sex-reassignment surgery and cities without cops. No brainer! Of course all of this post-election analysis assumes you would really want to win control over this free-falling shit show. That takes a certain breed of sociopath or deluded moron. As the COP resumes in Azerbaijan you won't hear two words about climate change in all the Post-Election Analysis. Because it was never an issue during the election. We heard a lot about the wars, a lot about inflation, a lot about immigration. So the workers voted for Hope and Change! Why wouldn't they. Cheap fossil-fueled treats for all! Deal with the floods and fires as they come. That's what insurance is for , right? What this all boils down to is a huge pile of what Mark Fisher called ideological rubble. Mixed with a large dose of repressed and subsumed psych-social trauma. We know it's a facade but act AS IF it's real. Thrown in a cynical fuck-the-future attitude and some Christian millenialism and hang on to your hats, we're in for a wild ride.

Face to Face

Richard King, author of Here Be Monsters, has a new piece in the magazine Arena titled Standing Ground in a Turning World. He argues that "identity politics" has been detrimental to Left organizing because it lacks a sympathetic understanding of how people's lives have been turned upside down by the pace of techno-scientific change. He recommends tolerance for small c conservatism and the traditional values that help anchor people people tossed about by modernity. He sees signs of this "moral maturity" in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations which have avoided the purity tests seen in other recent protest movements. I've tried to make this case for some time, insisting that technology tends to run out ahead of culture's ability to absorb and assimilate it resulting in the kind of incoherent "politics" we are seeing globally. This incoherence shows up on the Left in the form of pronoun policing and snow-flake hysteria over cultural appropriation. On the Right it manifests as looney conspiracy theories and "passionate intensity" ranging from populism to fascism. The question for me is how you find the sweet spot between a provincialism that can be reactionary, racist, xenophobic etc and a cosmopolitanism that is alienating. You want to tolerate religious belief but also challenge chauvinistic sex-gender prejudice. We can appreciate "face to face" interactions but still value the internet. It is the question of how much time these adjustments take. Capitalism moves at the speed of light and "all that is solid melts into air", regardless of the cultural dislocation Freemantle Shipping News

Economists

This quote from the director of Trump's National Economic Council says it all: "There is no faster way to deliver benefits across the board than lower energy prices. The forced scarcity of the Green New Deal, one of the great policy blunders in modern history, should be replaced with an “all of the above” approach to domestic energy supply. The benefits will be felt at the pump, in heating bills, at the grocery checkout and in every small business." Despite decades of international climate conferences and hundreds of scientific reports, mainstream economists still dismiss externalities and consider impacts to the ecosystem totally irrelevant. In this case he is 100% correct about short-term "benefits" while ignoring the inevitable catastrophe. Like most Americans, this particular economist is willing to write off future generations to preserve political power and the treats that go along with it. Despite all the warnings. For capitalists, any limit to growth is considered "forced scarcity" and must be overcome. Even if it is physics. But of course physics cannot be overcome. This is why physics is ignored, dismissed, pretended away or disavowed. For capitalist economists, there can be no relinquishment or even reduction, it is all grow, grow, grow. More, more, more. "All of the above". Keep the train speeding toward the cliff, keep the people lobotomized with consumer "benefits", keep your party in power. What can possibly go wrong?

Influencers

The Saudi minister lays it out : “But now we see that the U.S. has no power or influence over Israel — to a humiliating degree,” he added, “and that the Israelis have no intention to create a Palestinian state.” It is true that the US political "leadership" is reluctant to cut off arms shipments to Israel but the US Jewish lobby has plenty of influence and they are using it to support the genocide. The US electorate is clueless, having been brainwashed for the last eighty years, and will accept any criticism of Israel as "antisemitic". The Saudis are now insisting a "two-state solution" be part of any normalization deal but we'll see how deep that committment runs. It is "humiliating" that a rogue politician like Netanyahu rubs it in Biden's face, we expect Israeli leaders to pretend deference as they pursue their goal of an apartheid ethno-state. But like Trump, Netanyahu has decided to forgo these pieties. Neither are inhibited by established norms, which explains their popularity. Apparently, Trump's crude, "hypermasculine" act has a great deal of influence over young men. According to the NY Times: "Compared with when Mr. Trump ran in 2020, young male voters are now less likely to support government-backed climate change solutions (down 15 points, according to our poll)" At the same time they feel hopeless about the future, they also don't want any threats to their American Dream. If you can't get laid, the least you can do is drag the ecosystem down with you. It would be just if these morons were the only ones to face the consequences of their obliviousness. But that's not how ecosystems work.

What's Roiling Democrats

I listened to a podcast by three left-of-center NY Times columnists where they discussed the issues "roiling" the Democratic party's coalition. They went over foreign policy and economics and domestic issues like immigration and crypto and all kinds of topics. But they never once mentioned climate change. Not even the environment. This tells us something about how effective the "climate movement" has been. It's never a polling question, it has no "constituency", it is not, despite all the alarming reports, an "issue" with voters. It will take catastrophe to change anything here in the U.S. That might not be so far down the road. “Florida-focused property insurers, they are really at the highest level of danger,” Mr. Manyem said. Those companies, he said, are likely to have the hardest time getting new reinsurance policies, too." An opinion piece titled "America is Walking into an Economic Storm" never mentions climate change. All about the aging population and AI and bah blah. It is written by an econ-science MIT prof who won this years Nobel Prize. For him, climate change doesn't exist as a threat. Without having watched it, I guarantee the FOX news interview of Harris had no mention. Disavowal: I know it is true but I act as if I don't. Trumpism cannot be blamed for this obliviousness, though it helps legitimize it. Most people understand at some level that there will be a cost to decarbonization and they don't want to pay it. So much easier to kick the can down the road so you can keep buying treats for yourself. It's the economy stupid.

Unacceptable Violence

The NY Times is shocked that there are groups on American college campuses advocating armed resistance for the Palestinians. For liberals who want "human rights" and "social justice", any talk of violence or using "any means necessary" to achieve that aim is unacceptable. Over the top. Beyond the pale. Just to be clear, I am no fan of Hamas and don't believe their attack on civilians was a wise tactic. Just as the bus bombings and other acts of terror were tacticly destructive. But we can't expect traumatized prisoners to behave strategically. What is most glaring, once again, is the insane hypocricy, the double standard that justifies actual genocide while excoriating rhetoric. It is the rhetoric which offends Zionist sensibilities and makes some Jews feel unsafe. And it is now unacceptable to have a Jew feel unsafe. Lots of white people feel unsafe around Black people, but that is the fault of Black people and their "tendencies". I know, it's hard to keep this all straight. The violence and armed incursion of Zionists, dropping bombs on neighborhoods, sniping kids from roof tops, bulldozing homes etc.. gets a tsk tsk in the NY Times and calls for a ceasefire. If Within Our Lifetime has a provacative chant, Israel has exploding pagers which kill and maim innocent bystanders. Collateral damage is now the strategic objective. Tsk Tsk.

Missing Costs and Class Belonging

“The focus on inflation and the economy seems to be driving a reluctance to talk about emissions reductions,” he said, adding “They’re missing the costs of climate impacts.” A study published in Nature earlier this year estimated that climate change-fueled weather disasters will cost the global economy $38 trillion per year by 2049. Those who might read this blog understand the issue with unacknowledged, unaccounted for externalities. I have stressed the point that cost has nothing to do with price. But the problem extends to the arena of language itself. If there is hegemonic understanding around the meaning of a word like "cost" ( ie. the price of a good or sevice) and it purposefully leaves out much of the actual meaning (ALL the impacts) , you now have cognitive dissonance. An empty signifier designed to confuse. And an ambiguity that negates discourse as such. Which reinforces the power structure in a most subtle, I would even say elegant fashion. Without language there is no resistance. It's all gobbledygoop and people talking past one another. Mission accomplished! Here is a quote from Jacobin magazine on the definition of working class: "Using the college degree metric, the working class is less white and female than the rest of the population." College degree metric? Even the self-described "left" has pathologized language and doomed its own project. Why not describe hair styles of the working class? Or preferred vegetables? It does the same work.

More Green Capitalism

At the invite of Missoula climate activists, Bill McKibben is coming to the annual Climate Expo. Given the increasingly dire climate situation, it will be interesting to see what tone he adopts. For decades he has led the "since we can't do anything about capitalism, let's not bring it up" camp. These folks don't want to put off the average Joe so they avoid the C word and focus on the wonders of The Paris Accord and The Inflation Reduction Act. An Electric Vehicle in every garage! But a sober assessment would show a planet not just stuck up Shit Creek but headed over the falls. Because profit. The Paris Accord is words on a document. The IRA is giant subsidies seeking low-risk investment. But instead of Market Miracles harnessing technological wizardry to save our bacon we see accelerating market failure. Forget the obvious protectionist tariff war with China -whch totally undermines de-carbonization. Look to eel grass. Capitalist profiteers want to dump lime in rivers to create carbon sinks ( how much CO2 does it take to mine and transport lime?) Meanwhile, a natural carbon sink, eel grass, is disappearing at a frightening rate due to the effects of industrial civilization. Fossil Fuel emmissions are increasing, energy demand is increasing, global extracivism is increasing and "overshoot" of 1.5 is certain. Because profit. As for that great movement Bill Mc Kibben inspired, Democrats now boast about presiding over the oil boom. From the NY Times: "Democrats feel no pressure from the environmental movement or young climate-minded voters." Kind of says it all.

End of Protest

Opinion writer and scholar of social movements Zenep Tufecki writes: "2024 looks like the end of the road " for the era of mass protest. She astutely points to the underwhelming results of protest starting with the invasion of Iraq, Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, Womens March, Black Lives Matter, Free Palestine, and the latest protests around the Democratic National Convention in Chicago: "protesting just doesn’t get results anymore. Not the way it used to. Not in that form. It can’t." Not even mentioned are climate protests, which is sad but telling. With some ntable exceptions, the climate justice movement stuck with a playbook of one-off marches. No risk. Little disruption to capital flows or system legitimacy. Unfortunately, she lumps "civil disobedience" as practiced in the 2000's as part of that "form" and doesn't consider the tactic of filling the jails, used successfully by the civil rights movement. Otherwise she is spot on."considering the popularity and energy of these movements, they didn’t change the world that much. Two decades later, globalization still favors corporations. Wealth is as inequitably distributed as ever." Kamala doesn't mention Palestine, emissions keep rising, same as it always was. As the UN meets in New York, protestors, as always, take to the streets: "The New York marchers on Friday chanted climate protest favorites such as "What do we want? Climate justice. When do we want it? Now" and "The people, united, will never be defeated" as they crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. They carried banners with messages such as "Tear Down Fossil Fuels" and "We Strike for the Future." The Left is in love with its failed protest playbook. Wave signs, march and chant. Post stuff online. Maybe get a couple people arrested. No one controls the messaging or enforces tactical discipline and a few wacky outliers end up with the headlines. Everyone goes home and prepares to do it all over again. As an aside, I saw this little tid bit about the civil rights leader MLK. When approached by a student who attacked Zionism, Dr. King responded: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You're talking anti-Semitism.” King believed he could see into people's minds and deduce what they REALLY mean. A real problem.

Totally Unacceptable

Pres. Biden ( you remember, the old guy who fucked up that debate!) is really unhappy that Israel murdered a U.S. citizen in a bombing raid. Really mad. He says it is "totally unacceptable". Like what your old man would say when he found out you took the car last night without asking. Murdering 40,000 Gazans is more acceptable, but he wishes Israel would use more tact, try not to kill so many civilians. But what can he do? He's just a tired old man, watching from the sidelines, relegated to the dustbin. Fortunately for his heir apparent Kamala, the "war" is not a big deal, page 6 in the NY Times, people have moved on to more interesting topics, like Haitians not actually eating pets and shit. People's attention span is only so long, which is why no one remembers Occupy or the "George Floyd Rebellion" , much less the war in Iraq. They do remember 9/11 because, well, we ( The Christian West) were attacked. By Others. That shit we remember. I almost forgot about Ukrain, but now it might lead to nuclear armageddon so I will pay attention for a day or two. Till the next big thing comes along. One Week Later: Lebanon! Exploding pagers and walkie talkies. Biden, of course, was kept in the dark.

Dumb and Dumber and Sex

Just from today's Times: a piece about the strict measures the Taliban are imposing on women, measures derived from Sharia Law, so that men can avoid being aroused. It seems only religious edicts can protect these morons from themselves? Because they have no agency, no self control? Then there is the article about the charismatic Evangelical preacher in the Phillipines, a guy who has built a mega-church empire, and is now arrested for sex crimes. How original! Never saw that coming! He has millions of moron followers who believe he is another son of god or some ridiculous shit. Another piece was about a new report on Europe's failing competitiveness which claims "About a quarter of European companies said they had difficulty finding employees with the necessary skills, especially at the managerial level." Not even smart enough to be a manager? That's pretty bad. Lastly we have an article about some hero of the conservatives because he was breaking up child sex trafficking rings ( they even made a hit Hollywood movie about him) but it turns out he is now accused of being a predator. Add in the global surge of right-wing populism and it is increasingly difficult to imagine the human race having much of a future. Maybe it's all the toxins in the environment or just your basic genetic unwinding. could we just let another species run things? Maybe cats?

Low on the List

If you want a perfect example of what Richard Seymour calls "the liberal defense of murder" , read the comments after this opinion piece in the NY Times. Here you will read every form of craven excuse-making for Harris' support of genocide in Gaza. "the questions ( Palestine) do not rank in the top ten" "first you need to condemn Hamas", "first you get the candidate in office, then you make demands" "Trump would be much worse" etc etc. The auhtor of the piece, a Palestinian-American, represents the Uncommitted movement, which really rankles these liberals. They don't want to see outsiders threatening the chances of their beloved new "hope for change". Like Charlie Brown believing that THIS TIME Lucy will hold the ball so he can kick it, they never will understand the trap they are ensnared in. They must believe in representational, electoral "democracy" as it underpins their entire ideological framework. All while knowing deep down it is a con, a sham, and they will always end up flat on their back. As for Palestine, they only just heard about it on Oct.8th and it is some place overseas that is always having problems, like Africa. Lots of brown people who can't get along. We have our own problems to worry about. yada yada. Now it spreads to Jordan and Syria and Lebanon but most people can't find these places on a map. They are more engaged with the NFL Sunday ticket and picking their fantasy team.

Lobsters

“There is definitely something going on,” Dominic Zanke, who has fished for lobster for 34 years, said at his home in Deer Isle. “It’s kind of scary,” In truth, scientists have made dire predictions about the future of the lobster fishery in Maine for decades — predictions that lobstermen have routinely dismissed. When I pointed out the stark difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties on climate change, Ms. Olsen waved away its significance. “Fishermen are very — they want facts and information about their fishery, right?” she said. “They could care less about politics until it affects them on the water.” Claqssic disavowal: they know but act as if they don't. It is also classic capitalist short term thinking: "I'll get mine and let the future worry about the future. Pray for a miracle. Maybe some tech will save them. yada yada. Transactional "politics" in a nutshell: show me the cash and get my vote. “I care a lot about nature,” Mr. Amaro said, “but also I think about my future and how I can take care of my family, and what would benefit me, in the long term, financially. And it kind of sucks to think like that.” Exactly.

The Other

A piece in the NY Times about the protests they expect at Dem convention has drawn some interesting comments. Dem stalwarts are outraged that "the far Left" will disrupt the "unity" by mentioning the ongoing slaughter. Not that many people even care about the War on Gaza. Polls show it way down the list of issues motivating voters. After all, Palestinians are Arabs and Muslims for the most part, so why give a shit? "Palestinian rights organizers say that the requests of “uncommitted” delegates for prime-time speaking spots at the convention have been rebuffed, as have their demands for credentials to bring activists into the United Center." The protestors believe they can appeal to the American conscience! So naive. Post script: Demonstrations proved one thing: how weak the movement actually is. Bottom line: no one cares

The More I Learn the Less I Know

John turned me on to Nate Hagans and his channel The Great Simplification. One of his latest guests spoke of the many risks of AI, not the least of which is the way it facilitates more efficient fossil fuel exploration and extraction. Just what we need. And just what Trump promises for his second term. From today's Times: "He also said that his chief tool to fight rising prices would be boosting oil and gas production, even as the U.S. is currently producing significantly more crude oil today than it did under the Trump administration." In any case, we won't have to worry about damaging coral reefs in the Carribean because they will be gone. As a marine biologist explains: "In the 18 years I’ve studied reefs in the Florida Keys and the Caribbean, coral populations have continued to decline such that they can no longer recover naturally". This scientist wants to freeze some coral in a "seed bank": "The goal is to buy time while we wait for the world to slow, and hopefully, one day reverse climate change." Yeah, sure. Maybe AI will figure it out. While "we wait". This, of course, is the problem in a nutshell. Everyone waiting for technologies they can't comprehend to save them. From technologies. Anxiety manifests in many forms, mostly a negative Localism. Xenophobia, chauvinistic nationalism, fear of the Other. The World they know no longer exists, but this fact is disavowed. Leaving the crises to compound. Kamala Harris has already backtracked on her committment to end fracking. Shocker. As my comrade Ted Franklin puts it: "Under capitalism, it is illegal to save the world."

This Is Not Who We Are

As white male reactionary thugs rampage in Great Britian, state leadership wants us to know these (mostly) guys are an outlier. As the anti-immigrant hard right gains votes across Europe (oh yeah, GB is nolonger Europe), it is getting harder and harder to believe the reassurances offered by liberal elites. Outraged by the murder of three white English children, they are ambivilent at best about the murder and seliberate starvation of thousands of Palestinian children. As with Germany, we have long been told that the horror of the holocaust taught lessons about the temptations of fascism. And yet Germans increasingly blame "the Other" for their economic woes while pathologically supporting the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Where I truly lack any coherent analysis is the question of soccer hooligans. WTF? These men so identify with their team that they embrace brawling while drunk? How sad can their lives be that this is what brings them joy or satisfaction? Jouissance? Then there are the Israeli thugs attacking an army base to free IDF soldiers accused of rape. Because for them raping Palestinians isn't a crime. The Olympics is supposed to embody the spirit of peace and sportsmanship amongst nations of all creeds (except Russia). All taking place in a world engulfed in violent conflict and mayhem. This IS who we are, unfortunately, as long as we remain alienated and esdtranged from our true species being and dominated by liberal capitalist "democracy".

Crisis of Legitimacy

As Daniel Taruno reminds us: "Parliamentary democracy is an infinitely more stable mode of domination than dictatorship. There is one condition, however: voters must accept being dominated and consider their domination legitimate." Today's voter doesn't just accept; they love being dominated. This is the "freedom" they go on and on about. The freedom from responsibility. Freedom from self-reflection. Just follow and do as the rest do. With a wink and a nod we celebrate African tribal "democracy" or Russian oligarch "democracy" or Israeli "democracy". But not evil Cuban or Venezuelan democracy! Here in the States we have lesser of two evils "democracy", a choice, sure, but not a great one. Like choosing who you would prefer your daughter go out with: Bundy, Gacey or Manson. Habermas explored the construction of legitimacy but much has changed since those heady days of possibility. Now we have elites who rail against elites. Now it is elitist to call people ignorant just because they know zero history and fall for every scam- instead they are "wierd". In an interview, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, going for the "common man" approach, defends the dumb. "Don't assume they're just not clever enough to understand wwhat you're selling them...these aren't stupid people." Right, Tim. That's why they buy "medbeds" and watch FOX "news" and send money to old Jewish holocaust survivors in Russia. Why they think a wall will keep immigrants out. Why they hate Obamacare. Tim himself is not especially bright and actually spends the rest of the interview explaining how clueless most people are, unable to grasp the complexity of modern issues and buying simple solutions. This is the real crisis of democracy, an inability to stay informed or think critically. Appendix: Just found out Tim has been chosen as Kamala's VP. Can't find his position on Palestine anywhere.

Increasingly Desperate

It should be another great COP this year in Azerbaijan. Bring your dolphin costume and come join the protest! I'm sure Americans will be in a great giving mood, ready to accept their historical responsibility and start sharing wealth with poorer countries. After all, our national motto is : Were all in this Together!( just kidding) For its part, Azerbaijan is all in on false solutions like carbon capture and hoping Iran can be drawn into a major war. From the NYTimes: "there is growing interest in efforts to intentionally alter the Earth’s climate, a field known as geoengineering." Not the best option, but since there is no way the Market system can stop producing fossil fuels, it may be the only one left. As the opening epigram to Oblivion's Cross states: "we would rather be ruined than change." And so we will be. Palestine is a glimpse into our future. After all that extermination in order to grab land, the planet will take it all from us, turning it into a parched wasteland or flooded swamp. And so, as the land disappears, the extermination will accelerate. This is the panic that everyone feels but represses, stuffs into the deepest recesses and smothers with consumption. This is also why beat-down workers in the "developed" world will take the side of the boss, just as they identified with the slaveholders: they know things can get way worse. And of course it is not just Palestinians who are suffering the brutal effects of the polycrisis. Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Niger, Sudan and now Burkina Faso are occassionally in the news. Care International's research singled out 10 African countries — including Zimbabwe, Uganda, Burundi, Zambia, and Senegal — that are suffering crises such as climate change, conflict, poverty, hunger, violence and political instability but are getting little news coverage. Plenty of other regions as well.

Counter- Bolivarian Revolution

The NYTimes insists there were "irregularities" in the Venezuelan election, but fails to document any. Using right-wing sources, they amplify the propaganda that the election "was stolen" but offer no proof. Instead we learn that "Steve Levitsky, an expert on democracy at Harvard University, called Sunday’s vote “one of the most egregious electoral frauds in modern Latin American history.” Just Steve the expert says so. BTW, Steve co-authored "How Democracies Die" which never mentions capitalism. Not content to obfuscate and dissemble about the current election, the piece goes into a whole revisionist history where Chavez goes from idealistic democrat to evil, authoritarian "populist" because, you know, socialism never works, no such thing as a free lunch, blah blah. Towards the end of the piece we get this: "Inflation was soaring, grocery stores were stripped bare and children were dying of malnutrition. Then the United States issued broad sanctions on the country’s oil industry, pushing the economy to the brink of collapse." It's true the US, as it has done in so many cases, and continues to do in Cuba, punished the population in order to force regime change. But that is only half the story. The U.S. funds the opposition and helps orchestrate their various coup attempts. Deeply committed to stamping out any vestige of socialism anywhere in the world, they will starve children if that's what it takes. This is the capitalist "democracy" Steve and the Times worship. The Bolivarian Revolution was too dependent on oil prices and failed to develop other sectors of the economy, especially food, when times were good. But during my visit in 2007 I witnessed the progress being made in consolidating a social base of those neglected by the oligarchs who had long ruled Venezuela with US support. The US wants access to that oil. It also wants private property and free market ideology to be the only alternative. update: today the US recognized Edmundo Gonzales as the winner. Why don't they just follow Israel's lead and murder Maduro?

"Clean" Energy

The Great Transition David Wallace-Wells is promoting involves a few "sacrifice zones" : "A United Nations study found that meeting international climate goals by 2030 could require building as many as 80 copper mines, 70 lithium mines and 70 nickel mines to supply the materials for electric vehicles, solar panels and a host of other low-carbon technologies." All of this requires water which is getting harder to find: "With long-term declines in groundwater levels putting thousands of domestic wells at risk and causing the ground to sink in parts of the San Joaquin Valley, state regulators are moving forward with efforts to force local agencies to take stronger steps to begin to rein in chronic overpumping by California’s agriculture industry." Dr. Stephan Lezak, writing in the NYTimes, believes "Although mining will never be zero-impact, it has the potential to be fair and responsible." Yes, just as capitalism has the potential to be equitable and peaceful. In dreamland. Environmentalists are fighting mine proposals all over. One Biggie is the Resolution copper mine in Arizona but there is a proposed rare earths mine in my backyard. How do we get the "clean" energy future without mining? Not to worry says Wallace-Wells: " clean power, primarily from wind and solar, that will be so cheap and abundant that the dirty old sources can’t possibly compete." Nice and CHEAP! and CLEAN! In this bright green vision "the rapid progress made not just in renewable energy, but also with those pieces of the climate puzzle once known as the hard-to-abate sectors: things like steel making, cement production and various other areas of heavy industry and infrastructure for which there are suddenly green alternatives..." Green Alternatives! Thankyou technology! Just in the nick of time. Now I can relax.

The Obvious Way Forward

From the WA PO: "As global temperatures spiked to their highest levels in recorded history on Monday, ambulances were screaming through the streets of Tokyo, carrying scores of people who’d collapsed amid an unrelenting heat wave. A monster typhoon was emerging from the scorching waters of the Pacific Ocean, which were several degrees warmer than normal. Thousands of vacationers fled the idyllic mountain town of Jasper, Canada ahead of a fast-moving wall of wildfire flames." At first glance you might think the Dems would just be pounding the Repubs over the head with climate change. On so many other issues conservatives have managed to triangulate and one might have imagined them finding some nuanced position on global heating, as have the Dems; "yes it is real but markets will fix it" or "we can make incremental change without hurting GDP" blah blah. But no. Having staked out a denialist position (hoax or bad science or commie plot), they now cling to it with increasing desperation, hoping it just doesn't get brought up. Which for the most part, it doesn't. I suppose putting a spotlight on the fact we are quickly approaching climate tipping points is the kind of bummer news all political parties try to avoid, especially around election time. It would also require admitting that fossil fuel production and consumption is at record levels despite all the rhetoric and investment in renewables and carbon capture and hydrogen and blah blah. Better we talk about Israel's (read Jewish) right to self-defense and tariffs on Chinese goods and Kamala's laugh and Moutain Dew. It is also liberal environmentalists that resist having too much emphasis placed on the Climatic Regime or ecocide. They too would be forced to confront their abject failure to protect much of anything. As Alberto Toscano writes in his latest book "Late Fascism" : "An ideal for the left might be to become what its enemies think it already is, namely a strategically ingenious and systematic endeavor to undermine white, Western, Christian capitalist civilization across all institutions of society”. Not just civilization, such as it is, but the whole project of progress and globalized modernity. The planet has other ideas and can no longer be ignored.

Insane Ordeal

The Times interviewed a young, uncommitted voter on her reaction to Trump's speech: “You read a lot of stuff about what this guy says, but to actually sit down and hear it and sit through it, it was just insane to me,” she said. “That’s the only way I can describe this whole ordeal.” Unfortunately, she will have to get used to it. I find alcohol helps but whatever works. There is a fine line between a hilarious comedy routine and an insane speech and as the first post-postmodern politician, Trump walks it. All the rhetoric about "fascism" or "authoritarianism" or "populism" is just old language trying to capture a new phenomenon. Trump transcends our descriptors because this fusion of power and entertainment is unique. As I've tried to point out, Hulk Hogan is the perfect sign in the symbolic register. A fake wrestler and cultural icon, with his own line of mechandise, media, cartoons etc.. Inspiring the masses who willfully embrace the illusion, the Spectacle, their own sacrifice to the machine. Immersing oneself in "the insane ordeal" is a way to dull the pain, to be "free" of the grotesque indignity, of "ideology" as such. Just laugh! Enjoy! Let the joisance wash over you! Or you can join the resistance, set yourself outside all the fun and loaded weapons and hilarity. Anxiously watching polls and global unrest and rising CO2 levels.

Bumpy

Watch out for the bumps, warns the NY Times: "That the price and demand for oil have been so strong suggests that the shift to renewable energy and electric vehicles will take longer and be more bumpy than some climate activists and world leaders once hoped." Relying on markets to fix the problem, activists hoped for a smoother shift. But alas, the economics, and "politcs", are tricky. So many bumps. While not everyone agrees the Jevons Effect is real, we are seeing that despite the increase in renewable energy sources, fossil fuels continue to be produced and consumed at a record pace. Demand is the driver. All the species being exterminated are the bumps on the road. With Trump waltzing his way to the Presidency and MAGA ascendent, Capital finds itself in an awkward position. The People demand growth at all costs. This is the "great" they want America to return to. They loves their treats and are perfectly willing to let others pay the price. But Investors and Insurers have to factor in the risks. There is no solution to this contradiction. I suggest we have entered the Age of Permanent Disruption. The Time of endless Whiplash. No party or ideological faction will be able to govern given the aforementioned unsolvable contradiction. This won't stop them from trying. Power fills all voids. But physics trumps all. The geopolitics will only accelerate this devolution. MAGA isolationism and anti-China/ Russia fervor means nationalist hysteria and increased military spending versus climate cooperation and a Global Green New Deal. Seeing the Teamster leader speak at the Republican convention sends signals that Labor hopes to triangulate the Age of Disruption. Good luck with that. Capitalist "democracy" is going down hard and will drag everyone along with it.

Kneeling and Scraping

Apparently our political economy will not be satisfied till it has extracted the last shreds of dignity from its subjects. Like an alcholic promising that this is the last drink, we wake in the morning to find ourselves knocking on doors and pleading with strangers to vote for Joe Biden. After we get through this one, we'll make the big changes, yeah. Sure. We just have to stop fascism first. The slow-motion train wreck has a certain perverse, even obscene fascination of course. Why we can't take our eyes off it. Or another cinematic metaphor for liberals, our wounded democracy engaged in a sword fight on the edge of the cliff, knocked down, struggling back to its feet. Oh my! Those with the means are considering various escape options; Mexico, Canada, Portugal? Just in case our hero takes a tumble. Just cut and run, wait it out on a beach somewhere. Seek asylum and hope they are not as cruel and xenophobic as we are. I keep a photo clipped from the local paper on my wall. It shows the ecstatic college Democrats the moment the election was called for Barack Obama. Who picked Old Joe for his VP. Old Joe made sure Israel and the Saudis got all the jets and bombs they wanted. He made sure NATO kept up it's steady eastward movement. He made sure American's gas tanks remained full of cheap gas. Everything was easy, Shock and Awe, defeat the Taliban, contain Iran and China. Now we are in this moment of the most mendacious, venal farce, with the emperor's hair on fire, the whole dumpster on fire, and everyone pretending it's just a blip. An embarrassing moment to get through. "Going to a town that has already been burnt down."

Modernity on the Skids

Everyone is abandoning the modern project. But for what? Bruno Latour argued that ecological catastrophe signaled the end of "progress" as envisioned by moderns. How do we "develop" given the new constraints? Indigenous folk around the globe are rejecting modernity in favor of the old pre-modern cultural practices, but installing a cosmovision ( just read Jack Forbews Columbus and Other Cannibals) is no simple task. Just ask Jesus. Forbes diagnoses Euro/white destructiveness as a "disease" but one for which there is no medicine, no cure. Then there are these new/old age Christians looking to retreat from modernities harsh assault on aesthetics and the patriarchal family structure. Marx warned them that " all that is solid melts into air, everything sacred is profaned" but these confused white people love their Capital. Their imagined Father Knows Best community is not far from the Nazi volk, as they procreate and settle the American Readout. You may be thinking that I'm just describing Mormons but in a description of this "movement" in today's Times, they are evangelicals who reject Mormons due to some esoteric cult conflict over the Trinity. Don't ask me. So basically they are Mormon wanna be's clinging to the Holy Ghost. But described as "intellectuals". So yeah, pretty low bar. The other anti-modern clique are the "deep green" enviros who reject industrial society, much technology, and Marxian analysis, but who are aligned in many ways with Bug Out back-to-the-land types who tend to romanticize survival of the fittest/ pioneer narratives. It is hard to say where these anti-modern enthusiasts all hope to end up: pre-modern? post-modern? Anyway you slice it there will be some rough sailing between here and Paradise.

General Steve

In a very revealing piece in the NY Times, David Brooks interviews General Steve Bannon of The War Room. Like Brett Stephens, Brooks is concerned about the dismal state of liberal democratic capitalism, going so far as to say he almost went Marxist! But he was able to steer away from that terrifying cliff and is trying to understand the Alt/ MAGA right-wing populism that General Steve espouses. Steve is that famously "dishevelved" Catholic warrior hoping to lead the next revolution. He truly believes he has it all figured out and at the moment, his global movement is indeed experiencing a surge. But we have seen this movie before. We know where this leads. They can build walls and buy American but they have no answer for the unfolding ecological catastrophe. Christian nationalism gets you only so far, dismantling the "administrative/ deep state" leaves you with corporate rule. Bannon claims to be at war with what he calls "techno-fuedal capitalism" ( borrowing from Christopher Lasch and Yanus Varafakous) but his deplorable minions only want treats; anything powered by a motor, vacations in Vegas, lake-side second homes. Liberals are panicked now that the Biden campaign is a total dumpster fire, sputtering about the fact that Trump lied! Lied, I tell you! The whole insane Spectacle is such a shit show it is amazing people still cling to it with such "passionate intensity". Billionaire donors, clown candidates, flag waving knuckleheads, democracy in action! At some point you look at your ballot and see Popeye the Sailor vs Brutus and say WTF? This is what liberal capitalist "democracy" hath brought?

Brett Stephens Joins Occupy

In today's column, veteran "principled" conservative Stephens bemoans the state of todays Capitalism and yearns for a return to the good old days. This was basically the complaint of Occupy, that Capital had skewed too far towards the 1% and needed some adjustment towards a kinder, more equal mode. Brett is considered a deep thinker, so this tells us a lot about the state of American exceptionalism. Exceptionally banal. Brett is reviewing a book he admires written by another intellectual who has given this a lot of thought. They think we should get back to "competitive capitalism", less government spending, less wild speculation, more responsibility.Remember, these people get paid big bucks to turn out this kind of sophomoric drivel. One never knows if they actually believe this stuff or if they are just required to crank out a "how to save capitalism from itself" article every couple of months. Along these same lines is an article published today titled: Dilemma on Wall Street describing the way climate risks are not being priced into the Markets. The argument is that financial markets can't seem to grasp long-term thinking, as with the last housing bubble and crash. But in fact the problem is much deeper. If the markets were to take seriously the "cost of carbon", it would mean the end of GDP growth. Investors would have to divest from not just fossil fuels but half the global economy. And that's just climate change. If they had to price in all ecological damage... yeah. Instead, the risks will be ignored until the collapse of the insurance industry and subsequent banking crisis, followed by collapse in financial markets. There are warnings. A group called Better Markets has issued a report called The Unseen Banking Crisis concealed Behind the Climate Crisis. But this report will be ignored, just like Brett's review.

Green Imperialism

As Green Capitalism can be exemplified by solar powered sweatshops, in their piece in Science For The People, Erica Jung and Calvin Wu describe a new phenomenon: "Any technological and diplomatic achievements toward the greening of US imperialism are nothing more than replacing the diesel engine of a Merkava tank with solar panels and lithium batteries." Max Ajl, author of A People's Green New Deal, writes that " Palestine crystallizes nearly every contradiction within the current order...Indeed, the harder and stronger Palestinians fight for liberation, the more, like lightning bolts of ever-increasing luminosity, they bring the relief of the world system into clearer view: the impotence of the United Nations; the imperialist contempt for international law; the complicity of the Arab neo-colonial states with Western capitalism; the fascist racism at the heart of modern European and US capitalism, as murderers and maimers operate in Western capitals; the neo-colonial structures of the Arab and Third World; and the hollowness of Western liberal democracy and its constellation of civil society institutions." Speaking of "the Arab world", our old nemesis the Janjaweed is back, this time in the guise of the Rapid Support Forces in Darfur. What about the "War on Terror"? The Western World shrugs, the foreign policy experts blink stupidly, like deer in the headlights.

Mainstream Consensus

The Washington Post editorial board is concerned about the degrading environment: "This leaves policymakers with few good options. They must acknowledge popular constraints, explain convincingly why action is needed, ensure their plans mitigate the impact on those who bear most of the costs, particularly the most vulnerable, and advance policies that keep costs as low as possible relative to benefits." A tall order indeed. And exactly why "policymakers" can't act against Capital. You could try "shareholder activism" but you would run up against the law, which requires businesses do everything possible to make a profit. An Exxon shareholder tried holding the company accountable but was successfully sued.From the NYTimes. "In its complaint, Exxon said the proposal “does not seek to improve ExxonMobil’s economic performance or create shareholder value.” You could try divestment, ha ha ha.I know, you could try running for office! Or you could attend the next COP and try to convince delegates of imperialist countries to do the right thing. All just suggestions of ways, according to the mainstream consensus, that emissions can be de-coupled from economic growth.

Center-Right

The center-right will lead the planet into accelerating crises.The European elections confirmed a trend we have been seeing for some time: in times of anxiety, all politics end up center-right. As for the Left, Mexico provides an example of how the Market commands. And why "democracy" is in scare quotes whenever I reference "democratic" capitalism. From today's NYTimes: “I do think this adverse reaction from the market is going to cause a very thorough rethinking of what they are going to approve and how they are going to approve it in September,” said Joan Domene, a Mexico City-based senior economist for Latin America at Oxford Economics, an economic consultancy. The Market doesn't just discipline the Left of course, recall what happened to Liz in Great Britain when she tried to push through reform. What the Market likes is center-right and that is what we'll get - bureaucratic, technocratic managers who can keep GDP at a reasonable level while taking the edge off both left and hard right. Of course, this is the perfect doomsday scenario, a direct path to the slaughter house. But it is the only political course that Capital can imagine.

Khartoum and the Polycrisis

The situation in the Horn of Africa and southern Sahel is a horrific prelude to the coming collapse. And of course there are plenty of other "conflict zones" that can be pointed to in the Caribbean and Middle East and Eastern Europe, but Africa is where the USA and allies have been focused in their failed "war on terror" and illustrates the complete incoherance of Western foreign policy. One might have thought following the debacle of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya there would be some new thinking around "development goals". But no, Capital can only do what Capital does. Which is exploit and extract and accumulate. One might have thought there would be a re-examination of neo-imperialist modes of supporting corrupt autocrats and arming local militias. But no. Imperialists can only think on one level. The fancier the weapon, the more profit there is. One might even think there might be some questioning about starting a new Cold War at a time when climate breakdown will require not just an incredible amount of resources but cooperation between world powers. But no. Liberal capitalist "democracy" only has one playbook, a very worn and tattered and thoroughly discredited playbook, but it requires conflict and competition. The Great Game. In which we are all losers.

Sign of the Times

Reading the front page of the NY Times you learn all you need to know about the ability of capitalist "democracy" / "democratic" capitalism to respond to the climate crisis. One article describes the "heat dome" that is hovering over the southwest and roasting people and planet. Another one talks about the fact we will be blowing past the 1.5 degree goal as global emissions increase. Then there is the article describing the governor of NY city's last minute decision to not implement "congestion pricing" because it might hurt "the economic recovery". Which it would. Any attempt to keep emissions from rising will slow economic growth, which is why no politician can support it. It's why governments can only rely on doomed "green capitalist" measures to try to slow the warming. Another article describes the battle over forestry practices in Oregon, where climate induced drought and heat stress is killing off Douglas Fir trees. The foresters say they have to remove healthy trees ( the ones that store CO2 and give us oxygen) to pay for the thinning of dead trees. It's simple economics. Other articles decribe people in Florida having to raise their houses and others who can't find insurance. There's somehting going on but they don'tknow what it is.

Heat

"Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, both Republicans, signed legislation to prevent local governments from requiring heat protections for outdoor workers." The ones at risk are mostly brown people, so why should the Governors care if workers die? As the Chamber of Commerce is happy to remind you, these rules would be a big burden for businesses, cut into profits, slow economic growth. Just because each year sets new heat records this shouldn't affect capital accumulation or investment decisions. You can always find more workers, right? There is no reason we can't shift production to the north. Maybe the whole Sun Belt thing is over. Lots of folks are moving to Oregon, Michigan, places like that. America on the move!

Not Normal

With Israel's new status as pariah state, led by war criminals, there is an actual opening to change the decades long status quo. Now that more countries are recognizing the state of Palestine, Israel is withholding funding for the PA. Biden could withhold funding from Israel if he had any balls or brains but instead he will go down as the old guy who couldn't see the golden opportunity to end a gross injustice. Americans hate and fear Iran despite the fact they have refrained from building a nuclear weapon. But the "secret" that everyone knows is that Israel has the bomb. "I'm so tired of America". He has decided instead to support the ultra-right wing pariahs and their project of ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, who we hope to strike a "grand bargain" with, has other ideas. Ukrain begs for more weapons as it falls back. China laughs at Biden's tariffs. Trump need only point out what a loser the old guy is and stride back into his old chair in the white house. Liberals go nuts as all their dreams fade. In the European social democracies, the far right is on the march. Supply the working class with reforms to make their lives comfortable and they turn xenophobic, guarding their treats from the uncouth hordes of migrants. Instead of fighting for liberation from Market anarchy, they demand ever more discipline. Germany is the most rabid pro-Zionist enabler, banning speech and speakers, including Jews.

Return to Normal

The thing everyone clamored for during the Covid pandemic ( you remember that time when eeryone was dying, right?) was a Return to Normal. And by golly, here we are. The same wars and failed states and people getting obscenely rich off the exploitation of others, the good old hyper-nationalism and police violence and rise of fascism. We've returned to normal! As we wait for the next pandemic the insane storms are ravaging various regions around the globe. As we ratchet up tensions with Russia and China ai feel that normal terror of nuclear anhilation.

Insurance

In my novel Oblivion's Cross, the collapse of the insurance industry signals the beginning of the end. "First to go were the largest re-insurance firms..." Insurance is a key part of capitalism's structural foundation; it spreads risk so that the system of speculation and investment can happen. That is why the piece in the NYTimes today was more than a little interesting. They have done some reporting on the states where the insurance industry is losing money and that map is startling. Due to massive losses, rates are skyrocketing and terms are getting stingier, making homeowners unable to even find insurance or assume greater levels of risk in the form of high deductables. Some of these states, like Florida and California, are predictable. Others in the mid-west were a surprise.But because climate-change induced storms are becoming more destructive, wind and hail events, or flash-flooding like they are experiencing in Texas as I write this, insurance companies are throwing in the towell. They can see what policy makers and much of the population can't: this is going to get very bad, very soon. Tornadoes are getting crazier. Storm surges are taking out homes just being re-built after the last storm. With the Atlantic experiencing record heat, this could be the hurricane season which delivers the final blow. That or massive wild fires. About the same time the Colorado River dries up. I'm trying not to sound too hopeful.

The Sheldon Adelson Act

Who organized the thugs that attacked the UCLA protest camp as the cops stood by? "Under investigation". In other words, lost in the daily news stream. Who is pressing Republican Zionists to pass the Ant-semitism Awareness Act? Who painted the Jeremy Corbyn campaign with the anti-semite brush? Purely spontaneous? I doubt it. It is important to remember that these people don't sit idly by as you erect your tents and shout free Palestine. There is a whole pro-Zionism aparatus that influences media, lobbys government, helps set policy at universities, etc... They work especially hard at setting the norms for discourse, ie defining anti-semitism. For instance, every mainstream media outlet will repeat the claim Hamas rejects the legitimacy of Israel( true) but fail to mention they were willing to recognize 67 borders (also true). They all interpret the slogan "from the river to the sea" as meaning Israel must be destroyed. They all promote the fiction that the Oslo Accords were a perfect opportunity to have a Palestinin state which Arafat rejected. All consensus opinions of the U.S. public. All Israeli propaganda. The NY Times is very effective at playing good cop/ bad cop. They have every type of liberal in their commentariat; Ross Douthout can do the conservative tsk tsking about students and rail against "terrorism", they've got Brooks and Friedman to do the rational grown-up and ignore Isreali terrorism, others who can do the civil see-both-sides bit. Be prepared to learn nothing and see the dominant narratives reinforced daily.

Just Discovered the "Comments" !

I feel terrible. I just discovered that a few folks have been following the blog and commenting and I haven't replied. I never go to my blog so I don't see these rare but highly appreciated comments. So sorry. Ducky! Dude, I'm doing ok, all things considered. To anyone else reading this, Ducky followed my old blog, thoughtstreaming, back in the day. Back when this troll (I forget his name) thought it was important to hassle me. Before trolls were even a thing. Ducky and this troll were my readership as I ranted about what? The Iraq war? The war on drugs? Venezuela? Ah, the good old days. Anyway, I have a remarkably good life but I'm extremely worried about my kids, grandkids, and those less fortunate. Shit is ugly and we ain't seen nothin yet.

"All of the Above" Green Growth

This is how a worker on an off-shore oil platform justifies his labor: "There is a sense of pride among those aboard, though they recognize that many people think their industry is destroying the planet." We hve to "move this dialogue that seems to fixate on ‘Is it oil and gas, or is it solar and wind?’ It’s all, and we need them in abundance.” Biden has nominated James Clyburn, Dem Senator from S.Carolina, for the Presidential Honor Medal. Clyburn made sure Bernie didn't get the Black vote so here's your medal. Bernie proposed spending the necessary trillions to de-carbonize the economy. Biden gave capitalists "incentives" to find technological "solutions" while continuing to drill baby drill. The Trans-Canada pipeline carrying tar sands bitumen to the coast of B.C. is now in operation. The GasLink pipeline carrying gas through the Wet'su wetn territory has been full since 2022. U.S. export of liquified natural gas is at an all-time high and oil production is setting new records. So I guess that's what they mean by "all of the above". On the "green" side of the ledger we see solar and wind lagging behind the increase3d demand caused by data centers and bitcoin mining. There is a big push to "streamline" the regulatory process for siting new "green" infrastructure and real mining for the minerals needed for green growth. Local communities all want this development to happen somewhere else. Preferably overseas. The optimists tell us technology will come through in the nick of time, the price of everything will come down and our future looks bright. Call me sceptical.

Climate Justice Movement Take Note

So now I have my answer as to whether these students are serious. And boy have they hit a nerve! The mainstream press is flailing madly to establish credibility, but their bias is so obvious it is laughable. For decades they have managed to keep the word Zionism out of popular discourse. Now that horse is out of the barn. The Zionist lobby had always managed to get the press to equate anti-Israel with anti-semitism and now that game is up. They are trotting out their spin masters on CNN, where compliant "journalists" ask softball questions and let them rant about "outside agitators" and "hate speech" but the settler/colonial ethno state project which is Zionist Israel has been revealed, thanks to Netanyahu, and there's no stuffing that back in the bottle. The climate justice movement faces a different enemy and circumstances but they could still learn a thing or two about mobilization from these student actions. You have to ask people to take some level of risk. The students didn't ask people to sign fucking petitions or vote harder. They knew the authorities would over-react because they always do. They knew they could force every media in the country to cover it, one way or the other, and they have. Even when they focus on four Jewish students who "feel" threatened, or focus on one knucklehead who wants to "kill Zionists", it is still coverage which leads to intense scrutiny. People are looking up Zionism and going WTF? There is an interesting map in yesterday's Times showing the states where campus protests are taking place. Tellingly, Montana sits in a block of states where student apathy reigns. We are joined by neighboring Idaho Wyoming and the Dakotas, of course, also Utah, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, etc... You get the picture, illustrious company indeed. Now we see that the Zionist goons have been sent in with baseball bats and mace. The cops stand down and watch. This could get very interesting.

Everyone Is Damaged

There is a back and forth between Jodi Dean and Judith Butler over language used by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee following the Oct.7 attacks, which "contextualized" the slaughter of unarmed Israeli civilians. Butler critiqued the position and I agree with them. Dean felt the Committee deserved more solidarity. There are all the related isues of censorship and free speech but I want to ask does support for Palestinians necessarily imply support for Hamas? And is Hamas deserving of that support. But my real point is that both sides, Palestinians and Israelis, are so incredibly damaged by trauma and psychsocial dysfunction that rational debate will not lead to some "understanding". We have left the age of Habermasian discourse. These are dark times of unreason. By contextualized I mean a recourse to history meant to justify and excuse the violence, eg: decades of violent repression, displacement, targeted killings, etc...Certainly it is important to recognize the history of crimes perpertrated by the apartheid, Zionist ethno-state. And if an armed wing of Hamas had attacked IDF forces they would deserve not just our "understanding" but our full support. But they fucked up and instead indiscriminately killed civilians and that must be condemned. For the moral as well as strategic/tactical failure. Show me a case where terrorism was successful. Yes, Israel is being exposed for what it is. But Gaza is laid to waste and a whole generation murdered and further traumatized. The other point about "support for Hamas" is that they are a conservative, anti-communist Islamist movement. There politics suck and no one on the Left should want to see them in power. They are damaged by decades of oppression and violence and infighting orchestrated by Israel as well as twisted theology. As twisted as the theology espoused by the Zionist settlers and hard-right parties of Israel. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend in this case. Butler asks: "Why can’t we condemn morally heinous acts without losing our powers to think, to know and to judge? Surely we can, and must, do both." She is asking a lot of a world of damaged unreason.

Divestment

The tents remain on many campuses, despite the hurt feelings of a few Jewish students. The demand is divestment, insisting these universities pull all investments out of Israel. The old pocket-book approach. The cynic in me wonders how much this would pressure or hurt Israel but what is more inspiring is the general shift in zeitgeist. Israel enjoyed immunity from any sort of criticism for so long that this could signal real change. The other question is whether students/ youth will link this struggle to others and begin to see the need for system change. I worry that we will see a repeat of Occupy- first the tents, then the floundering over "leadership" and what to do next. They will enter into "discussions" with those in power and be shown the reality of sausage making. Then come the compromises. Of course corporate America does not sit idly by. It takes money to go to an Ivy League school and students have to be thinking of carreers. So these are not idle threats. As Darren Woods, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, said of campus protests in an interview with CNBC this week: “If that action or those protests reflect the values of the campuses where they’re doing it, we wouldn’t be interested in recruiting students from those campuses.” Meanwhile, the world watches as Rafa is attacked and the U.S. continues to antagonize China and the global temperature continues to rise.

How Biden Could Win

It's possible Biden could sqeek out a win just being "good old Joe" but if he really wanted to win there's two things he could do to make it happen: one, call Israel what it is, an ethno-settler aparthied state. As he did South Africa back in the day. A few American Jews and Germany would freak out but he would spark a youth vote. Most of America couldn't find Israel on a map and could give a shit. Number two is to focus exclusively on climate. Pledge that he will shut off fossil fuels and start cooperating rather than competing with China over de-carbonization. Today I read that the administration has written new rules forcing coal fired power plants to reduced pollution. Yes, in 2024, with CO2 at 420 ppm and global temps setting records monthly, Biden is re-working the rules Obama failed to put in place. Repubs and their Coal masters are crying about lost jobs and "reliability" and hurting the economy and blah blah and so it will head to the Courts. The Doom Loop that is capitalist "democracy", the theater they call "politics". Kurt Vonnegut would say "so it goes". This time around the rule makers are giving the polluters the option of investing in "carbon capture and sequestration" because that is what addicts do. No one is saying anything about using less electricity. About stopping data centers or bitcoin miners because "the Market". Instead we will hear about "state's rights" and keeping the lights on and the noble, salt of the earth, hard working coal miner.

Students on the Rise?

I am wary but is it possible students are ready to mix it up a bit? This whole inquisition bit, dragging university presidents before moron legislators so they can swear fealty to Zionism is so puking America...maybe it's enough to get students back in the streets. Are Jews unsafe on campus or just uncomfortable? Are there real threats or do they just FEEL threatened? The thing these Administrators of Higher Learning don't understand, will never understand, is that the way to handle these Congressional panels is to go full on Trump on them. Call them sad clowns and rant for ten minutes about whatever comes to mind, then storm out. One thing these protestors ( not just students) need to understand is the power of knuckleheads and provacatuers. All you need is for one Nazi or Islamist zealot to start yelling anti-semitic slurs and the press is on it. Or it could be someone who has planted themselves in your midst just to set you up. And policing yourselves at these protests is almost impossible. Meanwhile, no actual reporting from Gaza but lots about the Manhattan courtroom where Trump glowers.If climate justice activists could get half this amount of people in the streets it would be amazing.

Heatin Up

Not that anybody's paying much attention but global temperatures are shattering records. When talking about "industrial policy" the IMF and World Bank are all about "free markets" but will admit that "There are gains, if they are done right and used to address an extraordinary market failure, like the dangers posed by climate change, the I.M.F. says." An extraordinary market failure. Heard that before. Ocean temps are shattering records and bleaching coral reefs. Average land temps are also setting records with the arctic off the charts. And now the antarctic is showing signs of rapid melt. To combat this existential threat, America has Earth Day ( or week or month) where they get good folks to plant trees and pick up trash and plant more trees. Maybe have an art show and a tour of electrified homes. It makes people feel better, which is the whole point. A very confused op-ed in today's New York War Crimes tries to make the point that the USA should try less free market and more industrial planning China style. Of course the IRA and Infrastructure Act are hardly "free market" solutions but whatever. The authors point is that industrial techno-climate innovation will get us out of this mess if we just learn to cooperate a little. What is fascinating is the ideology subtly embedded in the piece, for example: "entrepreneurial dynamism" is what allowed China to "crawl out of poverty". Nothing to do with planning by a one party state? Then there is this history of US "dynamism" post WWII: "America entered the fight late but with industrial power it emerged on top...the era of American dominance began." Nothing to do with a ruined Europe while we went mostly unscathed. (the lesson: always fight in their backyard) Anyway, according to the liberal author, because Xi is embracing "Communist-sounding slogans like ecological civilization", China is "the world's leader in climate friendly technologies". If we don't wish to be left in the capitalist dust, we better start collaborating rather than imposing protectionist policies. Gee whiz, maybe I should buy a Chinese EV and save the planet.

Just Shocked

Piece in the Times says that folks are disappointed that banks who made big climate pledges in Glasgow are not living up to the promises: "The economists found that banks in the alliance did not change the interest rates on loans to firms with high emissions and that the companies that received the loans were not more likely to set decarbonization targets. In fact, all banks acted the same regardless of the methods available to them to reduce emissions," Turns out banks do what banks do and Greta was correct when she termed such voluntary promises "blah blah blah". It also turns out that protestors do what they always do, as well, no matter the record of success. If you oppose something you hold a march and a rally. With a long list of speakers. Get cars to honk. Have an "art build". Pass around petitions. Whether it changes anything or not is beside the point. It's what you've always done so you have to follow the playbook. Doing the same thing and expectiong different results. The only radicals around are this new breed of Republicans. They are turning the playbook of established conservatism on its head with this new isolationism. I truly hate having to agree with J D fucking Vance but his piece in the Times today arguing that Ukrain is a lost cause pretty much reflects my own view. And many other foreign policy analysts. Tomorrow we will see the accusations of Putin enabler and Chamberlain appeasement but the point is these new radicals are thinking outside of the box and gaining supporters.

One Number

Though we are constantly bombarded with data, about the dropping cost of renewables or the number of universities that have divested from fossil fuels, there's really just one number you need to know: 419 ppm. Kind of says it all. No matter how many billions the inflation reduction act wants to throw at carbon capture and sequestration or direct air capture or green hydrogen, those 419 ppm are staying put for a long long time. And that's just the CO2. Methane and nitrous oxide have their own numbers. In other words, the lengthening handle of the "hockey stick" is still straight. Lots of numbers. The Arctic is warming four times faster than other regions. The oceans are trapping 90% of the heat. The growth rate in EV sales had frop[ped from 54% to 29%. Etc etc. I don't need more numbers, thanks. The U.S. response is to attack China for being too productive when it comes to green energy. They need to "curb" their enthusiasm because they have "excess industrial capacity". And here we were being told the "free market" would save us from climate chaos. But now they want "fair trade", that the U.S. needs to be cut some slack for being lame and falling behind in production. It's no fair that China knows how to get stuff done and make bank while we are busy listening to Kanye West and Marjorie Taylor Green. So Janet is asking them to cool it for a while. Does anyone really need more proof that the system is insane?

Yet More Wool

As if to double down on this new industry propaganda push, the NY Times has a piece wondering if we can "engineer our way out of the climate crisis". Question mark. It informs us about direct air capture schemes and possible atmospheric aerosol spraying, about CO2 sequestration and the "economics" of all this absurd bullshit. What the reporters fail to account for is the cost to the biosphere that all this insane new infrastructure entails. Giant metal machines that suck air and process it and pump it. The human energy that goes into building this science fiction. To their credit, the reporters due quote some opposition voices who point out the obvious; that this fantasy has opportunity costs, that it is all eleborate theater to keep fossil fuel profits rolling in. But they leave the readers with a question mark, as if there is a real debate about the validity of this engineering. And of course it is all subsidized by taxpayers and oblivious, naive capitalists like Bill Gates who are willing to buy carbon credits. Hoping to pay for their sins, to repent and be saved. Two days later: Open the Times to yet another article about geoengineering; this time they are reporting on some experiments to blow micro-salt particles into clouds so as to "brighten" them and make them reflect more sunlight back into space. The article makes the same point all the others do; now that it is obvious that there will be no stopping fossil fuels, we need other options. Even if they are insane science fiction. In other words the obvious solution won't be considered. Get used to it. Invest in hazmat suits and ammunition.

More Wool Over Eyes

The fossil fuel cartel held its annual Cera Week gathering in Houston and they are going "green". Yea! No more denying climate change, now they want to help fix it. They will help by taking government money to research "carbon capture and storage". All this important research, which they are happy to undertake, will take a few years of course and in the meantime the oil majors will be investing in more production and exploration. I guess you could say they have us over a barrel! Ha ha. In somber tones they remind us of how much fossil fuel it is going to take to make the "green transition", but not to worry, they are here to help. This should inspire Bill McKibben to write another article, perhaps send out another petition. Meanwhile, environmentalists are celebrating the fact that the Biden administration is strenghtening the Endangered Species Act. Yea! New rules (which Trump reversed) will go into effect until a judge suspends them because ranchers sue. Or oil and gas developers. Or mining companies. Whoever cries out that the rules are costing jobs, profit, a way of life, etc...Expect the Sierra Club to write an article praising Biden and send out a petition. To show your support. Send more cash. You know the drill. If this all sounds like the endless merry-go-round from Hell it's because it is. Everyone believes the regulatory state can reign in the excesses of liberal democratic capitalism. Fareed Zacharia and David Brooks will describe how wonderful the system COULD BE if only. We just need better rules. Better laws. Sure, keep pulling the wool over your own eyes. It's worked so far!

Teaching Both Sides

Indiana just passed legislation requiring schools to promote "intellectual diversity", meaning more conservative ideas, because they believe the Left has captured education. Of course the irony is that the people pushing this are morons who get their ideas from the internets. The other irony is that this is a prime example of cow-towing to "wokeness" police and promoting "diversity, equity and inclusion", the very thing conservatives love to hate. What I would suggest is that students should challenge the teaching of capitalist ideology and demand they also teach principles of socialism. In the name of "intellectual diversity". Students have been indoctrinated in the destructive market ideology since public schooling began. It's time to teach the "other side". And every conservative professor filling his students heads with free market dogma, with "originalist" constitutionalist dogma, with neurological determinist dogma, etc.. will have to now correct their syllabus. Should be interesting.

These Are My Choices?

Just because I favor Palestinian self-determination does that mean I have to support Hamas? This is how Jonathan Neal and other Leftists are framing it and it is classic leftist idiocy, snatching defeat from the hands of victory. Just as public opinion starts to turn in our favor, those unable to imagine nuance subvert it. Why does that have to be my choice? Mainstream liberal opinion is finally coming around to accept the fact Zionism is an illiberal system, and that opposing that oppressive system is not anti-semitic. The one state solution, unthinkable five years ago, is now being discussed in open forums. So what does the Left-left do? Supports Islamist extremists who use human shields and slaughters civilians. The question is: how does this movement for liberation become ecosocialist? YES magazine and other optimists see a great opening, a real movement, but they say the same thing about Occupy and Black Lives Matter (sometimes Standing Rock gets slotted in there). I see them all as lost opportunities and fear Palestine will be the same. I'd love to be wrong. Speaking of anti-semitism, is it ok to find some Jewish people annoying? It is a stereotype that has propelled many a comedy career, I'm thinking Sienfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Woody Allen, etc.. Now, however, even suggesting they are over-sensitive, a bit neurotic, in other words annoying, sends them crying into the arms of Trump and the unhinged Right. As Wainwright puts it: "I'm tired of America."