Et tu, Greta?
Meddling in the US election? Whatever will The Russians™ think?
I never engage in party politics. But the upcoming US elections is above and beyond all that.
From a climate perspective it’s very far from enough and many of you of course supported other candidates. But, I mean…you know…damn!
Just get organized and get everyone to vote #Biden https://t.co/gFttFBZK5O— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) October 10, 2020
For that matter, Miz Klein is Canadian, but who’s counting, eh? ; )
Actually we are going to make him do it, to borrow a phrase from FDR. Just like movements made Obama-Biden stop KXL and DAPL. It's too bad we have to waste energy on it when we should be focussed on a Green New Deal but we'll make them do both, because there is no choice. https://t.co/vDWgaXPceH
— Naomi Klein (@NaomiAKlein) October 8, 2020
But shucks; you couldn’t even advise voting Green for Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker? Tsk, tsk!
We need an Ecosocialist Green New Deal to restructure our economy into a socialist economic democracy where the working-class majority is empowered to protect its interests and receive the full value of its labor.
Read the article at https://t.co/0SOdw2cOVH pic.twitter.com/1ke3uDjhUb
— Howie Hawkins (@HowieHawkins) October 11, 2020
"Joe Biden will not end fracking." Ah. So tell me again about clean energy and being for the environment?
— Angela Walker (@AngelaNWalker) October 8, 2020
But as long as you have his ear, Greta, could I ask that you advise Joe not to support the Venezuelan coup government and self-declared President Juan Guaido?
As Juan Guaidó speaks about the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis and the crimes against humanity perpetrated by Maduro, I reaffirm my commitment to stand with the Venezuelan people.
A Biden-Harris administration will always champion democracy and human rights around the world. https://t.co/N2uhrYOBcx
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 24, 2020
Comments
Apparently, Greta supports fracking.
Who knew?
Welcome to the post-truth world.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
And rejects the Green New Deal.
n/t
* edited. Not fully awake yet!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
now as to biden supporting
any sort of New Gren Deal, that one's shall we say...evolved/devolved over time. first he was touting AOCs outlandish New Green Deal which finally solidified after starting as 'a committee to make a plan'. Whitney webb's initial take is here: 'Corporations See a Different Kind of “Green” in Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal”
biden had put her on his deal's plan, but apparently he went rogue r something an had created his own plan. yes. i'd had to bingle it up, lol.
"awwwww, man!"
fox news, post-debate: 'AOC responds after Biden says Green New Deal ‘not my plan’ during debate, 'Green New Deal is not my plan,' Biden insisted during Tuesday's first presidential debate against President Trump
oh, laird, i gave up reading the zillion bullet points. 'clean energy', 'net zero carbon', all the feel-good buzzwords. i'd read he was touting nuclear power, but i hadn't gotten that far. bio-fuels? fuck that! electric cars? sure, but what fuels those electrical plug in-stations? even our two-bit town has one. for my money, hybrids would be the way to go..if one were affordable.
Just for future reference, wendy
My 2016 Nissan Leaf has a range of 125 miles.
After driving 76 miles and plugging into a level 2 charger, it took 21 kwhs to recharge to full.
In Lewis county Wash. I pay 6.2 cents per kwh. That comes out to $1.30 for 76 miles of travel.
Round trip = $2.60 or about the price of a gallon of gas.
Or, more pointedly, 152 miles to the gallon.
And the Lewis County PUD is 100% renewable energy supplied.
Just for you to reference correctly.
Cheers.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
thank you for the correction.
can you tell me from what 'renewable' source the electric power is derived? and if the battery is a lithium battery?
According to the PUD website
75.28% comes from hydro power, primarily Bonneville Dam.
10.32% nuclear power
3.94% wind
5.91% solar
4.85% other purchases (biogas, methane recovery, etc)
0 coal
0 fossil fuel
0 natural gas
And yes, it is a lithium containing battery.
Much can be said about the emmissions generated by extracting and processing litium, but it pales in comparision to fossil fuel extraction, pumping or shipping, refining, distribution, and then the burning of.
Hands down, no comparision whatsoever.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
it still depends on
what is after all another finite resource. Not to mention it takes lots of fossil powered heavy equipment to mine it. And then there is that pollution problem it leaves behind for mostly poor people, be they indigenous or not, who live near those mines. While we reduce carbon emissions from the tailpipe we leave behind other externalities getting those minerals.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
In a world of shitty choices,
I choose a hybrid or electric car over a traditional internal combustion engine, and lithium mines or coal mines over oil wells or fracking.
Of course, I get that we're not supposed to use cars at all. In a world of (mostly) false choices, that's one where, if you live in a handful of America's older big cities, you can (usually) have a real choice about it. If you live anywhere else, well, of course you *can* do go without a car. I mean, it's within the realm of theoretical possibility. When you look at people's lives, expecting them to take the completely shitty and extraordinarily slow and underfunded public transportation that is all that is available most places in this country, or to bike everywhere, or walk everywhere, when most of our development since the 1940s has been organized around the assumption that people will be driving most of the places they go, is, I think, less than realistic, especially given the number of hours most of those people have to work in order to survive.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Also add the endless coups
thanks, this link was at the bottom of the recent EB:
https://news.antiwar.com/2020/10/09/us-plan-weapons-anywhere-on-earth-in...
The Pentagon is still the bigliest climate changer on earth aren't they? For what now? Give them more reasons to exist, or not.
‘We Will Coup Whoever We Want’: Elon Musk and the Overthrow of Democracy in Bolivia - CounterPunch.org
Hah! U.S. already coup'd Oz a long time ago five eyes. Now what is to be done with the used batteries? Is someone going to wave the magic recycle wand over lithium batteries now? Where is the infrastructure to recycle lithium batteries? I don't know.
Roads: How is asphalt made? Cement? Rubber? Steel? Plastic? I still have to breath the carcinogenics crap spewing off every e-car as it zips by me in its computer controlled environment. PM2.5 is the thing that caused California to lose 30+% of solar production this summer from the wildfire smoke, we're gonna need a bigger battery, yuge.
I'd rather have a transportation system civilians elsewhere did not have to suffer and die for. NOT the corrupt and expensive diesel spewing crap being promoted on this year's local ballot, and NOT Elon Musk's dystopian America. "Every night I look up at the stars, and I'm sorry that Elon's not trapped up on Mars."
good luck
good on you,
and yes, i'd mentioned the coup (golpista) government's re-privatization of bolivia's lithium and selling it to elon musk...downthread.
seems the war against MAS is getting far more terrifying ahead of the third and new date for oct. elections. good gawd all-friday. i may bring that story soon, but i need to add another 'pelosi goes bonkers' thingie first.
I was going to write a science-fiction novel --
about a future in which the oil-company executives were sentenced to hard labor in the rare earth mines so that the Green New Deal governments could make solar panels and electric-car batteries....
"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama
if your PUD website is
truthful and i'm not saying it's not, it seems it would be rare as to sources. i did kick this up and it's from 2018 and it depends on locations, etc.:
How clean is the electricity used for charging electric cars?
February 5, 2018
https://www.fleetcarma.com/clean-electricity-used-charging-electric-cars/
we have a far-away son who's in crisis, so i may need to sign off for the night.
anyhoo, hybrids make more
sense to me. use some gas to start the car, then traveling recharges the battery.
i just heard from a friend in nova scotia who'd said he's working on solar panels and electric cars. he's not an engineer, so i dunno in what capacity.
another friend we have in common is working for gov. jared polis on transitioning from coal (given several mines closing) to 'renewable power' (an ambiguous term at best).
I’ve got a bad case of kWh envy, here in the other coast!
Charging at home costs me 23 cents/kwh, 3.7 times your rate! At public chargers the rate is usually more, particularly for the DC fast chargers (Whole Foods is the exception and is FREE for DC fast charging).
Even so, even with the abnormally low COVID rates at the gas pumps it’s about a break even proposition. Considering the lack of regular ICE (internal combustion engine) maintenance and oil changes on an EV, there will savings on that front.
The EV driving experience is also far superior, quiet but peppy, no shifting and a torque profile that you need to experience to understand. I’m all-in, no looking back.
Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes
Doin' the maff
At your rate I would be getting about 44 mpg equivalent. The real question is why is your rate so high? As you can see, there are cheaper ways to produce electricity.
You are correct about the mantainence angle. No more oil changes, oil filters, gas filters, air filters, tune ups involving new spark plugs or plug wires, fan belts for smog pumps, alternators, water pumps. And no regularly replacing timing chains either.
And no tranmission (do we really need 8 speed transmissions to bump up fuel mileage?).
Essentially, an electric motor has only one moving part. How many parts does a modern ICE car have?
What I would like to see is a timely and current status report on the ten year lifespan of the Leaf. A good job for Car & Driver or Motor Trend magazine to do a report on how they are holding up after ten years of use (the first Leaf rolled off the assembly line in 2010).
The lifespan of the battery pack is probably the most crucial aspect and while mine has degraded slightly after 20k miles, it still will give me 116 miles of range. More than enough for the errands and travel I do.
I will never purchase another ICE vehicle ever again. I'm sold on electric.
Jonesin' for my Tesla Cybertruck.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Who killed the electric car, and why?
Early electric vehicles (20th century) were often only available on leases. It was clear from the beginning that the lack of regular maintenance items on all electric vehicles posed a problem for car dealerships. Car sales generated only a small fraction of dealer profits, the bulk being generated by the service department. Perhaps this played heavily in Tesla’s decision to forego the traditional dealer networks for its all electric vehicles.
Until recently, limited EV range and limited recharging infrastructure made them a poor choice for most single car households. With current ranges of 250-300+ miles and better public charging options that is becoming less of an issue.
Why electricity is so expensive in some areas and nearly free in others is likely due to the percentage of more expensive generation and distribution costs, plus the lack of a cost leveling National policy of government regulation. When the profit motive is the primary regulator of a commodity, supply and demand will make widely disparate costs to the consumer inevitable.
It’s time to dust off Tesla’s purloined research (spirited away by our shadow government at his death) and make cheap and ubiquitous public electricity a reality. Sadly, protecting the health and well being of corporate profits is still our government’s top priority, to the detriment of the rest of us worker bees.
Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes
Good points all, Ovals
Addressing your first point, electric vehicles were produced in the late 1800s by Studebaker of covered wagon fame. They produced three models iirc and were pushed out by the Rockefellers who wanted to find a market for their gasoline, considered a waste product from the oil refining process.
Imagine where the world would be if we had turned away from the ICE technology and poured our efforts into battery tech back in 1890.
As for Tesla dealerships, I, and apparently Musk too, see no need as the Tesla vehicles have so few moving parts to go wrong, an army of mechanics and related staff are a waste of resources.
Tires, brakes, wheel bearings, wiper blades, and body work can be supplied by existing aftermarket infrastructure. These items represent the only real maintenance on an electric vehicle. Like a washing machine, once the motor goes, it time to buy a new one. They could be considered a "durable goods" product really, should last years and years.
But what critics of electric vehicles are missing in their arguments is the enormous dragon in the room. The death and destruction of million of people and their countries around the globe who just happen to be sitting on vast (and sometimes pidling) amounts of oil that belong to the world-wide oil conglomerates.
Lets be real here. These people will regime change any country, destroy any economy, blockade and starve any people, and bomb any population in their quest to "recover" what they believe belongs to them, oil, wherever it is found. Any they have a powerful and servile military to do their bidding. As long as there is a market for their ill-gotten loot, the violence world-wide will continue.
The electric vehicle spells the beginning of the end of this horror.
Want to be a part of saving the world from complete annihilation?
Buy an electric vehicle.
IMHO
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
That's half of what I pay
And my Equinox has three times the range. And assembled in the USA of USA made engine and Canadian transmission according to the sticker.
EDIT:
Canadian transmission plant is just over the border from Michigan, plenty of USA UAW workers there. GM gets a break from the Canadian taxpayers on Medical costs for the Canadian workers.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
From what I understand
the Green New Deal is an aspirational plan that has been put forth as a resolution, not binding legislation as would have been the case with the OFF Act that was proposed by Tulsi Gabbard. While the Green New Deal is better than nothing, it would have zero teeth to force implementation of its goals
No one in Congress is willing to take even a small bite out of the bullet for fear of angering the donor class, so any Green New Deal will end up just like the OFF Act, which was far better at reducing green house gases, in the dust bin of history. If a country as wealthy and technologically proficient as the United States cannot adequately address the impoverishment and ever mounting death toll from COVID-19 due to political posturing, there is no way this country will ever address climate change. Yes, I am very cynical about the future of this country and the environment we live in.
It sounds as though our young environmentalist, Greta Thunberg has been coopted just like nearly every other crusader before her.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
to say the truth,
i dunno that i'd ever read tulsi's OFF (off fossil fuels, i assume).
but i share with your cynicism as to our future, most especially when the second great depression comes at the serf class in earnest. US wealth disparity has grown to simply obscene rates already.
given this (IMO) epic truth:
yes, i do pity her in a way; thrust into the Limelight too early, pushed by her parents and others, courted by so many oligarchs, magazines, and her quotes at the WEF being used to usher in a hundred green-washed businesses. iirc, her Twit account says she has asperger's (i'd thought it was autism spectrum disorder).
but my other sadness is my belief that it's all too late for any USian Green Deal to unwind climate change/chaos, nor heal the oceans of their plastic killing the coral reefs, in the very air we breathe, the soil largely empty of microbes due to incessant factory farming by Monsanto (& bill gates) crops, and such.
the global drought map is hard to even glance at, the the potable water map (or did i make that up?) even worse. globally, we've been turning this once bi blue-green ball into a trash heap. methane clathrate leaking our of the seabeds below both ice caps, north ad south.
makes me think of the julie gold song: 'from a distance'. speaking of which, the largest single carbon footprint on the planet is...the US military.
end war. out of NATO and AFRIOM!
RE Asperger's/autism spectrum disorder
It's sort of the same thing. The problem is that several years ago now, Asperger's Syndrome was removed from the DSM - this was largely due to good intentions, but possibly also due to political/ideological interests who (rightly) feel threatened by the implications of our existence. In any case, it was a mistake for those of us the diagnosis fits like a glove.
I am an Aspergian mutant. I deny that I "have" autism; I am autism. It's not all chicken tendies and Minecraft (to indulge this season's stereotype - more like "sushi and Might & Magic", in my case), but the world would be a inestimably better place if everyone else was, too.
It isn't so much a "gift" (i.e. adds something good) as it is a "cure" (i.e. subtracts something bad) - namely for that favorite Postmodernist dildo "The Human Condition".
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
thank you for your explanation
and comparisons.
I never read the bill either, but
According several environmental groups, the OFF Act was the most comprehensive bill ever put before Congress to address climate change. Here is just one comment from ECO Watch about it.
snip
Here is another article on the OFF Act from Common Dreams.
The difference between the OFF Act and the Green New Deal is that the OFF Act was a regulatory bill that had the full impact of law, whereas the Green New Deal has been presented as a resolution which has no real impact of law. It is a case of actually doing something (OFF Act) versus the appearance of doing something (Green New Deal). Unfortunately, the Off Act never went anywhere due to Pelosi, etal's hatred of Tulsi and of doing the right thing.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
thank you kindly
for your diligence. i sure like 'no exporting of fossil fuels'. but as far as "100% zero-emissions car sales by 2035", it doesn't really track for me. electric cars again? also: the term 'renewable' sure doesn't mean 'sustainable'; think corn ethanol and other bio-fuels, for instance. plus, the chokehold on EV batteries seems to be mainly lithium )plus nickel/cadmium.
the coup government in bolivia has privatized the nation's lithium...and is selling it to elon musk. but the other minerals seem to be involved in the Resource Wars in sub-saharan africa (hence: AFRICOM).
but bill gates is very bullish on ending dependence on fossil fuels, so is scheming with the US dept. of energy to create mini-nuclear power plants to send all over the world. wish i still knew where all my notes on that effort were.
but the devil's in the details, as always, and perhaps tulsi knew what she was calling for and i don't.
All well and good
if we had done it 50 years ago.
The US is responsible for roughly 25% of the world's "emissions". I believe that represents anthropogenic CO2 emissions. The US electrical sector is responsible for 20% of that, or 5% of global emissions.
The 2018 IPCC interim report mandates a global reduction of emissions of 50% by 2030 (NOT 2035, that's not good enough) to stay below 2C warming (which is not OK, it's a possibly survivable catastrophe, except not really), and like every IPCC report it wildly understates the problem. Taking our electricity sector to zero is a literal drop in the bucket, a mere tenth of what has to happen. And we're not done in 2030, we need net zero emissions of all kinds across the entire world by 2050 and we have no idea how to do carbon neutral agriculture.
The average car stays on the road for 12 years. Last year I sold my primary vehicle that I had bought new in 1990. Somebody else is still driving it.
After every new car in the showroom is electric it takes 12 years to retire the fossil fuel burning fleet. We're in a depression and people don't have money for food or rent, they aren't going to be buying Teslas any time soon. We don't have the manufacturing capacity to replace them any faster. And every electric vehicle is an additional load on the electrical sector on top of getting to zero net emissions.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
thank you for this.
to my mind, you're one of the most realistic here about climate issues, including many of the tipping points, etc. 'net-zero carbon' apparently includes 'carbon off-sets' which seems to be a bit of a capitalist scam, according to the indigenous eco-socialists in the global south who'd caravanned to the 2017 earth sustainabilty conference. they'd mentioned REDD in particular, but i've long forgotten how it's used, and why and how it causes harm the landless indigenous in the global south.
klauss schwab was criticized for the gazillion private jets flying into Davos last year, and said 'ach, i'll buy some carbon off-sets'.
but you've put me in mind again of Big Bill McKibben who'd recently an most sincerely advised: 'trade in your gas-guzzling SUV for an electric one'. ay yi yi.
robert hunziker often notes that reports tend to underestimate crucial and dire warning signs in order to not create panic.
But what does it do about Indian and Chinese emissions?
That was the flaw in the Kyoto agreement. It was just feel good because India and China are filling the air with toxic emissions as well as CO.
EDIT: should be CO2 not CO although those wood and coal fires make plenty of CO also.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Exactly
Total US emissions could go to zero by 2030 (not that we know how to do that) and that's still only half the goal. Everybody has to paddle this canoe.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
15 minutes of fame
I don't think she's been co-opted. I think she's been in it for nothing else but her 15 minutes of fame, sauced with "look how superior we Northern Europeans are", from the beginning; and now I feel I've been proven right.
Note well how few such "crusaders" there are in the age range from 25 to 59. Idealism evaporates fast once one must live as an actual adult, i.e. with obligations and responsibilities.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Wow, you felt she was "off"-not in the Tulsi legislation sense
-as well!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
yes, indeed.....
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
oooopsie;
#MadeForSatire, isn't it? first good laugh i've had in days.
But...but...Miz Klein will will MAKE him ban fracking! (hold his feet to the fire after he's in the white house, yes? VeddyyBlueTeam thinking.)
make him.
God what a disgusting statement out of Naomi. After all her apparent scholarship writing the shock doctrine its sad she can't or will not see the parallels here, isn't it? If trump isn't part of the shock I sure as hell don't know what is. I'll keep her book as its an important one but I won't ever think of her the same way again.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
this may not be the time or
place to jump into my...disregard for her, but i've come to believe that she's funded (as is bill mcKibben) by the rockefeller foundation, her books only go so far in critiques. she spoke only of 'unfettered capitalism' rather than simply capitalism v. anticapitalism in her 'thie changes everything'.
there are other examples, but what earned my extreme enmity was hers and glenn greenwald's trashing of julian assange...and wikiLeaks, as well as hits on him by four other 'fearless journalists' at the Intercept, or Pierre's Palace. yes, i do hold grudges, which i hear is not healthy. ; )
Wow. They're dropping like flies.
Susan Sarandon, Naomi Klein...I'm not even surprised anymore by Chomsky; it seems like this move is his entire cultural and sociological reason for being. I bet his nickname among his intimates is "LOTE."
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
An old jump rope chant:
" All in together now
Do you like the weather now."
We are supposed to unite. no matter what. That's what is being sold. Being bought? We'll find out in a few weeks.
NYCVG
Seems like it's being bought, but not by me.
As Suzette Haden Elgin wrote in her 1986 science fiction novel, Native Tongue,
"The whales say: `We won't play your silly game.'"
I'm with the whales. I'm not spending the last few years (maybe) of human existence pandering to a authoritarian thugs.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Oh, gimme a break.
When the system is rigged to effectively limit voting to a "choice" between R or D, choosing the slightly lesser evil in no way constitutes support for all the evil embodied in that choice.
The At Least Party and its At Least Candidate
The only appeal of the national Democratic Party Leadership and its chosen candidate is At Least We Aren't Trump.
Even after several fixed elections this century, I sincerely do not understand how anybody can imagine that the votes will be counted honestly. Nevertheless, the horse race fun is a very hard habit to break, and people tend to fret over who might "win" and the political palaver in play.
Within that topic of internet discussion, virtually every argument in favor of Biden is based on the contrast with the personality of Donald J. Trump, the Wrestling Villain. At least Biden doesn't want to be Hitler . . . .
Is this a great country or what?
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Purrrrfect:
'The At Least Party'. where did i read early this a.m.: 'they should have nominated Hellary! she would have mopped the floor with DT in the debate!'
subtext?: she could out-neo-con him?
yes, this is a great nation, or else DT was more correct: 'A shit-hole nation; drain the swamp!'
only several?
With black-box machines counting the votes, I think all the elections since 2000 are fixed.
Pushing the Dim nominee left? Firedoglake & "the Veal Pen"
of trying to push Obama even an inch leftward beyond just talk.Stopping the Keystone pipeline was pure PR, as revealed later Obama boasted of approving enough pipelines 'to circle the world'.
Ntm not a word said about Standing Rock, other than Obama's "let it play out" as indigenous people protesting to protect their land and water were sprayed with water cannons in below freezing temperatures while law enforcement agencies and private armed people attacked the peaceful protesters.
Why? "On Tuesday, Common Purpose held its weekly meeting where lobbyist Erik Smith and a comm person from the White House tell liberal interest groups what they should be saying that week. Then if anyone gets out of line, they kick their asses. Along with Unity 09 and the 8:45 am call, they exist to form a solid left flank and keep the White House immune from liberal criticism. I like to call them collectively “the veal pen.”
"The organizations that are usually at the Common Purpose meeting include Rock the Vote, the unions, the LCCR, the Sierra Club, HCAN, Bob Creamer (Jan Schakowsky’s husband) of Americans United for Change, CAP, Media Matters, MoveOn, Campaign for America’s Future and numerous other groups that earn their seat at that particular table by not bucking the White House. (The notable exception is MoveOn, who bravely sent a letter to their members telling them to contact the White House and tell Obama to reign Rahm in on triggers. I’m going to guess THAT precipitated quite the phone call.)
Rahm unleashed a tirade on them all, telling them that they were going to fuck up the Democrats if we "failed" to pass any old health care bill (which appears now to be the health insurance industry approved co-ops). But I doubt you’ll hear any of them confirming that the White House hasn’t pressured them to stop their attacks on Democrats any time soon, because it came in the form of a flying shit fit at top volume with four-letter verbiage liberally applied.
Shorter Rahm: Leave the Blue Dogs ALOOOOOOONEE!!!
(emphasis mine) https://shadowproof.com/2009/08/07/rahm-goes-apeshit-on-liberals-in-the-...
oh, my; as i was reading
i hadn't even guessed that that was miz hamsher in 2009! yesterday someone had mentioned hamsher's use of the Veal Pen, which threw me back in history. i'll need to stick a pin in this for now, see if my addle-pated brain can dredge up why some of us had believed that she'd become a member of that pen her own self. endorsing one form of health insurnce, not the other, if that prods your memory banks.
i will offer that she hadn't cared for my scribblings at the readers diaries, though: My.firedoglake.
but mcKibben definitely tried to keep ALL eyes on the prize of the XL pipeline, then later his Divestment Tour which was laughable as fossil fuel stocks would jut be bought back by the corporations, likely at a lower price, then resold.
you may remember bill's
grand XL protest at the while house, even using Obomba's logo. turns out that they all knew ahead of time barack wasn't even there. they all assembled a day earlier than scheduled for a photo-op to use as X-mas cards, all those pix are copyrighted, thus not public.
and the BFD? OMG!: the sierra club voided their non-political stance and joined the protest!
the issue i've been
trying to recall was miz hamsher's having changed her mind on 'public option' v/ 'exchanges', but i cant for the life of remember how that went.
on of her explanations for using 'the veal pen' had paid homage to van jones, but i can't find it again. she'd had him on for a Q and A session back in the day (i hadn't attended) but read the comments the next day. many folks were so pissed that their Qs and comments were deleted, and i'd ended up writing this up: ‘I’ve Been VanJonesed and DemocRatted, ProgressiveCauCussed and LibrulFatcatted Till I’m Blind’, june 18, 2012
yes, it was irreverent, subversive, and it was suspended until jane and friends decided what do do...it was also back in the day when i could still write a bit, not copy paste others' words. ; )
Greta has always been a pawn of the owner class
and this proves it. If she was really a climate activist she would have been calling out numerous governments for their inactions on climate change. A few years ago she met with France's Macron who did not enact any of the policies she was asking for. After Macron told her no she then met with him privately for a photo op where she was all smiles with him. Great job, Greta. Macron just told you that you're on your own cuz there's money involved and you just said, "Aw shucks."
Lesser evil voting is still voting for evil, but Trump is so evil that it doesn't matter that Biden will do nothing to address climate change just like Obama did noting except to open the country to drilling and fracking including offshore drilling after the BP disaster. If that didn't wake up the government,, I don't know what will. But of course people are saying get rid of Trump and then push Biden left. How? You've already said that your will vote for him even though he said that he doesn't need the left.
This comment nails it:
This election is a fight between corporatists to get their CEO appointed president. Biden told the truth when he said that nothing will change if he becomes pres. Don't forget that Pelosi has passed pay go rules saying any new legislation needs to be paid with tax raises or cuts to programs.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
to be paid with tax raises
a superlative idea Nancy.
How about raising taxes on the 1%
for starters. They can best afford it.
Oh, but wait...lemme guess, her friends
need their zillions to create jobs and pay
their accountants and congress critters.
Another good comment on that article
SuspiraDeProfundis
SkepticTank
2h
Obama also declared Venezuela as a “National Security Threat” and started the US sanctions against the same. He ramped up the war on Yemen, destroyed Libya and attacked Syria based on faked intel reports. It a good thing he was being challenged by the left or who knows what else he would have done. I mean he might even have kept Gitmo open…
yeeee, crikey;
your first paragraph about says it all, esp. as i was unfamiliar with all of it.
your common dreams link title included miz klein again: All Left Hands on Deck. Step 1: Defeat Trump. Step 2: Challenge Biden; No one has described the current crossroads more astutely than Naomi Klein, who tweeted last month: "Vote for a more favorable terrain." by Norman Solomon
i'd gone back to a post i'd done long ago that contained a number of tweets by cory morning star, canadian journalist, having recalled this Tweet of caitlin johnstone's:
followed by:
@caitoz 'Really any time the MSM makes a sustained, uniform appeal to emotion, you're being manipulated.'
either greta, or whomsoevr handles her twitter account, had provided the trailer of a new Hulu film starring the #Fridays4Climate©. i'm sure it will go viral w/ its emotional appeal.
thanks for weighing in with so much additional info, snoop.
hulu greta thunberg trailer
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDdEWkA15Rg]
She's so smart.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
she's certainly far more
aware than i am on the global zeitgeist, wars, and threats of wars. i blink sometimes when i see her columns at RT.com and which confrontations she's so au courrant. Belarus? oy.
i can't say i've liked everything she's written, but most of it, esp. now on 'trump as THE existential threat".
a few more of her tweets of interest, and you may remember john cusack was one of the Freedom of the Press Foundation (an organization that assaange had created with john perry barlow & provided the seed money for) members who'd thrown wikiLeaks out:
@caitoz
Oct 11 My teenage daydreams about one day encountering John Cusack were always a lot more boomboxy and a lot less shitlibby. @johncusack
@johncusack 'No the Bernie movement has just begun - we will move the dem to new deal center
@caitoz : No you're not. You're not going to make Biden do anything. As soon as Trump's gone all MSM criticisms of the US president will end, and all the opposition among . https://twitter.com/NaomiAKlein/status/1314280048220803072
Kind of sad that they've gotten Cusack to that point.
He's been, in the past, very sharp, and quite anti-authoritarian. Probably he just can't stand the reality of things anymore.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
the reality of things
Much like the rest of us......
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Earth to Ms. Klein
Left-handedness is just a cutesy-poo metaphor. Nobody CARES about left-handers - they're a minority, but not one that will get anyone any brownie points for virtue signaling. They don't matter. Not like people with more melanin than average, not like people whose gender identification is "other" - they are worth oodles of brownie points, they matter, they get all the virtue signaling.
Lefties can join the poors at the bottom of the "no one gives a damn about you" heap.
/disgusted snark
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Whitewashing Obama's crime sprees
Obama's failure to reverse the ever-expanding violence and chaos of U.S. wars, overshadowed his efforts to restore America’s international credibility, especially in the Global South? WTF? For gawd's sake he's saying that the war criminal fell short in returning America's shiny image of freedums and the rule of law.
Justified, Media Benjamin? How in hell can you even write that sentence?
And for gawd's sake (pun intended) Amy Coney Barrett's religion isn't as big a concern for me is as is her history of furthering the corporate interest's goals in asset stripping the country. Making this about her ridiculous beliefs in an imagined dude in the sky that weighs life and death decisions every second is a "look squirrel" movement in my opinion.
Deomocrats showed up so they could pretend that they are against ACB on the SC, but just as they are fine with Trump's judges they are fine with her too because she will help overturn standing progressive legislation that congress passed back when they were semi sane. None of that would ever get passed with today's government. But sure VBNMW just because Trump is so damned dangerous. Well he wouldn't be able to get his crap passed if dems had actually 'Resisted' him. Fed up with the theater. Fed up with people not seeing it for what it is.
Reading the rest of the article goes on to say that Trump has taken the heinous things Obama started and made them worse. Hell. Let's put the blame where it belongs. On both parties that don't give a damn how many people get killed so that their donor's wallets can get fatter.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
thank you for featuring
that dreck and railing against some of the most offensive portions. what a tome it is, as well; i'd had to back out for now...cross-eyed.
medea is another heroine of 'the anti-war left', isn't she? i do recall someone pointing out that Code Pinkers are always allowed into whichever events they choose to protest...and be dragged out by force. wonder why that is?
i'll go take a chore break to rest my eyes. those C-shapes with jagged prismed edges have started.
An article about Code Pink people getting in & out of jail
"We don't like getting arrested - it takes time and it's expensive and takes lawyers," she said. "But we've been arrested dozens of times."
Benjamin has also been denied entry into Canada and Egypt, where she says an Egyptian policeman fractured her shoulder attempting to force her onto a plane out of the country.
But in Washington, the Capitol complex and committee hearings are by law and democratic tradition open to the public unless secret intelligence matters are being discussed.
The police who guard the Capitol complex will not ban serial disrupters from the premises unless a judge deems extraordinary circumstances warrant it."
I was watching C-Span and I cheered when this act happened,..
" ..The US Capitol Police respects and protects the right of people to peaceably assemble and exercise their rights under the First Amendment" to the US constitution, spokeswoman Lt Kimberly Schneider said in a statement. "We balance providing security with maintaining a safe and open campus that is accessible to the general public."
In 2007, for instance, a Code Pink activist was charged with disorderly conduct and assault on a police officer and banned from the Capitol premises after she waved her red paint-covered hands inches from the face of then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and shouted "war criminal".
...
Political demonstrations are forbidden in the buildings of the Capitol Hill complex. If the Capitol police observe a demonstration they will ask the protester to cease, and if they refuse they face arrest.
The Senate and House committees have their own rules, and some chairmen and women are more lenient of protest than others. People such as Benjamin and her co-activists who demonstrate in a hearing will be removed, by force if necessary but typically with their co-operation"
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29280937
you're quite a fan!
hadn't meant to harsh your mellow, and even with all you've posted and they've said, my take has been that they love getting dragged out. #BigNews. but sure, i was thinking of within amerika.
as for other anti-war organizations, david swanson and friends, anti-war.com. black alliance for peace, but none likely as apt to show up in person, i expect.
thanks for all the 411, aliasalias.
Yes, it's all theater
To get contributions.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
I'm a fan of what they do & you didn't harsh anything, np
The list of real peace advocates in this Country is already too damn short and kicking one of them off the list of trust over a quote wrongly attributed to a co-founder of Code Pink simply deserved a response. Nothing personal meant towards anyone.
I also follow David Swanson, who has long been a favorite of mine and has been involved with Code Pink (not the only reason I've liked him) going back years,that's where I first heard him speaking and over the years you'll find David Swanson involved with a lot of Code Pink activities.
Here is David Swanson years ago about the ending of the color coded govt. warnings under Obama.Not a small thing when one considers how it was used to ramp up fear across the Country, something like Orwell's 1984.
Code Pink Wins the Future
By David Swanson
The future will be here in April and Code Pink: Women for Peace has already won it (thus answering President Obama’s State of the Union call to “win the future”). The color coded threat warnings our government has been bombarding us with since shortly after September 11, 2001, will be gone. The fear-mongering tactic that Code Pink was named in mockery of will have been mocked right out of existence.
To listen to the corporate media, Code Pink cannot be taken seriously because decorum and politeness are universal values of a much higher order than peace or justice. (Code Pink has been known to disrupt a formal event or two, in addition to all its other work advocating for peace.) But that sort of snobbish mockery has nothing on Code Pink’s power to afflict the comfortable in the process of comforting the afflicted. Code Pink has gone from being ignored, to being laughed at, to being attacked, to being agreed with on matters of war and peace by two-thirds of the country."
https://davidswanson.org/code-pink-wins-the-future/
currently...https://www.codepink.org/news
smile.
thank you.
I read that Medea quote quite differently
First I invite you and others to look at the Code Pink website and then tell me you believe that highlighted part of the excerpt was a statement of support for the idea of 'humanitarian interventions'. Look at the history of actions in other Countries as well as here, ongoing for many years now and if you know of a more anti-war, anti-intervenionist organization I would really like to know the name.(all emphasis mine)
https://codepink.me/2020-06-11-news-headlines/
I get emails from her and Code Pink regularly and in that excerpt she is noting some good things vs Or would it perpetuate catastrophic neocolonial wars justified as humanitarian interventions?
"....Yes, the US overthrew Saddam Hussein, but it also destroyed the nation’s infrastructure and tore asunder the societal fabric. By disbanding the entire Iraqi military and bureaucracy, and supporting a sectarian Shia government, the US created a power vacuum -- a space for ISIS to seize power. ISIS currently controls a huge swath of Iraq, some 13,000 square miles, and wreaks havoc on the predominantly Shia’a population by carrying out ethnic cleansing, taking women as slaves, beheading children, and displacing entire communities.
Libya is a similarly tragic tale. When the peaceful protests against Muammar Gaddafi were met with government violence, an armed rebellion emerged that called for military help from the West. With NATO’s help in this “humanitarian intervention,” Gaddafi was overthrown in October 2011. A summary of the intervention in the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs concluded: “By any measure, NATO succeeded in Libya. It saved tens of thousands of lives from almost certain destruction. It conducted an air campaign of unparalleled precision, which, although not perfect, greatly minimized collateral damage. It enabled the Libyan opposition to overthrow one of the world's longest-ruling dictators. And it accomplished all of this without a single allied casualty and at a cost -- $1.1 billion for the United States and several billion dollars overall -- that was a fraction of that spent on previous interventions in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq.”
Today, Libya is considered a “failed state” run by extremist militias and two opposing governments vying for power. Ex-rebel commanders, former exiles, Islamists, tribal leaders are all fighting for control, leaving no authoritative government or legitimate institutions.
Before the “liberation,” Libya was the richest country in Africa. It provided all Libyans with free healthcare and education. Today Libyans have almost no functioning public services, with daily blackouts and water shortages.
On the anniversaries of these two epic failures in Iraq and Libya, anti-war activists are gathering for four days of actions from March 18-21. They will protest the past interventions, the present-day US participation in wars in the Middle East and the possibility of a new war with Iran. “As people are being killed by the Empire every day, billions of dollars that could be used for education, housing, healthcare, and sustainable and clean forms of energy are being poured into these Imperial wars for the profit of a few and the heartache of many,” said Spring Rising organizer Cindy Sheehan, a mother whose son was killed in Iraq.
https://www.codepink.org/iraq_libya_iran
They are also strong supporters of the Palestinian people but they do a lot more, do have a look.
https://www.codepink.org/issues_campaigns
I want to add this article, an interview with Medea in 2012
after Obama's foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power, used the term "humanitarian intervention" regarding Libya.
(emphasis mine)
The Uphill Fight Against Obama’s Drones: Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin
Walk into any US bookstore and the stacks are crowded with hundreds of books on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet more than a decade in, its hard to find anything on the escalating use of armed drones by the United States.
"Her new book Drone Warfare has just been published. Benjamin, along with Reprieve and the Center for Constitutional Rights, also recently organised the first major international conference on drones in Washington DC.
The gathering coincided with the first anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s killing by US Special Forces. And just a day later, President Obama’s chief counter terrorism official John Brennan gave the most detailed insight yet into the ‘secret’ US drones programme. Benjamin was the sole protestor to disrupt the speech, as the press corps looked on.
In a candid interview with the Bureau following the conference, Medea Benjamin speaks about why the US peace movement has collapsed under Obama; of the challenges of taking on the drone war in a US election year, and of the message that US campaigners plan to take to Pakistan in a forthcoming trip."
"...On the other hand people think of drones as just a piece of technology, so why would you organise around a piece of technology? You want to organise around the wars themselves.
Q: And what’s your answer to that? Isn’t it just another piece of technology? What’s different about drones?
MB: The difference with drones is that drones make these wars possible. From being able to wage them without even having to go to Congress, because according to the Administration’s definition of war, war is when you put your own soldiers’ lives at risk. And since we’re not doing that with drones, it’s not war, it doesn’t have to be agreed in Congress. It doesn’t even have to be open to the American people. It can be carried out in total secrecy.
And as some people said in the conference, drones are the only way to wage some of these battles because of the issue of national sovereignty. You could never get away with the boots on the ground. And because, for example with the terrain in Yemen, you wouldn’t be able to do it any other way than with drones.
So I think that drones are a special piece of technology that make extending these – I wouldn’t call them wars, they’re violent interventions – make them possible to do. So we do have to focus on the technology, but within the context of war.
Q: You’re now planning for a group trip to Pakistan. A critic at the recent conference said that people in the room were ‘naïve’, that their understanding of Pakistan was over-simplified and that there were far bigger issues there that were more important.
MB: I think there’s a certain truth to the fact that most of the people in the room were very unaware of the complexity of the situation in Pakistan. And so their own agenda is a pretty simple one. ‘I don’t want my government killing people without due process, whether Americans or people in other parts of the world. And I don’t think that makes me safer at home. I don’t think it makes the world a safer place.’
Pakistanis have their own complex internal situation, but they’re going to have to deal with it and our interference is not helping. So as Americans, to go in there with a simple message and say, ‘We don’t want our government violating your sovereignty, it is up to you to decide how to deal with your issues of Taliban and al Qaeda and terrorism and fundamentalism, and it’s up to us to make our government obey international law."
https://www.mintpressnews.com/uphill-fight-obamas-drones-code-pinks-mede...
I was Greta Thunberg before there WAS a Greta Thunberg
I just never became famous, because it doesn't matter even if the world is coming to an end, Jews do not skip school! /standuproutine
I daresay I know how she feels better than almost anyone; as a prodigy and geography savant living in cosmopolitan Silicon Valley, it's possible that I grew up with an "Overview Effect" that I took for granted, and even when I was much younger than Greta, I was miserable about the plight of the Amazon Rainforest, wanting to go down there myself and start bombing bulldozers or something.
It took me a long time before I learned how hopelessly evil our politicians are (again, I had a prodigious headstart with my history teacher introducing me to both Howard Zinn and Nader 2000 as a high school freshman); they may exploit her now, but she has plenty of time to get even more radicalized than she already is.
Also: FFS, she's Swedish. I'm sure she's accustomed to far higher standards of trust in government. It's not her fault if she's naive about American politics.
Greta makes me feel many things: Sad, hopeful, angry, sympathetic, frustrated, disappointed...one emotion she does NOT inspire in me, though, is envy.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
it seems you have waited
too long. October 2, 2020, Kiss the Amazon Rainforest Goodbye by Robert Hunziker i can't remember if his report includes the fact that the water table under the forest is all but depleted or not.
good night all, thanks for adding to the conversation. dream well if you can, instructively if not. i do work a lot out in my dream time, often unpleasantly so.
the last song john trudell ever recorded before his 'ride came for him'.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRTMe_EPgSM]
john and buffy: she's right: he was the best of all of us. till is, as he'd turned poison into medicine like no other. bless you, john.
Hey Greta ...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B6U1xkwlmo width:500 height:300]
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
rule by corporate
power. 'all of the above'. Vote Blue, NOT Green! ~ noam chomsky. (just saw some hilarious new Tweets by @caitoz after i'd brung out her Greta one. 'he trends every four years, shitlibs galore, and so on...)
Ha
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
put her feet to the fire!
literal
You'd have to literally put her feet in actual fire for there to be any effect. Once confirmed, US Supreme Court Justices serve for life. They're worse than fucking Popes.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
SCOTUS for life
is sick beyond belief. how many years might suffice? 2 4-yr terms?
SCOTUS terms
Given the very real need for SCOTUS to be independent of the political cycle (the reason we have SCOTUS for life to begin with), I'd suggest 25 years max, possibly renewable by direct popular vote. That seems to be the going standard for modern Popes (> John Paul II), anyway.....
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
given you've thunk it
through, i'll acquiesce to 20 yrs. max. ; ) will she be confirmed? the msn homepage said this is day #2.
ooooh. the crescent moon is a bit of a lop-sided smile with venus large and low below her.
She has done this before
https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1128344612186279937
my.stars.
and below: 'you should talk to pussy riot'. then more recently she's lauding indigenous people's day. dunno if you'd ever noticed, but she and her cohort were blaming indigenous early ecosocialist evo morales for starting the fires in the amazon rain forest.
some online publication took enough offense to write a report on how ludicrous that was. MRonline, perhaps?
I always thought I smelled propaganda around her
but I always felt too much like a heel thinking that to say it.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
i guess i wouldn't
call it propaganda, but i'm stuck for another word to describe it. given that she's met with every power player on the planet, spoken at the UN, WEF multiple times (iirc).
she was Times person of the year', even the (climate change) population bomb third-world eugenecists Attenborough and Goodall, they've created her as 'And The Youth Shall Lead Us' voice of 'reversing the fate of our dying planet'. or something. at the UN she bawled her heart out, chastising the assembly for ruining the planet for her generation and those to come.
she Tweets photos of the many who have genuflected before her, or had.
but that's just it; one is NOT supposed to criticize her (nor her handlers) or be made to suffer the consequences. poor little thing is back home in school, hence the Hulu 'i am Greta' film i suppose.
Well, *I* could have bawled my eyes out in front of the UN
because of the horrors of climate change, and so could any number of people I know, so I never could understand what about that made Thurberg so special--unless one is an ageist who thinks that people that young couldn't comprehend the nature and enormity of the threat bearing down on them. The media fawning over Greta is weirdly...sentimental. There's almost a quality of "Awww, look at the little girl crying over the planet. Isn't it inspiring?"
Truthfully, the only thing special about Greta Thurberg's speech at the UN was that she was given time to get up in front of them in the first place. How did that happen? If I wanted to speak in front of the UN about how climate change makes me feel, I sure as shootin' wouldn't be allowed to.
All very interesting.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
i admit i can't recall
when Greta burst upon the stage. but the last time i'd covered Davos virtually for the Café and c99%, she was holding her own wee protest with a few others (were they teens? i've long forgotten). all were sitting against a wall, as is her most common place for a photo-op. with signs, of course.
but of course they wouldn't want you, she is the voice of future generations, and they love her for her tears and chastisements, FWIW.
me? i wish there'd been more bees and butterflies here this year. and far less wind and smoke. but i did cheer up when mr. wd brought me in one perfect golden pear, one of the few that had survived the earth of pollination, the keening winds, and the marauding magpies.
i had the delectable, slightly gritty pear for lunch, and had needed to eat it over the kitchen sink as it was so juicy that the my arms and hands were wet and sticky when i'd finished.
a fine 4-point buck just came through, sparring with some low-hanging juniper branches as he passed through to bed down in the long grasses for the night.
life's still full of enjoyment! (wish the danged bears would leave the plum trees intact, though.) ; )
That's wonderful, wendy...
Probably one of the best things you've ever said. Bless you.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
smile.
mr. wd and i have borrowed the claim of one of his favorite freezer stockers at one of the stores in cortez at which he shops on saturdays. once a few months ago he'd asked her how she was doin', she looked up thru the glass freezer door with her mask on, and said: 'Just livin' the dream!.
and while we're pretty much down to stems and seeds economically, we're livin' in a small hogan in a magical green & oxygen-rich oasis we homesteaded long ago.
but compared to so many, both in amerika and around the globe, we really are still 'livin' so well. and there ain't nothin' wrong with us physically that dyin' wouldn't fix (if we could go together). ; )
break's over. t'was supposed to be Big Bread day, but i tore up my left rotator cuff again, so...unable to knead bread for the nonce; not even 1, let alone 3.. dammit.
I know I'm a little late
But just earlier I saw a clip of Noam Chomkski using "but the environment!" as a reason to vote for Harris/Biden. Why is it that no one ever asks what proof they have that Harris/Biden will be any different than four more years of Trump? To me it seems no more than the Venn diagram of Republican vs. Democrat where you have the Rs denying climate change and the Ds acknowledging it, but doing nothing about it. I mean the only thing Biden has any passion about is declaring that he's for fracking.
Sigh.
As for Greta, I've always been suspicious about why she was pushed into the spotlight. I can't not be very skeptical when someone like her comes out of nowhere and is pushed by the media as someone we should listen to. I don't blame her. I'm willing to take her as sincere and at face value. But I think she's always been used as a human shield for politicians trying to greenwash their policies. I see it as no accident that the Democrats love her. It's gross to see them using and manipulating a young person this way.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
lol; yes! but biden has
a Green Deal (linked above) and AOC was on his deal's board or something once he'd backed away from hers.
Dems believe in Science; Trump does not! this i swear: i saw a headline at the Guardian a few weeks ago noting: '70 days to save the planet', which turned out to be the official date Boss Tweet would pull out o the COP protocols.
your second paragraph seems to reflect the sense of the room pretty much.
Busy young lady.
I wonder what her true carbon footpint is.
I'm working very hard to get mine down to body weight.
After all, it's not what you contribute but what you leave.
[video:https://youtu.be/39kJzzw1J6c]
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
her carbon footprint is
scrupulously low: trains across europe, even to the WEF at Davos. back to the UN in the US by way of a billionaire's solar-powered yacht (sailboat?). the trailer for the hulu (embedded above) 'I am greta' opens with it.
I ran across a Harper's essay comparing the Dust Bowl
years, the development of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to our current situation. It was bleak.
This essay discusses the Green New Deal as well.
Harper's Essay
My mom lived through the Dust Bowl on dry land large farm. Stories about wetting down sheets and towels to keep the dust out. Her brothers built their own battery bank for the barns. Wind mills of course for water wells and iirc some power.
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.
Dust Bowl
Read that article when it was first published. Nice to re-read it.
So, I'd also recommend the Harper's article. I was raised by parents and grandparents who lived through the Dust Bowl in Kansas. That article comes closest to what they related to me of anything I've read. Of course, the author brings it all into focus with today quite well.