Nina-Bytes: Things Left Unsaid

 

Editor’s note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web. Want more? Click here to subscribe to NIDC today. 

 

Well folks; with a few notable exceptions in boutique liberal, or left-wing media, I think it's safe to say that these past U.S. Midterm elections haven't produced a resplendent bounty of quality political analysis in Pig Empire media. I've tried my best to fill in the blanks by talking about what these results mean for antifascists, and trans people facing down a pogrom in progress, but in the face of precisely a billion corporate talking heads declaring this a resounding victory for "liberal democracy" it really does feel like pissing into a hurricane. Like many of you, I'm just about ready to move on from this moment because the fascists sure don't seem to have given up the ghost.

Unfortunately however, it remains impossible to say we've fully explored what the US midterm elections mean, until we talk a little bit about what they don't mean. How can we figure that out? By exploring the existential threats to our society that were not campaign issues at all. While the media warned folks that democracy, abortion, and trans rights were on the ballot with various degrees of proficiency, the same certainly can't be said for climate crisis or the still ongoing covid pandemic. In today's edition of Nina-Bytes then, we're going to look at two short articles about the surprising issues this campaign wasn't about; one for each crisis.

Let's start with climate crisis, and this pre-election November 2022 article by Ricardo Gomez over at Jacobin:

No One Is Talking About Climate in the Midterms

Well it's hardly Shakespeare, but you have to give Gomez some credit for getting right to the point; which is included in the subtitle of this article. In the lead up to the election, less than one percent of all televised campaign ads for House and Senate midterm races focused on climate crisis; with little difference between Democrat and Republican candidates. This is despite overwhelming evidence that America is already in the throes of the climate apocalypse, and numerous public polls demonstrating voters actually do care about not being boiled to death on an uninhabitable planet for corporate profits.

To put it bluntly, this is terrible politics; especially for Democrats. As our author notes however, just because politicians are choosing to ignore climate crisis, doesn't mean everyone is choosing to ignore the situation. Oil companies for example, remain quite invested in the issue:

"Although 80 percent of voters support a windfall tax on fossil fuel companies — a way of recuperating money by taxing surging profits — candidates are not running on holding fossil fuel companies accountable. Instead they are ceding the narrative on environment and climate change to oil and gas companies that have gone on the offensive — spending enormously and pouring millions into campaigns up and down the ballot to protect their profits."

Please keep in mind that none of this was a secret; when both activists and data nerds are telling Democrats to run on climate crisis mitigation policies, the decision to cede the field to oil companies is an active one. Keep a pin in that thought, we'll come back to it in the conclusion.

In the meantime, let's move on to our next article; this November 9th, 2022 piece written by Abdul El-Sayed for The New Republic:

It’s Weird that Neither Party Talked about Health Care in a Pandemic

This is another short and to the point read, albeit from a far more mainstream liberal perspective. After noting that the covid pandemic isn't over, and healthcare policy discussions dominated both the 2018, and 2020 US election seasons, El-Sayed asks how it's possible neither party wanted to talk about political solutions to America’s profound health crisis in 2022? He then breaks down a few possible answers; inflation discourse, watered-down health care reforms that Democrats can't pitch as a policy success, and general apathy from a Republican Party that would rather talk about pedophiles and white nationalist conspiracy theories.

While this is all pretty standard political class chatter, El-Sayed's article is relevant primarily because he keeps bringing it back to the larger, inexplicably unspoked issue of a raging pandemic that has killed millions already; and who benefits from that silence:

"So, two and a half years into the pandemic, that leaves us in a paradox. No single issue has so fundamentally altered American life as has the pandemic—an issue that is squarely about America’s approach to public health and health care. And despite a vigorous public debate about how to address America’s clearly failing public health and health care systems going into the pandemic, the conversation about how to fix them has all been snuffed out as we emerge from it … even though we have done next to nothing about them. The health care industry is breathing a sigh of relief after vigorously fighting any effort for reform in the last two elections."

Let's be real here for a moment, alright? You don't need me to tell you why the GOP didn't want to talk about climate crisis, or healthcare policy during the midterm elections. We're talking about a hyper-capitalist, reactionary political party wholly in the pocket of the medical insurance lobby and Big Oil. Given that the Republican response to both global warming and covid-19 pretty much consisted of pretending they aren't real and threatening anyone who disagrees, their midterm strategy wasn't much of a surprise.

Explaining the Democratic Party's failure to run on broadly popular issues of vital importance to bolster their electoral chances in an election against literal fascists however, requires more examination; especially in light of their perceived weakness on economic policy issues. Promoting policy-based solutions to problems like burgeoning medical debt, pandemic relief policies, safer energy, and green sector jobs would have been a win-win situation for Democrats; forcing the GOP to talk about something they don't want to talk about, while reeling in voters who support those policies. This isn't a question of Monday morning quarterbacking either; the Democratic Party lost control off the House this election, and even a narrow defeat will now have disastrous consequences in American life.

So what's the deal then? Well, corporate media can blow sunshine up my ass all they like, but the obvious conclusion here is that as a whole, the Democratic Party is also a hyper-capitalist, reactionary political party wholly in the pocket of the medical insurance lobby and Big Oil. If you've read any of my analysis about the Biden administration's objectively genocidal climate policies so far, you know that these folks honestly do not give a damn about anyone but rich donors, and corporate capital. Once you've decided that capitalist support outweighs the lives of billions, including millions of your own people, you've also pretty much decided that a little thing like "potentially losing power to fascists" doesn't rate either.

And in the long run, that's why you can't entrust anything as important as "stopping a fascist takeover of society" to the Democratic Party, and rich liberals in general. At the end of the day, capitalist realism demands the subordination of all other concerns to capital; including civil rights, and human lives. When push comes to shove, acolytes of the free market will always be willing to sacrifice everything, especially the poors, for a sufficiently appealing price. There is no such thing as an effective antifascism, that isn't also anticapitalist, and as such any antifascist alliance with liberal capitalists cannot help but be temporary in nature.

Let the liberal establishment bask in the warm afterglow of a less-bad-than-expected loss to clown shoes fascists, but don't join them. We've got a class war to fight; and literally everything depends on a victory for the common people, against genocidal capitalists. With any luck, they won't even see us coming.

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 “Kropotkin’s Barbershop” 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: Discreet Lies of Immense Proportions

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

 

Over the past eight years, I've spent a great deal of time writing about what I've now come to call the "tri-headed serpent" that threatens the larger labor class in our society. Broadly speaking these threats would be capitalism, its violent handmaiden fascism, and ruling class propaganda that prevents us from uniting to stop these threats to our very survival. Recent social and political developments in the Pig Empire have forced me to focus a lot on the rise of fascism, but since these three heads more or less share the same body, it's important to stay focused on all three of these calamities simultaneously. 

Today then, I'd like to share a couple of stories from left wing independent media that directly touch on murdering the planet for capitalism, but also indirectly expose the propaganda model media's complicity in "leading us to our own doom." First up, let's look at this October 12th, 2022 feature by Sam Knight over on Truthout.

Lobbyists Admit Big Banks Don’t Plan to Honor Climate Pledges

The story here is simple enough; a powerful banking lobby group, The Bank Policy Institute, has publicly admitted that the banks they represent have zero intention of keeping the various "net zero" pledges they've made. Of course, we've already talked about why even these promises are wholly inadequate to prevent climate crisis and will likely usher us into an ecofascist future; but it really says something when the bankers call even genocidal half measures an "aspirational solution." That's not an exaggeration either, as our article notes:

"Specifically, the lobbying group rejected the notion floated by the agencies that regulations should ensure banks’ greenhouse gas commitments to the public “are consistent with their internal strategies and risk appetite statements.”

“The final guidance with respect to public communications should recognize the aspirational nature of external commitments and the fact that these commitments and plans will need to adapt over time as data and methodologies improve and external circumstances change,” the organization said.

The institute urged regulators to “establish realistic expectations with respect to public statements” and said the government “should calibrate its expectations as to the granularity between external statements and internal risk appetite statements accordingly.”

To be clear, I can't say that as a student of left wing theory and Pig Empire history I'm particularly surprised by this development; the entire history of capitalism is about looting the commons for money, and leaving the labor class to deal with the fallout. Still, when influential capitalist institutions that literally have the power to dictate policy to your government start openly admitting they're fine with destroying all life on earth while pretending to be part of the solution, you'd think that might merit a little notice in the larger discourse. 

We'll come back to this idea in a moment; in the meantime let's look at our second article. This October 23rd, 2022 post from Andy Rowell shared on Common Dreams looks at where Big Oil is sitting on the verge of the controversial COP27 climate summit coming this November.

Ahead of COP27, Big Oil Climate Denial More Potent Than Ever

Once again, this isn't really a complicated story. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Chevron CEO Mike Worth pretty much went off; and let the cat out of the bag in the process. Promising to drill more oil, not less, and low key pushing climate science denial, Worth and presumably the company he runs, went on the offensive:

"He told the FT that western governments had made a global oil and gas crunch worse by "doubling down" on climate policies that had made energy markets "more volatile, more unpredictable, more chaotic."

And even though the UN has warned that we cannot afford to drill for more oil and gas if we want a livable future, Worth predicted that fossil fuels are "going to run the world tomorrow and five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now."

He also fudged his belief over whether fossil fuels were the primary driver of climate change. "The IPCC concludes that anthropogenic climate change is a real thing and that the use of fossil fuels has contributed, and so we accept that," he said. But then, according to the Financial Times, Worth "rejected the blame attributed to oil companies" for providing "a legal product that complies with all the laws", and pledged that Chevron would increase oil and gas supply."

 

Please keep in mind that these aren't random internet cranks or even our esteemed Congresswoman from Q-Anon. These guys are absurdly rich and powerful people in industries, banking and fossil fuels, that drive the entire Pig Empire economy. They can, and do, move governments to forge the rules under which we operate a capitalist society. And they're more or less admitting they plan to kill us all in the not-so long term, because there are profits to be made right now. Furthermore, these are not isolated incidents; they are part of a consistent pattern of capitalist lies uttered while the ruling class locks us all into climate apocalypse proactively.

Alright then; so how does this involve the propaganda model media? Well just ask yourself if your favorite corporate propaganda outlet disguised as news, even reported on either of these events? If so, did they explicitly put it in the context of an open plan to murder billions like I have? Of course not. But you can be sure that those same corporate media outlets, including the ones who portray themselves as somehow "liberal" in their pervading ideology, have told you about these company's climate pledges, and will continue to share their lies with you in the future.

In other words, billionaire investors and the companies they control are actively conducting an open genocide against perhaps all of humanity, and the corporate media they also control, are busy covering it up. It's a closed loop of homicidal capitalist f*ckery; mass murder is on the menu and the capitalist order is happily shuffling us all towards the rotating knives in anticipation of the meal. The simple truth is that it's not a question of fighting capitalism, or fascism, or climate catastrophe; in a reactionary society where the profit motive rules all, these problems are one and the same beast and must be destroyed together.

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 “Kropotkin’s Barbershop” 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: Merchants of Destruction

 

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

US Oil Companies Set to Reap Up to $126B in Extra Profits Amid War on Ukraine

Alright folks, let's start with a little Pop Quiz here. What's worse for a planetary ecosystem on the brink of collapse, than a huge war? The answer of course is a huge fossil fuel war that leads to massively increased production, and widespread profiteering by an oil and gas sector that should by all rights be charged with crimes against humanity already. 

Let's drill down into just one small example of that profiteering today by looking at this March 29th, 2022 summary by Jake Johnson, over at Common Dreams. Inside we find that according to a meticulous analysis conducted by a coalition of watchdog groups, Big Oil in America stands to make a killing on the fallout from the invasion of Ukraine. From the article in question:

 

"Under conservative estimates, we find the U.S. upstream oil and gas industry will collect a windfall of $37 to $126 billion in 2022 alone," the groups' report states."

There will of course be those who want to quibble about the significant difference between thirty-seven billion dollars, and a hundred and twenty billion dollars, but from my distinctly labor class perspective, this is pretty obviously war profiteering by another name. Please keep in mind that this is an industry that's already raking profits in hand over fist, while openly threatening the existence of most life on earth, every single day. Whether it's a question of cause, or effect, why should humanity continue to tolerate a business that rings up big money every time (primarily poor) people die?

As long time readers of Nina-Bytes will no doubt be aware, I'm firmly in favor of not only disbanding the entire fossil fuel industry, but also seizing their ill-gotten profits, and the profits of their investors, to fight climate change. If war profiteering on the brink of a climate apocalypse isn't enough for you, will spending billions of dollars to hide the truth about fossil fuels from the public do? How many wars over a gas field that should be kept in the ground does it take, before the price is too high? How many dead bodies does it require for "respectable" CEOs to become mass murderers?

Yet collectively in the Pig Empire, we live in a society where this industry's army of lobbyists write the laws designed to fight climate catastrophe. Indeed, these same corporations, headed by mass murderers, easily buy and sell our politicians like so many sow bellies. Do you really believe the guys raking in billions from this war, are encouraging their in-pocket representatives to sue for peace? I sure don't. Once you're prepared to put billions of lives at risk to snag a quarterly bonus, what's one more natural gas war on the edge of Europe?

Like most observers, I hope (for the sake of labor class folks everywhere) that Vladimir Putin will call off his invasion; the price of peace, even for him, is at an all-time low right now. Regardless of how this sad story ends however, the simple truth is that the fossil fuel industry represents an existential threat to all life on earth, and a primary generator of imperialist wars. It does no good to pray for peace, while bathing yourself in profits from the black blood of war. Big Oil must die; or it will ensure that the rest of us do instead - and those are just the facts, Jack.

 

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 “Kropotkin’s Barbershop” 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…”

 

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: Capitalism, Carbon, and Neoliberal Climate Denial

 

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

 

The ‘Sensible’ Climate Compromise Is Not Sensible

Look, I'm not trying to be a killjoy here, but sooner or later as a society we're going to have to talk about flavors and levels of self-deception in the fight to prevent climate catastrophe. Take for example this well-argued October 27th article by Alexander Sammon over on The American Prospect. As you may have heard, Joe Manchin and Big Oil are current eviscerating Biden's environmental agenda in real time; an agenda that was already a milquetoast liberal compromise fantasy, quite frankly. Discussing the now-gutted climate crisis mitigation measures in the Build Back Better Act, Sammon notes that the Biden climate strategy currently centers around tax credits to two technologies; nuclear energy and carbon capture, utilization, and storage or CCUS.

As the author points out however, there's a pretty big reason why that's a terrible idea:

"So alongside the remaining clean-energy and electric-vehicle tax credits, beefed-up support for nuclear and carbon capture is what Joe Biden is going to take to Glasgow’s COP26 climate talks as proof of the United States’ willingness to tackle climate change head on.

The inconvenient problem is that those technologies don’t exist, at least not in any meaningful way. In the name of compromise, Build Back Better is now forgoing proven, cost-effective technologies for unproven ones, because that, evidently, is less ideological."

Sammon then goes on to demonstrate that we're lightyears away from producing enough nuclear power to meet our energy needs despite plenty of pre-existing subsidies, and that CCUS technology is basically a pipe dream that rewards the worst carbon-spewing supervillains to boot. Finally, Alex really brings home the bacon by pointing out that betting all your chips on fantasy ideas instead of investing in clean-energy solutions we've had for decades, is itself a form of climate science or climate change denial. 

That last point is key. and what I've taken to calling the "neoliberal flavor of climate science denial" is an issue that deserves more regular discussion in our society. When we talk about climate science or climate crisis denial, most people think of astroturf campaigns by fossil fuel companies, or the unhinged ravings of reactionary right wing politicians. It rarely ever occurs to people to consider whether acknowledging climate catastrophe, and yet refusing to take meaningful action to prevent it because your donors profit from the situation, isn't also clearly a form of denial?

And therein lies the problem I have with this piece. I'm not trying to pick on Alex; he's absolutely correct that doing only a fraction of what is required to stop climate catastrophe is its own form of denial. Which unfortunately means writing an article that doesn't acknowledge there's no way to stop climate catastrophe without getting rid of capitalism, is also its own form of denial. Sammon is certainly not alone in this; just this morning I read a piece by a left leaning academic who admitted we're all barbeque unless we get rid of capitalism, but proposed we forget about trying for now because it's impossible. Clearly, the denial runs deep.

Can you hear me in the back? If you're for preventing climate catastrophe and averting a mass extinction event, you're against capitalism. You can't scream "I refuse to acknowledge this" at a boiling planet and pretend you're on the right side of this issue. There is no halfway position here; there's no acceptable compromise between killing the planet for profit and saving the people, no matter what "reasonable center" you start working from. It's capitalism, or the planet, and the rich guys have clearly made their choice already.

So the question I pose to the left-leaning media, who I agree with on so many other issues is simple: which side are you on? I'd choose quickly my friends; before capitalism gets around to deciding you're an acceptable sacrifice too.

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: Big Oil, Political Will and Crimes Against Humanity

 

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

Fossil Fuel CEOs Will Testify About Role in Climate Denial Before Congress

As announced yesterday, Congress is hauling in the CEO's of four major oil companies, and two powerful lobby groups, to testify (presumably under oath) before the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment. The group, which includes executives from ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell Oil, the American Petroleum Institute, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, will specifically face questions about the industry's role in supporting climate change denial. The hearing, which is scheduled for October 28th, probably wouldn't have happened without the threat of a potential subpoena; although subcommittee chair Ro Khanna was too polite to do more than imply as much in the media. The obvious question here however is, what exactly is Congress hoping to learn?

Did Big Oil collectively lie about fossil fuels and climate crisis? Unquestionably, yes! We've caught them doing so. Did these same companies fund climate science denial propaganda? Absolutely! Once again, we caught them red-handed. Furthermore, none of this is new information; I was reading about it myself in books like Naomi Klein's "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate" in 2014, and Oreskes and Conway's "Merchants of Doubt" way back in 2010. Frankly, these people have never stopped lying about fossil fuels and climate crisis! The fact that these executives and their predecessors are not already in prison for what amounts to mass murder, is one of the most galling injustices of our time.

If you're asking me in a vacuum whether it's better to have these hearings, or to not have them, when discussing the objectively genocidal activities of oil executives over the past five decades, my answer is that having them is better than nothing. As many in the media have already noted, there are significant potential parallels between this situation and the 1994 Congressional hearings that ultimately brought Big Tobacco down to size; or at least into court, to get sued. Maybe someone talks too much. Maybe someone gets caught spouting obvious lies under oath. I'm not so cynical I'd pass up a chance to fuck with Big Oil and see if they panic. But I'm not getting my hopes up either.

The reality here is that we already know who is responsible for the climate crisis. We already know fossil fuel companies knew what they were doing. We know they purposely mislead and deceived the public. Even if nobody in power will admit it, we know they're responsible for the deaths of millions already; with perhaps billions more on the horizon. There's no mystery here for the subcommittee to solve; no secret to expose on live TV. It's not a lack of knowledge preventing society from holding these folks accountable, it's a question of money, power, and political will.

Let's be very clear now. We don't need a hearing, we need to start making arrests; and Ro Khanna doesn't have the power to make that happen. These folks have openly destroyed the world with absolute impunity for forty years; telling obvious and outrageous lies to protect their profits. It's not a secret, everyone, including everyone in government knows; yet they're allowed to continue unmolested. That isn't going to change because of this hearing. Until oil executives start going to jail for what they've done, there's no reason to expect anything to change at all.

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…”