What To Believe?

There is significant disagreement within the left as to where blame for the invasion of Ukraine should lie. A faction insists Putin's prime motive was NATO expansion, another sees the imperative of energy markets and Capital accumulation as central. Could both be correct? Could it have been a convergence of intersecting power plays? Then there is the liberal explanation whereby Putin is driven by mystical imperial designs and historical ethnic grievances. Certainly the NATO explanation is the simplest, perhaps explaining its poularity. To unravel the relations between Gazprom and the Russian state and Europe - not to mention US LNG and Chinese interests- takes an expertise in international relations few possess. I guess I could also throw the US "defense"/ arms industry into the mix because there is plenty of profit to be made there. Does it really even matter in the final analysis? Its all capitalism in crisis, whether it's the breakdown of the regulatory order and alliances or the breakdown of the trading system and financial flows. It is reminicent of the debates following the attacks of 9/ 11. The instinct is to find solidarity with victims and seek perpetrators to blame. Seek the simple answer that supports a logic you already understand. Which can lead to all kinds of bizarre, uncorroborated speculation. The bottom line, as we will witness with the upcoming COP negotiations, is that Capital has no answers to the climate crisis and capitalism can't deliver on its promises of peace or prosperity.

Non Event

Remember when the COP meeting was a big deal? Even prior to the last one in Glasgow there was a big hype about "saving the planet", the true believers all marching and carrying signs demanding this or that from the "negotiators". But judging by the mainstream media, nobody really cares that they are meeting again next week in Egypt. I'm sure Amy Goodman will be covering it. All the emphasis has shifted from negotiators to The Market. It is market forces which will save us, not agreements. Here is some Democrat from Hawaii: “Nobody’s waiting to see whether the announcements at COP come out exactly as the diplomats hope,” Mr. Schatz said. “Everybody is starting to understand that there is an extraordinary amount of money to be made saving the planet, and it’s not a smart bet for the future to bet against what the markets are saying and what the United States has committed to.” The Market has always known that poor people will suffer and the already rich will grow wealthier because capitalism. "Everybody knows" as the song goes. I just heard some NGO climate expert type guy say he at times feels like a "serial masochist" for continually showing up for COPs. Greta Thunberg is doubling down on "blah blah blah" by calling COP "an opportunity for big polluters to greenwash" and blaming the profit system for inaction. The dominant narrative is that we need to rely on gas because of the "intermittancy" of renewables. They want to turn gas into hydrogen using tons of energy, storing the CO2 underground and selling us the electricity for lots of money. Meanwhile Ukraine is demonstrating how one deals with intermittancy. Lots of people around the globe are happy to get any electricity, intermittant or not.

Silicon Valley Ideology Will Ruin Us

The high tech innovators have their own ideas of what "radical solutions" means, when it comes to climate change. A couple of true believers from Miami Dade County are figuring out how to maintain capital accumulation and profit as South Florida gets pounded by hurricanes and the seas continue to rise. According to them, the answers will come from a new "global climate center for climate solutions" being built in New York. This can only happen though, if "it can avoid lengthy permitting processes and resident resistance, which often thwart new ideas, as it experiments with fresh approaches to the climate threat. These so-called sandboxes for innovation are where we can take risks, rapidly learn what options work and commercialize and scale them up." The high techies will save the planet if people and government regulation will just get out of their way. The smart people will go to their incubator and come up with brilliant solutions which they can scale up and "commercialize" and make billions off of. 3D printing sea walls, for instance. Resistance from people trying to protect ecosystems "thwart new ideas". Using crisis to make money is their idea of "radical" but of course it is the oldest play in the book. One of the authors, Galen Treuer, leads climate tech and economic innovation in Miami-Dade County’s Office of Economic Development. So we know what he gets paid to do. Of course this tech management is all dressed up in progressive development speak. We will "create vibrant , connected communities". Not sure who "we " is. It's all about "long-term well-being, which means adapting communities to be resilient, affordable, inclusive and economically viable in deeply rooted ways." These people are deeply rooted in Silicon Valley start-up ideology and have no real answers.

Who's In Charge?

The story is not that Lizz Truss made some bad decisions, the story is that the Market decides who is in and who is out. Not "The People", be they the movement , the mob, the voters or citizens. Or whatever. It is those running the central banks, the big investment firms, you know, Capital. “Markets are calling the shots right now,” Geoffrey Yu, a senior foreign-exchange strategist at Bank of New York Mellon,” told Bloomberg, referring to the mess in Britain. “That’s the bottom line.” Gamblers are in charge. And we all know how stable and rational gamblers are. The tragedy is that people still believe electing new leadership will change something. Some new insanely ambitious and cunning piker will inherit the calamity that is Great Britian. Could be a clown prince like Boris, Berlosconi or Trump, could be a fascist like Bolsanaro or Meloni or Putin. It hardly matters. Managed decline or accelerated decline, there's only a few more bucks to be made before the gamblers have to climb into the bunkers. But they will play till the end.

More Dead Canaries

This from the Times on the crashing snow crab fishery: Miranda Westphal, a biologist with the state’s fish and game department, said on Friday that it was investigating why the crab population was declining. “From 2018 to 2021, we lost about 90 percent of these animals,” Ms. Westphal said. Alaska is the fastest warming state in the United States, according to Climate Central, an independent group of scientists who research and report about changing climate. And rising temperatures in Alaska’s cold waters may be killing the crustaceans. A few more people out of work, another ecosystem collapsing, another day, another dollar. I don't eat crab so without this article I wouldn't even feel the effect but this is how it comes down, a thousand small cuts, an extinction here, an extinction there. And we are only talking about a small degree of warming, a couple of degrees in water temp, thats how fragile the whole thing is. The other thing that isn't able to sink in, that people seem unable to fuly comprehend, is that this is not a strictly linear process. As I've said over and over and over to no avail, there are tipping points. Points where runaway feed back loops become self-generating and the effects cascade. You don't want to get there.

Atavism, Fascism, Chauvinism and Stress

Most commentary describes the rise of the far-right with its blood and soil ideology on downward mobility and declining living standards. From where I watch the world, I'm not so sure about this analysis. I see plenty of right wing extremism coinciding with increased wealth and social status. Where I live, there is lots of new money circulating amongst the white working class along with increasineg expressions of nationalism, authoritarianism, other manifestations of neofascism. Poor people are much less visible but I just don't see the same types of bumper stickers or Trump flags on the old makes and models. Of course poor people tend to be more guarded, less apt to display their politics for fear of retribution in some form. Poor people don't need more enemies. But I also think they see through the ridiculousness of billionaires like Trump claiming to represent their interests. The guys with the seventy thousand dollar pick-ups, new transplants from San Bernadino and Fresno who made a killing on property, they now distinguish themselves as "Ultramaga", not to be confused with regular knuckleheads. I saw a sign on a truck yesterday that said: "Donald Trump: Father of the New Revolution". Trump is the Big Daddy who can say the things they only think. To the degree we can call it thinking. The point is, these guys want to be out on the bleeding edge, but don't have any understanding of political economy. They love their country but fear their government. They drive around with big flags on their trucks, burning gas.

More Groundhogs

Talk about boring, this Lizz gal, the new Prime Minister, is taking it to a new level, apparently an attempt to swing away from the wacky Boris Johnson show, a little less Monty Python, a little more Margaret Thatcher. The moment the Queen was in the ground she busts out this amazingly unique and creative solution to England's economic woes. Ready for this? Cut taxes and regulations! Talk about phoning it in. Capitalism can't even pretend to try anymore. With interest rates surging she wants to take on massive amounts of new debt, praying the Job Creators will jump into action with this largess. Where have I heard this before? This is what "progressives" and social democrats seem to have so much trouble understanding. When workers start making gains, Capital has tools to put them back in their place. And despite a few Starbucks, Capital is not worried about widespread unrest. The white working class is too busy fretting over guns and Muslims. RIP Pharoah Sanders. His music was often difficult, reflecting difficult times. Most people, myself included, want music to soothe the ache, not intensify it. But Pharoah played the truth. As Washington put it, like a chicken and gravy picnik in outer space. Anyway, tough times. Defeat of the Chilean constitution, yet another student uprising in Iran, the far right winning today in Italy (my prediction), and the stock market tanking prior to the US elections. Expect nothing and you won't be dissapointed. The death spiral spins in fits and starts but always in the same direction.