Nina-Bytes: Trainspotting in the Heart of the Pig Empire

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

"Total Asymmetric Warfare" - Georgia GOP Redraws Political Map as US Senate Dems Do Nothing

Have you ever wondered what it would look like if a whole society caught "deer in headlights" syndrome? Yeah, me neither; until I started living it. After Joe Biden's election victory and inauguration, I (and many other observers) warned that with, or without Downmarket Mussolini, American fascism as embodied by the Republican Party, was just getting warmed up. As the forces of reaction seek to intimidate political opponents into submission and force the system to warp around fascist conspiracy theories, we have been proven largely correct. Now we're seeing the poisonous fruits of a longstanding, yet entirely exposed GOP plot to rig the next decade's worth of elections, inside the context of a fascist political takeover being conducted by folks who seemingly regard any vote against them, as foundationally illegitimate. 

In this November 23rd, 2021 article by Jessica Corbett over on Common Dreams, we go inside GOP attempts to effectively disenfranchise perhaps millions of predominantly minority voters through the magic of gerrymandering; the art of ensuring all the people who won't vote for cracker supremacists are jammed into the same voting districts. This is of course in addition to other ways the fascist Republican Party is working to rig the next election cycle; including threatening their political opponents until they quit, offering bounties for evidence of presupposed voter fraud, and just downright making it as hard as possible for poor and marginalized people to vote against them.

Now you might be tempted to assume that the ostensible opposition to the fascist party in American politics, the Democrats, would be working night and day to solve this problem; after all, even if they couldn't give a rat's backside about folks living under the threat of fascist violence, this could affect their own political careers in a very direct way. As the article and voting rights observer Ari Berman noted however, you'd be wrong:

 

"It’s beyond enraging that Manchin and Sinema continue to say voting rights legislation needs 60 votes when GOP is rigging elections and shutting Democrats out of power for next decade on simple majority party-line votes. Total asymmetric warfare."

 

Yes, you heard that correctly; literal fascists who at least pretend to believe Trump's "big lie" are about to rig the next decade's worth of elections because two corrupt as f*ck Democratic Party Senators are being bribed to, among other things, keep the filibuster intact. This in turn has allowed the GOP to repeatedly block measures that would at least help secure voting rights, including the For the People Act, Freedom to Vote Act, and John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act; despite Joe Machin's clown-shoes attempts at bipartisanship and appeasement. Please keep in mind that none of this is any sort of secret, and neither is the fact that corporate America is playing both sides of the battle against the fascist creep; some folks who know Trump well are already promising a second Herr Donald presidency would come with reprisals against his enemies.

This, at the end of the day, is what I mean when I talk to you about Weimar America. It's not so much a set of historical circumstances shared between interwar Germany and modern America, as it is a social ethos built around exceptionalism and liberal capitalist norms, that leads to a seemingly inevitable, and wholly predictable surrender to fascism. Right now, it feels like most of the country knows full damn well that the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train full of nazis; the question then becomes, is anyone going to do anything to stop the carnage that's about to ensue, at all? Clearly, if you're asking the corporate liberal establishment, the answer to that question is ultimately "no," and history says that course of (in)action, has consequences.

nina illingworth

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

 

Nina-Bytes: Murderpigs, Class War, and Abolition Over Reform

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

Diversifying the Police Force Won’t End Police Violence

At this point, I don't think it will surprise anyone to hear that I am not a fan of ongoing efforts to "reform" policing; or for that matter, a so-called American justice system that grinds civil rights protesters and antifascists to paste, while letting nazi murderers walk with a pat on the head. As I discussed in a recent Quickshot Quotation, the plain truth is that most folks, particularly Americans, have no idea what the real role of policing is in our society. Indeed, a careful study of American history, such as that found in books like "Badges Without Borders" by Stuart Schrader, or "Our Enemies in Blue" by Kristian Williams, reveals that pretty much every prior round of "police reform" has only further empowered police to repress protestors, activists, and anyone who would harm the objectively fascist socioeconomic order in the United States. 

Unfortunately, and despite these objective truths, even some folks on the left continue to insist that cosmetic reform measures will make a measurable difference in the behavior of fascist murderpigs whose job is basically to conduct class warfare on behalf of capital. Today on Nina-Bytes then, I'd like to turn your attention to a November 17th, 2021 Op-Ed written by abolitionist Reina Sultan over on Truthout, to provide a concrete example of why this approach is doomed to failure. 

While the author's main focus is debunking the ridiculous notion that you can reform police by ensuring more brown faces are doing the actual racialized oppression, the fact is that virtually every argument she puts forward to do so, speaks to the larger misjudgment of the police's function that beleaguers most Americans. As Sultan notes, the funny thing about hiring more diverse police officers is at the end of the day, you're still hiring more police officers and those officers are still the enforcement arm of a brutal, white supremacist, openly neofeudalist socioeconomic order that currently dominates life throughout the Pig Empire. More importantly however, the author hits the nail on the head by noting you really can't "reform" a system that's working exactly as it was designed to function:

"Because policing and incarceration are inherently violent and racist institutions, prison-industrial complex abolitionists have been working to dismantle them in the hopes of creating a safer and more just world. Without the prison-industrial complex, abolitionists argue that we can divert resources to life-giving resources and services, rather than death-making institutions.

Prison-industrial complex reformers and preservationists generally argue that the system is “broken” — that it has problems that are ultimately solvable, but that maintaining its existence is imperative for public safety. The truth is that the prison-industrial complex is functioning exactly as it is meant to; its creation was never intended to provide justice, but instead it was born of the desire to maintain white supremacy and racial capitalism. When we reframe our understanding of the prison-industrial complex, it becomes clear that it is accomplishing its intended purpose."

 

Obviously, you don't really need me to tell you that American policing is out of control; anyone who tuned on the nightly news during the George Floyd protests knows that. I fear however that the real scope of the policing problem, and its role in the ongoing class war being conducted by billionaire supervillains against, well essentially the rest of us, is being lost in the noise. In the war against neofeudalist mass murderers, and an oncoming Pig Empire slide into overt fascism, violent reactionary murderpigs will be the machine's first and favorite response to anyone who doesn't want to go gently into that good night so Elon Musk can escape to Mars.

Not only is it impossible to reform police, but if we intended to dismantle capitalism and save all life on earth, abolishing them as quickly as possible is imperative; the survival of the species might just depend on it.

nina illingworth

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

Aaron Rodgers and Covid: A Thanksgiving Analysis on NIDC

 

Editor’s note: as regular readers will know, I’m always absolutely thrilled to welcome a new writer over on NIDC as part of our Friends of the Blog initiative; and that’s precisely what we’ve got on today’s docket. 

In a memorable pop culture takedown, Wisconsinite and podcaster extraordinaire Charles Minnich explores the intersection of celebrity, privilege, and responsibility towards the common good in an unlikely place; the National Football League. 

 

Fourth and Wrong

To tell you the truth, I've been fishing around in my social circles for a left wing popular culture writer for a little while; so when my friend and soon-to-be partner in podcasting crime Mr. Minnich volunteered to cover the Aaron Rodgers COVID story, I snapped at the chance to publish that. While an opinion piece about Rodgers' coronavirus lies might seem out of place on ninaillingworth.com, the truth is that this is a tale that exists inside a vortex of fame, obligations, and the politicization of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. Whether Rodgers intended this or not, his decision to blame the fallout from his reactionary behavior on a rampaging "woke mob," has made this entire story inherently political.

Writing from the perspective of both an informed observer on the left, and a Green Bay Packers fan, our guest author tackles the facts, as well as their larger meaning; and in doing so, drops the hammer on Aaron Rodgers.

 

"Like everything political in the Badger state, feelings about football and the pandemic are very complicated. Masking and vaccination mandates have driven anti-vax fanatics to their local school boards in ginned-up outrage. With Thanksgiving conversations about football and COVID looming large, it is important to consider the facts of the matter. Aaron Rodgers lied to the public and said he was vaccinated, although he added that he wouldn’t judge those teammates who refused. But that was back in August. Fast forward to today and we come to find out through a positive test for COVID, that he was lying all along. A lie complicated by the knowledgeable complicity of everyone involved, from the Packers players and organization, to league officials."

 

Check it out over on ninaillingworth.com by clicking on the quotation block above, or the title header below:

 

Aaron Rodgers and Covid: A Thanksgiving Analysis

nina illingworth

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

 

Nina-Bytes: In Between Days

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

Days After Climate Summit, Biden To Hold ‘Carbon Bomb’ Gulf Oil Sale

It is not lost on me that I've spent a lot of time recently here on Nina-Bytes essentially wasting my breath, by pointing out the hypocrisy of neoliberal leaders when it comes to the subject of climate crisis. The problem with this approach of course is that we live in a time of unprecedented ruling class power; our society is post-accountability, and post-shame, so the capitalists merely shrug and go right on killing us for dollars. Still, there are times when the stench of corruption and rot become overwhelming; moments when the "my bum is on your lips" nature of the news is too infuriating to ignore. So, despite the fact that I wanted to talk about something else, virtually anything else today, let's talk about how Joe Biden is literally killing the planet while pretending he gives one solitary rat's anus about the climate apocalypse.

In this November 13th, 2021 piece by Chris D'Angelo over on Huffington Post, we discover that on November 17th, mere days after the end of the COP26 climate conference, the Biden administration intends to conduct the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in U.S. history. Yes, that would be the administration working for Joe Biden, the same guy who promised just last week that America would lead "by the power of our example" in the fight against climate catastrophe. Inexplicably, spokespeople for the U.S. government, and the President himself, have insisted that this all ties into a short term strategy to increase fossil fuel production, while still meeting long term goals. There's just one problem with that excuse - the fields being sold today won't be operational for five to ten years; long after our time runs out to cut emissions in half by 2030.

To be clear, there are mitigating circumstances involved in this story. Specifically, the Biden Administration argues that it actually cannot stop the oil lease sale "following the June decision by a Trump-appointed federal judge in Louisiana to strike down Biden’s executive order temporarily pausing new oil and gas leases across federal lands and waters." The government has appealed this highly-spurious ruling, but as our author's study indicates, this isn't even close to the full means Biden had at his disposal to stop this. Furthermore without an injunction, the leases will be sold in the meantime, long before the appeal plays out. This in turn makes it very unlikely the projects on those oil patches will ever be stopped by the government.

The fact is, Joe Biden is almost eighty years old and neither he, nor his political party, have ever given one flying f*ck about climate crisis. Biden's rhetoric is simply that, rhetoric, and if he has to doom every future generation on Earth to geohell to please his corporate donors, that's what he's going to do. You don't have to take my word for it, just watch his actions and the actions of his government for all the proof you'll ever need.

nina illingworth

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. 

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

 

Nina-Bytes: Genocidal Promises on a Boiling Planet

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

The Big Lie Known as 'Net Zero' Will Lead Us to Climate Disaster

Well, it's safe to say that Greta warned us it would end this way. So it comes to pass that COP26 in Glasgow, an international climate conference hailed by its participants as our "last, best hope" to prevent climate apocalypse has drawn to a close; not with the promise of a future for humanity, but with a guttural howl of thinly-concealed violence. As I mentioned this morning over on Instagram, the summit has produced a carbon reduction agreement that neither does enough to stop millions from dying on a boiling planet, nor provides financial assistance in dealing with climate crisis for those on the front lines in the Global South. This is, to put it bluntly, a plan to commit genocide on behalf of capitalist and the ruling capitalist order; not that you should expect the bootlicking media in the Pig Empire to report it as such.

For a sense of what corporate media is not telling you, let's turn to this November 11th, 2021 report by environmental journalist Tina Gerhardt, helpfully reprinted over on Common Dreams. First up, our governments have collectively promised to undertake actions designed to keep the global temperature increase to 1.8 or 1.9 degrees Celsius; which would be fine I guess, except we already know anything over 1.5 degrees Celsius will kill millions. Not that this half a degree matters much, because as our author notes, those pledges are based on faulty data and the targets will at best keep temperature increases at a whopping 2.7 degrees Celsius. Which might be enough to kill billions all by itself; without even considering knock on effects.

Wait; it gets worse because, as it turns out almost none of the richest countries in the Pig Empire actually intend to reduce their carbon emissions to anywhere near zero. Indeed, most nations in the imperial core are promising merely to employ a number of dubiously scalable methods to "offset" their carbon emissions; a bit of creative, but wholly deceptive accounting known in wonk circles as "net zero carbon emissions." Does that have a hope in hell of working? Not even remotely, as Gerhardt notes in the article:

"There simply is not enough land and trees in the world to soak up the emissions of big polluters and northern governments. For these reasons, organizations ranging from Friends of the Earth to Indigenous Environmental Network, from Power Shift Africa to the Third World Network and many others, are calling for "Real Solutions Not 'Net Zero," and satirists like Australia's The Juice are directly mocking net zero as a fantasy."

Finally of course, there's the fact that most of the wealthy, heavy polluter nations in the Pig Empire aren't promising to cut carbon emissions now, but by 2050, or even in some cases 2060. How does that jibe with prior reports that we have until about 2030 to slash carbon emissions in half before we tip over into an unavoidable climate apocalypse? Surprise, it doesn't! These mad bastards are just hoping you forgot, and thus won't realize they're approaching climate catastrophe like schoolchildren putting off their essays until the night before they're due. And really, why shouldn't they? It's not like the media is going to call them out on it; and almost everyone at COP26 will be well into retirement by the time the clock strikes doomsday. 

In other words, it is no exaggeration at all to say that the "wisest" leaders of the Pig Empire just got together to craft an international pledge, to commit genocide, rather than surrender capitalism and fossil fuel profits. Let me know the next time you hear about that on the evening news.

nina illingworth

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. 

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

The Picture Show: How We End Climate Imperialism on Patreon

 

Editor's note: the Picture Show is a short-burst analysis feature over on my (always free to read) Patreon Blog, exploring the world of lefty YouTube videos you can enjoy in twenty-two minutes or less.

 

Green Socialism and Climate Justice

In our latest edition of In the Aggregate, I mentioned in passing that I wanted to do something a little different with my still relatively new Picture Show segment. In light of the fact that it's pretty hard to righteously analyze a good pinko YouTube video in four hundred words or less, I ultimately decided to just start a new feature entirely. Shorter, more conversational, and more opinion-based than my Film Sessions essays, I hope to publish these informal blogs semi-regularly over on my (free) Patreon; which has a platform feature designed specifically for sharing offsite videos online.

In our inaugural stand-alone Picture Show blog, we're looking at the climate legacy of colonial capitalism and the disproportionate burden in combatting climate change currently borne by the Global South. Using a short, but informative video by Our Changing Climate as a basis for discussion, I explore the important concept of Climate Debt and why reparations from the imperial core, to the hyper-exploited developing world, are a necessary feature of both positive justice and any viable plan to prevent a climate apocalypse. Finally, I offer a few thoughts on how we might pay for all this in a fair and equitable manner for the labor class in both the imperial core, and the developing world.

 

"The hard truth here is that right now, the folks suffering the most severe consequences of climate crisis, are also the folks least responsible for the problem. Take for example, the region of Sub-Saharan Africa. As our video highlights, this area contains roughly fifteen percent of the world's population, while producing only two percent of the energy-related emissions driving climate crisis. Despite this, the region is currently shouldering a massive fifty percent of global adaptation costs in the face of man-made climate chaos. Given this disparity, how should Africans feel about fancy international conferences full of fiery rhetoric about collective responsibilities?"

 

To check it out over on my Patreon Blog by clicking on the quotation block above, or the title header below:

 

The Picture Show: How We End Climate Imperialism

 

nina illingworth

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. 

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

Nina-Bytes: Stochastically Yours in Weimar America

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

Rep. Paul Gosar shared an anime video of himself killing AOC. This was her response.

As a socialist writer trapped in a capitalist dystopia, I spend a lot of my time pointing out the links between the study of political economy, and events occurring in the news of the day; you might call it an educational commitment to exploring both theory, and praxis. Earlier today on Instagram, I published a Pinko Postcard discussion that briefly touched on the organized efforts of American fascists to mainstream reactionary ideology and political practices. Here on Nina-Bytes then, I'd like to explore what this normalization and weaponization of fascist political techniques looks like in real time; with an assist from everyone's favorite coup plotter and white supremacist in Congress, Paul Gosar. 

Given the uniformly atrocious coverage this event has garnered in the mainstream media, I decided to use this November 9th, 2021 post by Rachel Treisman on npr.org as our primary anchor because while it still misses the mark, she at least provides some context on the reactionary nature of Gosar's actions. In case you missed it, Congressman Gosar published an explicitly fascist anti-immigration video that featured modified anime footage of himself murdering Congresswoman, and noted target of reactionary ire, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. While much of the media has inexplicably chosen to cover this event as inter-personal drama between rival factions on the Hill, students of fascist propaganda techniques will recognize immediately that this is no laughing matter. Let's fill in that context, shall we?

The first thing you need to remember is that Paul Gosar is absolutely a fascist; you can call him a Trumpist if you prefer, but because the terms are largely synonymous, it really doesn't make a whole lot of difference. He's spoken at white nationalist conferences, raised money with fascist influencers, and oh yeah, there's that small matter of Gosar's intimate involvement with the January 6th fascist coup plot to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election; which reportedly included the Congressman promising blanket pardons to participants in the event of a successful coup. Even this guy's own family says he's a white supremacist.

The second bit of largely-missing context here, comes from the nature of the video Gosar shared, and how it has been edited. The video explicitly employs fascist political propaganda about an "attack of immigrants" and shows multiple elected GOP nazis committing acts of outrageous violence in response, through edited anime clips. Furthermore, given the fact that the anime chosen, Attack on Titan, has strong fascist overtones and has already been coopted by reactionary extremists in the Pig Empire, I don't think the stench of neonazism involved here is any sort of accident. In other words, even if Gosar's staff hadn't depicted him slashing AOC's throat, this would still be a fascist video tweeted out by a sitting Congressman in America. 

Finally of course, there's the context of the violence depicted in its own right, and Gosar's predictable keyboard reactionary response to being criticized for it. While crackers and collaborators absurdly pretend that folks are accusing Gosar of literally threatening to cut Ocasio-Cortez's head off with a sword, the specter of stochastic terrorism and the usefulness (for the fascists) of injecting the threat of violence into standard political discourse, is largely ignored. Even the bizarre insistence from the Congressman's office that folks "relax" because it's just "a cartoon" echoes the standard playbook of f*ckboi "ironic" nazis online. 

Frankly the truly alarming thing about this story is that we as a society, and mainstream American media as an institution, already know all of this because we've collectively seen it all before. Sara Palin taught the media that right wing politicians are fine with stochastic terrorism as long as their rhetoric fires up the base. Andrew Anglin's leaked style guide for the Daily Stormer makes it clear that nazis are actively trying to mainstream fascist ideology every waking moment of the day. We know ironic nazism, is really just nazism. And as of last week, we can no longer deny the fact that these folks are fascists, actively plotting an authoritarian takeover of America, and the larger Pig empire.

It would be nice if an American media establishment that claims to be defending democracy from the fascist creep, deemed all that worth mentioning in between blow by blow coverage of the back and forth between Gosar and the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, it's just not in their nature.

 

nina illingworth

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. 

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

Nina-Bytes: They Are Who We Thought They Were

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

Corporations Donated $164,000 to Anti-Voting Rights Senators Despite Pledges

Earlier today I published a couple of micro-blog posts that touched on why the capitalist liberal establishment simply cannot be our allies in the fight against fascism. Unfortunately, because ruling class propaganda in America has a stunning power to transform the very meaning of words in our society, I'm concerned that folks may not even understand what I mean when I say "the liberal establishment." Sure, I'm talking about the Democratic Party, but only because they are the most visible (and feckless) face of that establishment in America. The Pig Empire liberal establishment however, comprises virtually the entire capitalist class, and many of their overseers in the petite bourgeoisie.

Today then, I'd like to use this November 8th, 2021 post by Sharon Zhang on Truthout, to both expose that larger liberal establishment and demonstrate how they instinctively support fascism, regardless of the presumed lean of their social politics. With a big assist from a report produced by watchdog group Accountable.US, Zhang reveals that at least eight major U.S. corporations that signed a pledge to support the John Lewis voting rights act, have given thousands of dollars this year to GOP Senators actively blocking it. And we're not talking about the My Pillow guy here either. These are major players in corporate America, all of whom at least front a socially progressive position to consumers; companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft.

Obviously, the focus here for liberals is going to be on the hypocrisy involved; after all, this story pretty much comes down to a bunch of billion dollar corporations trying to craft a socially progressive image that will entice customers, while openly supporting politicians who threaten the franchise. This matters, but it's also important not to miss the forest for the trees in this story. The message corporate America is delivering here could not be more obvious; they're completely fine with fascism because it doesn't interfere with the capitalist order and their bottom lines. Hell, electing Trump actually got them the mother of all tax cuts last time!

I hate to say it kids, but when I tell you fascism is an inherently capitalist reaction, I'm not speaking in metaphors here. The private sector isn't going to help us fight fascism, and neither are their in-pocket politicians or muppet stenographers in the media. If this is going to end in anything other than mass graves, it's going to be on the people to stop reactionary ruling class elites from driving the car off the cliff. Clearly, if it's a choice between working with nazis, or paying his taxes, you can pretty much bet guys like Jeff Bezos are going to find a way to get comfortable with fascism.

That's what I really mean when I say the liberal establishment would prefer fascism, to sharing.

nina illingworth

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. 

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

 

Nina-Bytes: Keep It in the Ground

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

Keep Fossil Fuels in the Ground. Everything Else Is Just Talk.

Over the past few weeks on Nina-Bytes, we've spent some time examining the staggering contradictions between climate promises by Pig Empire leadership, and the actions they're taking (or not taking) in government. In particular, I've focused on examining what I call the levels and flavors of self-deception in the fight to prevent climate catastrophe. The plain truth is that we know how to save the world from climate apocalypse, and capitalists are actively preventing us from collectively taking the steps necessary to do so. 

This in turn has lead to the ghastly spectacle of Pig Empire politicians, and neoliberal "thought leaders" trying to square that circle by making climate crisis mitigation promises that we already know won't save us from the climate apocalypse. Do you want to know what grim looks like? It looks like Mia Mottley, the Prime Minister of the island nation of Barbados, explaining that even if Western leaders actually keep their current promises (fat chance,) it will still mean the death of millions on a boiling earth. Let me repeat that; our leaders are currently promising climate change policies they know will kill millions of poor people, particularly in the global South. 

Ultimately then, we're talking about a mass murder plot, barely hidden behind bloodless technocratic jargon and empty platitudes about how we're all in this together. Furthermore, you'd have to be an idiot at this point to believe these muppets aren't just as happy to sacrifice Pig Empire paupers on the altar of capital; just look at how the coronavirus pandemic shook out. It is not enough to merely say "net zero carbon is not enough," these folks are choosing to openly sacrifice millions of poor people on behalf of capital; and that's if their harebrained schemes work! This is what systemic genocide looks like in practice; this is fascism, imperialism, and the death cult of capitalism at its darkest.

So what does the opposite of that actually look like? How can you cut through the neoliberal platitudes and focus on a concise, easy to explain solution to climate catastrophe we can all get behind demanding from our leaders? I'm glad you asked, because as this November 7th, 2021 article by George Monbiot on Common Dreams makes clear, the answer is alarmingly simple. We need to leave fossil fuels in the ground. Period. Full-stop. Everything else is just empty talk from folks who mean to kill you for profit. From the article:

 

"And yes, it really is this simple. We have the technology required to replace fossil fuels. There's plenty of money, which is currently being squandered on the destruction of life on Earth. The transition could take place in months, if governments willed it. The only thing that stands in the way is the power of legacy industries and the people who profit from them. This is what needs to be overthrown. The handwaving, the complexity, the grandiloquent distraction in Glasgow are designed above all for one purpose: not to accelerate this transition, but to thwart it."

 

Look, I don't know how to put this any more bluntly. There is simply no such thing as a technocratic plan to stop climate catastrophe. Do you want a future? Would you like to survive to see it? Do you want to save life on Earth? Then stop tolerating politicians who're enslaved to a capitalist death cult that clearly means to kill us all if that's what it takes to make a quick buck. We must stop burning and extracting fossil fuels; to quote piss queen Maggy Thatcher, there literally "is no alternative."

nina illingworth

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. 

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”