A Deliberate Cruelty

I just returned from a three week visit to Cuba, that oh0so0dangerous country lying ninety miles off the Florida coast. A country still on America's terrorist watch list (the hypocricy almost too much to bear), a country being purposely strangled by a blockade and trade sanctions, a country filled with struggling people who just want the opportunity to create a decent life. And but for the neighborhood bully, they certainly could. We met lots of warm and generous people who make amazing music and art and who love to sit and chat, to be social, to hang with friends and family and discuss this or that. They have, as a collective, a very small carbon footprint and make do with what little they have; old cars they keep repairing, horses to pull their cart of produce into town, oxen to plow their small plot of red soil. Ways of being we could definitely learn from (but won't). But being slowly strangled means you do what you can to better your condition. For some that means leaving, emigrating to a place where the future holds more promise. Many Cubans have relatives in America, especially Florida, and this means a leg up in their efforts. The U.S. also makes special provisions for those immigrants who can reach our shores, special funding and programs that immigrants from other places do not enjoy. America's little way of further undermining their poor neighbor. Another way people can improve their circumstances is through the tourist economy. To get a hold of U.S. dollars. This economy is a less-than-subtle way to create inequality and division, the hallmark of capitalism. The goal is obvious; to bring down the socialist government and drive a nail through socialist ideology. Still smarting from the humiliation of the Bay of Pigs and the missle crisis, the bully is relentless in his efforts. Astounded that this small island survived the fall of the Soviet Union and persists in its goals and revolutionary values, the bully is patient but deliberate. The population may or nay not desire socialism but they are proud of their country's ability to fight back against imperialist greed and ambition. It is the kind of pride you will only find among the ignorant in America, those ignorant of their country's history and continued naked aggression.

Here It Comes

From today's Wall Street Journal: "Scientists Resort to Once-Unthinkable Solutions To Cool The Planet". I can't access the article but basically they are describing the research and deployment of various geoengineering schemes, now that it is understood there will be no reduction in emissions or the production of fossil fuels. I remember Guy Mc Pherson years ago predicting this would happen; capitalists and their clients in government would stall and stall and pretend to be making progress and there would be all this greeenwashing and "blah,blah, blah" until the day they announced that due to the emergency it was necessary to deploy geoengineering. That day has arrived. In my novel a sinister collaboration of private and state actors results in a disastrous geoengineering deployment, leading to societal collapse. This was my most optimistic scenario. Because the sooner this thing implodes the better; for species losing habitat, for people being oppressed and exploited and annihilated in various parts of the globe, for the very concept of justice. In an essay in VOX, Eric Levitz takes issue with Andreas Malm's call for the use of property destruction, believing we must wait till enough renewable energy production is installed to replace our current use of fossil fuels. Until the "price goes down" or it is "economical" and there need be no sacrifice. Waiting for the Market, waiting for Godot. Levitz's argument echoes that of COP28 president Sultan Al-Jabar, who quipped that those wanting to halt fossil fuel production wish to "take the world back into caves". This from a man who lives in a palace. But decarbonisation is not anti-modern ( though I personally have no problem with de-industrialization and believe Bruno Latour is correct that climate change signals the end of the modern project) and we can live nicely with considerably less stuff. Instead we can expect our skies to turn a sparkly white sooner than later.

There Is No Off Switch

Ezra Klein : "Capitalism is itself a kind of artificial intelligence, and it’s far further along than anything the computer scientists have yet coded. In that sense, it copied OpenAI’s code long ago." Kevin Roose : "Now, the utopians are in the driver’s seat. Full speed ahead. Team Capitalism won. Team Leviathan lost." Even smart people confuse capitalism and Capital. In the ideological/cultural/political matrix that is capitalism, "utopians" could perhaps be "in the driver's seat." But Capital has no driver's seat. No one or group of people steers it. It careens along its own trajectory, guided by its own logic. Capital is in no sense "managed". M > C> M is all you really need to know, the relentless cycling. This Kevin character is worried that government over-reach (Leviathan) will stifle the awesome innovation represented by Open AI. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with an artificial intelligence smarter than the general population and most of their leaders? Liberals are in a tizzy over the state of our "democracy" and Trump's hostile rhetoric toward our allies. Rachael Maddow, Paul Krugman, even Jon Stewart is inspired to jump back into the fray and defend the precious liberal values they hold dear.