In addition to stepping up to mitigate climate change & green the world’s economy, the free nations must harden our democracies against reactive rightwing violence & hate-based political movements...
I don't see how we can stop climate change. To do that requires national intelligence and will. The Republican Party has courted two demographics - the obscenely wealthy, as you have pointed out, and the ignorant/uneducated (half of us are, of course, below the average intelligence line). The Democrats do their best, but they have to be in the same moneyed pockets to run for office. SCOTUS has seen to that. The obscenely wealthy are also part of the Democratic base, though they know to keep quiet about it.
I once worked for what was then the third largest defense contractor in the world. As a director, I was pressured, but not forced, to be a part of their PAC. It surprised me to learn we donated nearly as much (but not quite so much) to Democratic politicians as Republicans. The company president noted: "Though Republicans are generally more favorable to us, we never know which side will be in power, so we have to hedge our bets."
In the USA, our "left" is actually center right. Our center right is far right and our far right is reactionary extremist. Most of the House Republicans are in the reactionary extremist category, while those in the senate tends towards far right. There are no center right Republicans in power. Even when they can't directly assert their will, they block all progress so Democrats can't have a win, never mind the win would be for the citizens of this country.
Our best approach to resolving the issues Thom brought up would be to get the money out of political campaigns - publicly fund them. Then, politicians would have to answer to the American people, not just the wealthy. But I don't see that happening, given the extreme right-wing SCOTUS. I find it appalling, frustrating and disappointing that Biden will not reform this disastrous court by increasing the seats on the bench.
In Feb 1994, Robert Kaplan wrote an article in The Atlantic entitled "The Coming Anarchy." I was always a fan of The Atlantic and would often pick up the magazine while traveling. I remember reading this frightening article on an airplane. It presaged a lot of what is going on today.
Education would greatly improve the situation, but the Republicans know this, which is why they have had a decades long sustained attack on public schools and why they do nothing to rein in college costs. It's why they are banning books that make people think. It's why they are trying to erase history to make their demographic happy. Education is out of reach for the very people who need it the most.
One last thing to point out; much of the destabilization of Mexico and South America is the result of our the war on drugs. We have enabled the vicious cartels, destroying rule of law and terrorizing their citizens. Here, it has militarized police, put literally millions of citizens in jail, and destroyed communities.
I wish I could be more optimistic. At this point, I'm down to how can I best protect myself and my family through the coming chaos.
Quite a long comment (like mine) but well worth the read. One other thing, the poverty in Central and South America, as well as it's history of violent coups and revolutions, can be laid in the lap of the CIA and State Department, these cabinets are dependent on funding and approval of that funding bycongress and the executive, who in turn are dependent on funding by the plutocracy via it's corporations.
The point is that it got a real boost with United Fruit,using the U.S,. Marines to invade Nicaragua and establish a satrapy. The latest manifestation was when, with the help of the CIA, the fascists pulled a coup and installed their own dictator in Honduras, and Obama played Br'er Rabbit (Br'er Bear don't throw me in the briar patch), but finally recognized the leader of the coup. Hondura;s Coca Cola plant was troubled by workers strikes and demand for better pay and treatment.
Coke's response was to hire right wing death squads to kill Union organizers, and then pull of a coup.
In the 2022 election cycle, Coca-Cola's total listed PAC and Corporate political contributions to Democratic organizations (approximately $697,000) exceeded those to Republican organizations (approximately $663,750).
If all we do is read about and talk about is politics, the Republican party and Putin, this is where you end up.... pretty much nowhere.
Comments like these in my view exemplify the overly "political" aspect of the analysis here, which sees nothing involving class, economics, military budgets, currency exchange systems, Wall Street or imperialism.
This has become rather obvious here, especially when you devote even an hour to someone like Michael hudson. It's like wondering why baseball players are all dressed alike - and analyzing their hats, socks and uniforms - without considering that they are playing baseball, and their dress code is part of the game!
I'm not sure I understand your comment completely, but I am grateful for the reference to Michael Hudson. I didn't know about his work. In return, a good read about the workings of populist mass movements is Eric Hoffer's True Believer.
Hi I'm glad to have your comment. My comment is really to say that "politics" in the narrow sense has become almost a distraction.
I'm saying nothing that george Carlin did not cover in his hbo special many years ago! Today it's just worse.
We are living in a system of economic manipulation that has overtaken politics and politicians, and Thom's content lately is focusing on "politics" devoid of economics. None of this has or will have any effect without dealing with corporate domination of all aspects of society. There are hundreds of years of legal and political precedent that are simply being thrown away - this cannot be explained by politics alone. Every chain hotel works the same way and this is what it means to travel in this country - nobody talks to you, nobody cares, you have to pay more to be able to cancel (this overrides bedrock legal principles of property law). It's one thing for airlines, which are a high cost, limited, highly technical product that flies you through specs. But This neoliberal corporate domination pervades most aspects of everything now like baseball games or concerts or hotels or whatever. Nothing good for humans, only the vile maxim - all for the owners.
Carlin: you have owners not choices, the real owners are not the politicians.
Agree with all you've said. Thanks for the clarification. Thom has written about corporate take-over in the past. Capitalism always aggregates money/resources into fewer and fewer hands. At a certain point, the money (whoever holds it) buys deregulation and politics, which further aggregates capital at the expense of the working class. That's how it works. We don't really have pure capitalism; we have corporate capitalism, which is to say, an oligarchy. I am not against capitalism; I'm against unregulated capitalism. However, eventually and always, the resources will aggregate until people have had enough, usually triggered by an economic disaster. We had a chance to clean things up a bit after the 2008 crash, but nothing came of it.
Yes, agreed, thanks for that. And Mr. Hudson (as well as Hannah Arendt and others) show very clearly how the system of imperialism overseas has a huge effect on what happens at home. The S&P 500 get 45% of revenue overseas, and foreign policy since ww2 has dictated that markets in rersources and people must by open to corporate exploitation, and direct foreign investment - or else. This is critical, and few in American media/academia understand this. Reading "Origins of Totalitarianism" drives this point home. Even recently we see Yellen and Blinken in China, the most pressing concern not being any of the issues we hear about - the most pressing concern on their minds is corporations must be able to INVEST more in China. Not trade, not technology. So-called trade deals are actually, largely, investment and law agreements so that, for example, hedge fund tycoons (like those that go to Alaska with supreme court justices) can make foreign investments under US neoliberal standards.
Also, "capitalism" as a term means almost nothing, especially when juxtaposed against vague notions of socialism. In his history of the world, Professor Quigley in the 1970s or 80s identified many stages and varieties of capitalism which followed mercantilism. Monopolized capitalism, financialized capitalism - we have many of these types of capitalism today that were prohibited or avoided before. The question is what is good for people and the planet and in that sense I really have no idea what kind of capitalism that is. If we proceed as Chomsky does on this subject, we look not at vague, generalized theories - we look at "really existing capitalism."
Very weird and disparate storm effects in hudson valley where we had 3 inches of rain on one side of river and close to 8 inches of rain just several miles north on the other side of the river. Mind boggling weather, without even considering the heatwave in the south.
But why talk about this when there's going to be a cage match between mark and elon?
Here is what Europe is afraid of and why it is shifting to the right.
tCharles Martel stopped the Islamization of Europe in 732, when he defeated Abd-al-Raḥmān al-Ghāfiqī at the battle of Tours (Poitier) in 732 with trained axe (francisca) wielding volunteers
Climate change is doing that, but instead of the invasion being with horse mounted warriors with scimitars, it is a trickling flow of unarmed people on leaky boats from the Mid east and Africa.
I recall reading that when a population reaches 17% there is a shift in power dynamics and culture.
In this case shifting to Muslim. I can understand the concern because American culture and society is being threatened by the Talibanization by the Christian Right.. We see that in Rhonda Santis, and the fat orange emperor's cult following. Which happens to be at least 30% if not more like 35%.
BTW IIRC the sanctions against Venezuela started under Dubya, when Chavez had the gall /s, to think that Venezuela actually owned and controlled it's oil fields, well that pissed off Exxon Mobil, who has been using their hold on our government, Republican and Democrat) to strangle Venezuela into submission, Venezuela has caved, but their middle middle, and upper middle class, are upset that they can no longer exploit the people, so they hop on and airplane and fly to Mexico to enter the U.S,.A.
The claim that they walked from Columbia to the border, but that is obviously a crock, they show up at the border in nice clean, designer clothes, even with soccer balls and dolls.
Just surviving the Darien gap is quite a feat. The gap is in the southern most part of Panama, that borders Columbia, It is full of poisonous snakes, crocodiles, hostile indigenous and bandits. and once out of the gap, you have to make your way to the Pacific side and cross the bridge of the Americas, that straddles the canal, and another hazardous journey ahead, trust me they aren't walking from Panama to our border. I know what's in store. I was the last "gringo" to traverse the Pan-American Highway all the way to Panama, just before the Sandinista's closed the frontier.
I will say this.Because the central and south Americans are ultra conservative Catholics and Evangelicals/Pentecostals I, a progressive, fear the infusion of these theocratic, misogynistic, homophobes (and I know having lived three years with them). I am amazed at the shallow thinking of liberals, advocating for open borders (a concept first floated by the Koch founded Libertarian party. The people they advocate for, are the natural constituents of the Republican party.
And worse when you get to 2nd and 3rd generation like Nicholas Fuentes, and Enrique Tarrio.
There are more right wingers with Latino ancestry, than thought. Like at least 50% of the CBP, and who could forget the Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio.
As for me I am torn. The sheer human tragedy these people suffer from the gangs and right wing of El Salvador, Guatamala, Honduras makes me shudder, and we need labor, because increasingly Americans won't do the jobs that immigrants are willing to do, yet the meat packing/ poultry cabal as well as farmers (most especially agribusiness) exploit these poor people, yet I fear that they add to the stock of conservative, misogynistic, homophobic Trump and Desantis humpers
Immigration policy is tough; we don't have any real ways to integrate immigrants into the larger society, so they tend to form enclaves and maintain their birth cultures. Xenophobia makes this challenge even more difficult. The irony of their risking all to escape the totalitarian systems in which they lived (and suffered) to come here is lost on them. Maybe this is just a human trait. In Florida, we have exiled Cubans who fled Castro, but are now supporting Trump and his desire for the authoritarianism they escaped. This is what happened in Europe with the Muslim immigrants, to the point where they were/are setting up their own community policing and judicial systems (Sharia.)
I hate it when I agree with someone so much, you would think I don't have a brain.
Speaking of enclaves. Back in 1958, I had two friends one an E=-2 one an E-3, both from New Mexico. one was third generation, the others ancestor settled in 1600's.
Both had Mexican accents, but the one whose family lived in NM since the 1600's had a heavy Mexican accent. I've seen the same thing in L.A.
Fact is America has immigrant enclaves, Germans, Orthodox Jews, Italians, Latin each with their own culture, customs, language, but most assimilate at least to the idea underlying our democratic Republic and have blessed us with culture/traditions, words, food and industry's that actually make America great. So many loan words, so many industries, so many inventions, so many foods that has made America great, and at the same time shameful. be it Anglo Saxon, Italian, Irish, Jewish, German, Latin.
I don't include African Americans because withe exception of banjo's, some vegetables like Okra and what we call today Southern Cooking, they were stripped of their culture and identity, and was forced by planters, into an existence of a farm animal. And when that stopped in 1865, reduced to the status of sub human, by whites with laws, regulations, lynchings and flat out ethnicide, as in Tulsa OK where the "proud" citizens burned down Greenwood and killed 300 people.
These people to whom we owe much, served their country with honor and valor, from the Revolution and Civil war, to the Indian Wars, and all wars up till today. and their reward, lynching and discrimination, especially by cops who see them as four legged game that they are free to kill.
Some comments here say it is political. Others say it is economic. I feel that both work in concert and both levers are used either in turns or at times simultaneously. The economic sphere funds the political, so that the political sets policies friendly to those dominant in the economic sphere.
As those policies are set, it bolsters further dominance of the already engorged and economically powerful to further tilt the political to engorge themselves further. Rinse, continue and repeat. Those policies affect the natural world, causing the crises we see, but the only policies on offer concern the needs of the economically powerful. Why? Because they're funding those in power.
The only way to get the money out of politics is to take money out of politics. Politicians raise money for ads, mailers, opposition research and polling to sway voters. The reason this is so, is because most of us allow ourselves to respond to attack ads, mailers, yard signs and mudslinging.
First, we'd all need to agree to ignore campaign ads and publicity. Then, push for making campaign ads, mailers and other propaganda illegal. Then, we'd need to insist on policy presented in public debates, not paid by ads but as a condition for channels to have a current FCC license. They would feature registered candidates from all parties, regardless of polling, with each given the same amount of time to present their policy position on the same question. I believe this could erase fundraising, and by extension the economic forces that shape it. Pipe dream I know but anything has to be better than voters being drowned out by $peech.
All good analysis here, but the lense sees only politics and not economics.
This is a limited and somewhat self-destructive thing - to continue to see the world and in particular the "poly-crises" facing it, in stark political terms which takes no account of economics or related concepts such as imperialism and world debt / currency systems.
This outlet needs Michael Hudson, Chomsky, and Richard Wolff to address more of monetary policy , economic policy and imperialism - not fashionable, not interesting to all, but essential aspects of understanding things.
Putin and trump are bad it's true. But ridding the earth of both men isn't likely to change much about what's driving these poly-crises, so why try to explain everything in the world in stories about these two men?
What does the long-standing imperial ideologies of Silicon Valley and the manipulative impulses of Stamford behavioral tech center have to do with things? Everything! Because our communications system (starting with cable tv) trains us to think that politics and economics are different, and on separate channels.
Thom write extensively about neoliberalism, and neoliberalism is directly linked to the topics covered today but it isn't mentioned. But isn't this primarily an economic concept? This is the kind of neoliberalism that just continues to destroy people and planets through an economic machine that reduces politics to an academic exercise (in our case, that only a relative handful of people participate it.). It's part of the economic paradigm that politics and democracy should be limited - its not a "political" thing at its core - its an economic system and ideology that in just one aspect says politics must be limited, because it's the only politics consistent with the economic system using theories of "free trade" and markets although those things don't exist at all for most people.
We have lost the ability to see class or other economic factors as determinative. In this forum the comments seem content with name calling, and categorizing who is the fascist, as if we are all going to be better off for it.
We are in this way victims of our own mythology which is to consider our American society one that's based on freedom and political concepts rather than class-based.
We should have some forum where the only purpose is to share positive feelings towards humans, link events and happenings that are human-centric and environmentally friendly. And we must find ways of communicating well with others around the world. Silicon Valley is a major problem because it inundated and affects almost all media at this point. Much more focus needs to be placed on this - this outlet provides a lot of good analysis but seems to want to avoid where it is that the economic rubber meets the road. Compared to this, for example:
We need to fight climate disaster like FDR fought fascism with a new Wars Production Board. Back in 1942, FDR had an executive order to design and produce $183 billion (equivalent to $2.21 trillion in 2021) worth of weapons and supplies - about 40 percent of the world output of munitions. Included in this plan was the design and production of 185,000 airplanes, 120,000 tanks, 55,000 anti-aircraft guns and 18 million tons of merchant shipping - all to be accomplished within two years. We need to put the same type of effort and zeal into the research, development, and production of green energy science and industries, to help make these industries super highly productive.
Through major emergency investments in research, design and production. we can make it so we could reduce the cost of these products - so that they will be produced to be sold around the globe. This could be done in a manner to effectively lower the costs for everyone - rich or poor - to make a real difference in the ensuing climate disaster.
WE CAN'T WAIT FIVE, TEN, FIFTEEN, TWENTY YEARS TO CHANGE! (What if FDR said we would produce these armaments in 5, 10, 15, 20 years? We'd be far too late to fight off the fascists from taking over the world!!) We also need research into technologies to reduce that amount of carbon already trapped within the atmosphere and the oceans. Every effort made and every penny spent will reap a billion-fold in the future of the planet -- to save our precious, irreplaceable, interwoven ecosystems.
That's it---the big three. Climate crisis, forced migration, and anti-democratic forces using the refugees. Could not be clearer that we ARE out of time. Thanks for your concise Report, Thom.
The Democratic Party and the Green Party have fought to educate and do something about the climate crisis. Money taken from the "wrong" sources was still used to further the cause. Manchin and Sinema were exceptions. On the other hand, Republicans have taken that money from the same sources and used it to put us in even more peril---anyone paying attention knows that.
I would say the left in every country is just as out-of-time as everyone else. They need to do what any guardian would do, use the resources, people, and funds to heal their child or parent. Mother Earth, her flora and fauna can't stand-up to the big three, WE must!
It is actually the reverse that is occurring with the elites supporting fascistic governments to suppress any opposition from the little people which they consider to be of no importance. It is a minority that controls every branch of government in the USA as well as the military. Existing laws are being shredded by a corrupt U.S. Supreme Court and a corrupt Congress exemplified by having someone like Manchin as chairman for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Talk about putting the fox to run the hen house and there is no better example.
There is the illusion held by many that the USA is a democracy when nothing could be further from reality. The party bosses decided who is allowed to run for office as with see with the support for a Manchin or a Feinstein. These party bosses decided against Bernie Sanders in 2008 and 2016 and 2020 so voters had only the choice of the neoliberal candidate with an Obama or a Biden. Not surprising how many crossed party lines and voted for someone like a GW Bush or a Trump.
The damage we are doing to our planet is terrible. We have the smarts and technology to stop the damage, but the billionaires are blocking progress. Maybe we should put ourselves on the endangered species list.
Our only hope is to empower young people who want to live. Globally, leaders (if you can call them that) fall into 2 categories: 1. I’ve got a luxury bunker in New Zealand, 2. U have a ride on a $500 million dollar oligarchs yacht, or 3. I am too old to give a…. And screw the grandkids. Ok, 3 categories.
Thank you, Thom! Great article.
I don't see how we can stop climate change. To do that requires national intelligence and will. The Republican Party has courted two demographics - the obscenely wealthy, as you have pointed out, and the ignorant/uneducated (half of us are, of course, below the average intelligence line). The Democrats do their best, but they have to be in the same moneyed pockets to run for office. SCOTUS has seen to that. The obscenely wealthy are also part of the Democratic base, though they know to keep quiet about it.
I once worked for what was then the third largest defense contractor in the world. As a director, I was pressured, but not forced, to be a part of their PAC. It surprised me to learn we donated nearly as much (but not quite so much) to Democratic politicians as Republicans. The company president noted: "Though Republicans are generally more favorable to us, we never know which side will be in power, so we have to hedge our bets."
In the USA, our "left" is actually center right. Our center right is far right and our far right is reactionary extremist. Most of the House Republicans are in the reactionary extremist category, while those in the senate tends towards far right. There are no center right Republicans in power. Even when they can't directly assert their will, they block all progress so Democrats can't have a win, never mind the win would be for the citizens of this country.
Our best approach to resolving the issues Thom brought up would be to get the money out of political campaigns - publicly fund them. Then, politicians would have to answer to the American people, not just the wealthy. But I don't see that happening, given the extreme right-wing SCOTUS. I find it appalling, frustrating and disappointing that Biden will not reform this disastrous court by increasing the seats on the bench.
In Feb 1994, Robert Kaplan wrote an article in The Atlantic entitled "The Coming Anarchy." I was always a fan of The Atlantic and would often pick up the magazine while traveling. I remember reading this frightening article on an airplane. It presaged a lot of what is going on today.
Education would greatly improve the situation, but the Republicans know this, which is why they have had a decades long sustained attack on public schools and why they do nothing to rein in college costs. It's why they are banning books that make people think. It's why they are trying to erase history to make their demographic happy. Education is out of reach for the very people who need it the most.
One last thing to point out; much of the destabilization of Mexico and South America is the result of our the war on drugs. We have enabled the vicious cartels, destroying rule of law and terrorizing their citizens. Here, it has militarized police, put literally millions of citizens in jail, and destroyed communities.
I wish I could be more optimistic. At this point, I'm down to how can I best protect myself and my family through the coming chaos.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/02/the-coming-anarchy/304670/
Quite a long comment (like mine) but well worth the read. One other thing, the poverty in Central and South America, as well as it's history of violent coups and revolutions, can be laid in the lap of the CIA and State Department, these cabinets are dependent on funding and approval of that funding bycongress and the executive, who in turn are dependent on funding by the plutocracy via it's corporations.
The point is that it got a real boost with United Fruit,using the U.S,. Marines to invade Nicaragua and establish a satrapy. The latest manifestation was when, with the help of the CIA, the fascists pulled a coup and installed their own dictator in Honduras, and Obama played Br'er Rabbit (Br'er Bear don't throw me in the briar patch), but finally recognized the leader of the coup. Hondura;s Coca Cola plant was troubled by workers strikes and demand for better pay and treatment.
Coke's response was to hire right wing death squads to kill Union organizers, and then pull of a coup.
In the 2022 election cycle, Coca-Cola's total listed PAC and Corporate political contributions to Democratic organizations (approximately $697,000) exceeded those to Republican organizations (approximately $663,750).
If all we do is read about and talk about is politics, the Republican party and Putin, this is where you end up.... pretty much nowhere.
Comments like these in my view exemplify the overly "political" aspect of the analysis here, which sees nothing involving class, economics, military budgets, currency exchange systems, Wall Street or imperialism.
This has become rather obvious here, especially when you devote even an hour to someone like Michael hudson. It's like wondering why baseball players are all dressed alike - and analyzing their hats, socks and uniforms - without considering that they are playing baseball, and their dress code is part of the game!
I'm not sure I understand your comment completely, but I am grateful for the reference to Michael Hudson. I didn't know about his work. In return, a good read about the workings of populist mass movements is Eric Hoffer's True Believer.
Hi I'm glad to have your comment. My comment is really to say that "politics" in the narrow sense has become almost a distraction.
I'm saying nothing that george Carlin did not cover in his hbo special many years ago! Today it's just worse.
We are living in a system of economic manipulation that has overtaken politics and politicians, and Thom's content lately is focusing on "politics" devoid of economics. None of this has or will have any effect without dealing with corporate domination of all aspects of society. There are hundreds of years of legal and political precedent that are simply being thrown away - this cannot be explained by politics alone. Every chain hotel works the same way and this is what it means to travel in this country - nobody talks to you, nobody cares, you have to pay more to be able to cancel (this overrides bedrock legal principles of property law). It's one thing for airlines, which are a high cost, limited, highly technical product that flies you through specs. But This neoliberal corporate domination pervades most aspects of everything now like baseball games or concerts or hotels or whatever. Nothing good for humans, only the vile maxim - all for the owners.
Carlin: you have owners not choices, the real owners are not the politicians.
Agree with all you've said. Thanks for the clarification. Thom has written about corporate take-over in the past. Capitalism always aggregates money/resources into fewer and fewer hands. At a certain point, the money (whoever holds it) buys deregulation and politics, which further aggregates capital at the expense of the working class. That's how it works. We don't really have pure capitalism; we have corporate capitalism, which is to say, an oligarchy. I am not against capitalism; I'm against unregulated capitalism. However, eventually and always, the resources will aggregate until people have had enough, usually triggered by an economic disaster. We had a chance to clean things up a bit after the 2008 crash, but nothing came of it.
Yes, agreed, thanks for that. And Mr. Hudson (as well as Hannah Arendt and others) show very clearly how the system of imperialism overseas has a huge effect on what happens at home. The S&P 500 get 45% of revenue overseas, and foreign policy since ww2 has dictated that markets in rersources and people must by open to corporate exploitation, and direct foreign investment - or else. This is critical, and few in American media/academia understand this. Reading "Origins of Totalitarianism" drives this point home. Even recently we see Yellen and Blinken in China, the most pressing concern not being any of the issues we hear about - the most pressing concern on their minds is corporations must be able to INVEST more in China. Not trade, not technology. So-called trade deals are actually, largely, investment and law agreements so that, for example, hedge fund tycoons (like those that go to Alaska with supreme court justices) can make foreign investments under US neoliberal standards.
Also, "capitalism" as a term means almost nothing, especially when juxtaposed against vague notions of socialism. In his history of the world, Professor Quigley in the 1970s or 80s identified many stages and varieties of capitalism which followed mercantilism. Monopolized capitalism, financialized capitalism - we have many of these types of capitalism today that were prohibited or avoided before. The question is what is good for people and the planet and in that sense I really have no idea what kind of capitalism that is. If we proceed as Chomsky does on this subject, we look not at vague, generalized theories - we look at "really existing capitalism."
Thank you Thom for another absolutely timely article.
We will not win against climate change, if we continue to ignore it. We lose more everyday.
As we speak the flooding in the Northeast is getting worse .
Some areas are expecting
many more inches of rain in areas that have had accumulations of 7 inches or more .
We can continue this acquired “ Militant Ignorance” and pretend its all fine.
But we sign our democracy’s death warrant if we do .
Very weird and disparate storm effects in hudson valley where we had 3 inches of rain on one side of river and close to 8 inches of rain just several miles north on the other side of the river. Mind boggling weather, without even considering the heatwave in the south.
But why talk about this when there's going to be a cage match between mark and elon?
Great article; I shared it to my Facebook page and to two private liberal groups there. Thanks, Thom; your intelligent writing is always welcome.
Here is what Europe is afraid of and why it is shifting to the right.
tCharles Martel stopped the Islamization of Europe in 732, when he defeated Abd-al-Raḥmān al-Ghāfiqī at the battle of Tours (Poitier) in 732 with trained axe (francisca) wielding volunteers
Climate change is doing that, but instead of the invasion being with horse mounted warriors with scimitars, it is a trickling flow of unarmed people on leaky boats from the Mid east and Africa.
I recall reading that when a population reaches 17% there is a shift in power dynamics and culture.
In this case shifting to Muslim. I can understand the concern because American culture and society is being threatened by the Talibanization by the Christian Right.. We see that in Rhonda Santis, and the fat orange emperor's cult following. Which happens to be at least 30% if not more like 35%.
BTW IIRC the sanctions against Venezuela started under Dubya, when Chavez had the gall /s, to think that Venezuela actually owned and controlled it's oil fields, well that pissed off Exxon Mobil, who has been using their hold on our government, Republican and Democrat) to strangle Venezuela into submission, Venezuela has caved, but their middle middle, and upper middle class, are upset that they can no longer exploit the people, so they hop on and airplane and fly to Mexico to enter the U.S,.A.
The claim that they walked from Columbia to the border, but that is obviously a crock, they show up at the border in nice clean, designer clothes, even with soccer balls and dolls.
Just surviving the Darien gap is quite a feat. The gap is in the southern most part of Panama, that borders Columbia, It is full of poisonous snakes, crocodiles, hostile indigenous and bandits. and once out of the gap, you have to make your way to the Pacific side and cross the bridge of the Americas, that straddles the canal, and another hazardous journey ahead, trust me they aren't walking from Panama to our border. I know what's in store. I was the last "gringo" to traverse the Pan-American Highway all the way to Panama, just before the Sandinista's closed the frontier.
I will say this.Because the central and south Americans are ultra conservative Catholics and Evangelicals/Pentecostals I, a progressive, fear the infusion of these theocratic, misogynistic, homophobes (and I know having lived three years with them). I am amazed at the shallow thinking of liberals, advocating for open borders (a concept first floated by the Koch founded Libertarian party. The people they advocate for, are the natural constituents of the Republican party.
And worse when you get to 2nd and 3rd generation like Nicholas Fuentes, and Enrique Tarrio.
There are more right wingers with Latino ancestry, than thought. Like at least 50% of the CBP, and who could forget the Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio.
As for me I am torn. The sheer human tragedy these people suffer from the gangs and right wing of El Salvador, Guatamala, Honduras makes me shudder, and we need labor, because increasingly Americans won't do the jobs that immigrants are willing to do, yet the meat packing/ poultry cabal as well as farmers (most especially agribusiness) exploit these poor people, yet I fear that they add to the stock of conservative, misogynistic, homophobic Trump and Desantis humpers
Immigration policy is tough; we don't have any real ways to integrate immigrants into the larger society, so they tend to form enclaves and maintain their birth cultures. Xenophobia makes this challenge even more difficult. The irony of their risking all to escape the totalitarian systems in which they lived (and suffered) to come here is lost on them. Maybe this is just a human trait. In Florida, we have exiled Cubans who fled Castro, but are now supporting Trump and his desire for the authoritarianism they escaped. This is what happened in Europe with the Muslim immigrants, to the point where they were/are setting up their own community policing and judicial systems (Sharia.)
I hate it when I agree with someone so much, you would think I don't have a brain.
Speaking of enclaves. Back in 1958, I had two friends one an E=-2 one an E-3, both from New Mexico. one was third generation, the others ancestor settled in 1600's.
Both had Mexican accents, but the one whose family lived in NM since the 1600's had a heavy Mexican accent. I've seen the same thing in L.A.
Fact is America has immigrant enclaves, Germans, Orthodox Jews, Italians, Latin each with their own culture, customs, language, but most assimilate at least to the idea underlying our democratic Republic and have blessed us with culture/traditions, words, food and industry's that actually make America great. So many loan words, so many industries, so many inventions, so many foods that has made America great, and at the same time shameful. be it Anglo Saxon, Italian, Irish, Jewish, German, Latin.
I don't include African Americans because withe exception of banjo's, some vegetables like Okra and what we call today Southern Cooking, they were stripped of their culture and identity, and was forced by planters, into an existence of a farm animal. And when that stopped in 1865, reduced to the status of sub human, by whites with laws, regulations, lynchings and flat out ethnicide, as in Tulsa OK where the "proud" citizens burned down Greenwood and killed 300 people.
These people to whom we owe much, served their country with honor and valor, from the Revolution and Civil war, to the Indian Wars, and all wars up till today. and their reward, lynching and discrimination, especially by cops who see them as four legged game that they are free to kill.
Some comments here say it is political. Others say it is economic. I feel that both work in concert and both levers are used either in turns or at times simultaneously. The economic sphere funds the political, so that the political sets policies friendly to those dominant in the economic sphere.
As those policies are set, it bolsters further dominance of the already engorged and economically powerful to further tilt the political to engorge themselves further. Rinse, continue and repeat. Those policies affect the natural world, causing the crises we see, but the only policies on offer concern the needs of the economically powerful. Why? Because they're funding those in power.
The only way to get the money out of politics is to take money out of politics. Politicians raise money for ads, mailers, opposition research and polling to sway voters. The reason this is so, is because most of us allow ourselves to respond to attack ads, mailers, yard signs and mudslinging.
First, we'd all need to agree to ignore campaign ads and publicity. Then, push for making campaign ads, mailers and other propaganda illegal. Then, we'd need to insist on policy presented in public debates, not paid by ads but as a condition for channels to have a current FCC license. They would feature registered candidates from all parties, regardless of polling, with each given the same amount of time to present their policy position on the same question. I believe this could erase fundraising, and by extension the economic forces that shape it. Pipe dream I know but anything has to be better than voters being drowned out by $peech.
All good analysis here, but the lense sees only politics and not economics.
This is a limited and somewhat self-destructive thing - to continue to see the world and in particular the "poly-crises" facing it, in stark political terms which takes no account of economics or related concepts such as imperialism and world debt / currency systems.
This outlet needs Michael Hudson, Chomsky, and Richard Wolff to address more of monetary policy , economic policy and imperialism - not fashionable, not interesting to all, but essential aspects of understanding things.
Putin and trump are bad it's true. But ridding the earth of both men isn't likely to change much about what's driving these poly-crises, so why try to explain everything in the world in stories about these two men?
What does the long-standing imperial ideologies of Silicon Valley and the manipulative impulses of Stamford behavioral tech center have to do with things? Everything! Because our communications system (starting with cable tv) trains us to think that politics and economics are different, and on separate channels.
Thom write extensively about neoliberalism, and neoliberalism is directly linked to the topics covered today but it isn't mentioned. But isn't this primarily an economic concept? This is the kind of neoliberalism that just continues to destroy people and planets through an economic machine that reduces politics to an academic exercise (in our case, that only a relative handful of people participate it.). It's part of the economic paradigm that politics and democracy should be limited - its not a "political" thing at its core - its an economic system and ideology that in just one aspect says politics must be limited, because it's the only politics consistent with the economic system using theories of "free trade" and markets although those things don't exist at all for most people.
We have lost the ability to see class or other economic factors as determinative. In this forum the comments seem content with name calling, and categorizing who is the fascist, as if we are all going to be better off for it.
We are in this way victims of our own mythology which is to consider our American society one that's based on freedom and political concepts rather than class-based.
We should have some forum where the only purpose is to share positive feelings towards humans, link events and happenings that are human-centric and environmentally friendly. And we must find ways of communicating well with others around the world. Silicon Valley is a major problem because it inundated and affects almost all media at this point. Much more focus needs to be placed on this - this outlet provides a lot of good analysis but seems to want to avoid where it is that the economic rubber meets the road. Compared to this, for example:
https://jacobin.com/2021/10/peter-thiel-silicon-valley-tech-right-wing-libertarian-military
Also highly recommended is the materials and online course produced by resilience.org.
Another example of a more economic focus, and how " merely political " doesn't adequately cover the base of problems mentioned in headline.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jacobin-radio/id791564318?i=1000620609463
Another example of the real topic that sits between and underneath both topics in headline.
https://prospect.org/economy/2023-07-07-death-of-an-economic-theory/
We need to fight climate disaster like FDR fought fascism with a new Wars Production Board. Back in 1942, FDR had an executive order to design and produce $183 billion (equivalent to $2.21 trillion in 2021) worth of weapons and supplies - about 40 percent of the world output of munitions. Included in this plan was the design and production of 185,000 airplanes, 120,000 tanks, 55,000 anti-aircraft guns and 18 million tons of merchant shipping - all to be accomplished within two years. We need to put the same type of effort and zeal into the research, development, and production of green energy science and industries, to help make these industries super highly productive.
Through major emergency investments in research, design and production. we can make it so we could reduce the cost of these products - so that they will be produced to be sold around the globe. This could be done in a manner to effectively lower the costs for everyone - rich or poor - to make a real difference in the ensuing climate disaster.
WE CAN'T WAIT FIVE, TEN, FIFTEEN, TWENTY YEARS TO CHANGE! (What if FDR said we would produce these armaments in 5, 10, 15, 20 years? We'd be far too late to fight off the fascists from taking over the world!!) We also need research into technologies to reduce that amount of carbon already trapped within the atmosphere and the oceans. Every effort made and every penny spent will reap a billion-fold in the future of the planet -- to save our precious, irreplaceable, interwoven ecosystems.
It would help to send condoms and education to African and South American nations, wouldn't it?
It would help to send condoms and education to African and South American nations, wouldn't it?
That's it---the big three. Climate crisis, forced migration, and anti-democratic forces using the refugees. Could not be clearer that we ARE out of time. Thanks for your concise Report, Thom.
The Democratic Party and the Green Party have fought to educate and do something about the climate crisis. Money taken from the "wrong" sources was still used to further the cause. Manchin and Sinema were exceptions. On the other hand, Republicans have taken that money from the same sources and used it to put us in even more peril---anyone paying attention knows that.
I would say the left in every country is just as out-of-time as everyone else. They need to do what any guardian would do, use the resources, people, and funds to heal their child or parent. Mother Earth, her flora and fauna can't stand-up to the big three, WE must!
It is actually the reverse that is occurring with the elites supporting fascistic governments to suppress any opposition from the little people which they consider to be of no importance. It is a minority that controls every branch of government in the USA as well as the military. Existing laws are being shredded by a corrupt U.S. Supreme Court and a corrupt Congress exemplified by having someone like Manchin as chairman for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Talk about putting the fox to run the hen house and there is no better example.
There is the illusion held by many that the USA is a democracy when nothing could be further from reality. The party bosses decided who is allowed to run for office as with see with the support for a Manchin or a Feinstein. These party bosses decided against Bernie Sanders in 2008 and 2016 and 2020 so voters had only the choice of the neoliberal candidate with an Obama or a Biden. Not surprising how many crossed party lines and voted for someone like a GW Bush or a Trump.
The damage we are doing to our planet is terrible. We have the smarts and technology to stop the damage, but the billionaires are blocking progress. Maybe we should put ourselves on the endangered species list.
Our only hope is to empower young people who want to live. Globally, leaders (if you can call them that) fall into 2 categories: 1. I’ve got a luxury bunker in New Zealand, 2. U have a ride on a $500 million dollar oligarchs yacht, or 3. I am too old to give a…. And screw the grandkids. Ok, 3 categories.