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…”

 

 

 

 

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. 

Nina-Bytes: Impact Statement

Last week on Instagram, I briefly discussed the theatrical process of passing ineffectual climate crisis reduction policies that ultimately preserve capitalism in the Pig Empire. While our leaders spit double-talk about carbon reduction strategies they know will not save us, our society continues to facilitate fossil fuel-based capitalism that will murder us all. Ultimately, we're talking about an act of knowing, genocidal deception here; a lie so big, and so brazen, that people can't quite accept it's happening, even though the evidence is all around them. Furthermore, this lie is being told by so many powerful people in the Pig Empire, that it would be impossible to keep it a secret; which is more or less why they don't.

Take for example the crass hypocrisy of the just concluded UN Climate Change Conference (COP 27) at the dubiously proclaimed "first green city" of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. As I wrote last year about COP 26, here you have an international gathering of some of the most influential politicians on earth, loudly proclaiming that they care about climate crisis, before sitting around a table and shooting down every possible globalized effort to end fossil fuel capitalism; a prerequisite for addressing climate catastrophe and saving all life on Earth.

While last year's conference ended with open promises to commit genocide, this year's shindig included a truly mind boggling number of oil industry lobbyists. That would be the same industry that actively covered up the connection between fossil fuels and global warming for decades, and is currently paying even more lobbyists to *checks notes* criminalize dissent against fossil fuel companies and declare climate science denial a form of protected speech. You know who wasn't there however? Climate activist Greta Thunberg, who called the conference a forum for "greenwashing." Given that this is the 27th COP summit, and the data says we're still steaming towards the apocalypse at full speed, she's absolutely right.

Of course, while all of this is obviously odious and counterproductive, it doesn't become a genocidal "conspiracy" until you can prove that our leaders understand that they're dooming millions, if not billions, to die for capital. To demonstrate this is in fact the case, I'd like to examine this November 8th, 2022 article written by Brad Plumer and Raymond Zhong over at the New York Times:

Draft Report Offers Starkest View Yet of U.S. Climate Threats

As this article notes, every four years the U.S. federal government is required by law to drafted and release the National Climate Assessment; a document composed by multiple federal agencies, and hundreds of independent scientists, that provides a real assessment of what we today call "climate crisis" in progress.  While ideologically this is a capitalist document at its root, these reports aren't about public relations and often speak uncomfortable truths about America's future; the last report for example predicted that unchecked warming would absolutely crater the U.S. economy. This year's report isn't completed yet, but a lengthy draft has been released for public comment.

So what do the actual scientists have to say about the climate path we're on? Nothing good my friends:

"The effects of climate change are already “far-reaching and worsening” throughout all regions in the United States, posing profound risks to virtually every aspect of society, whether it’s drinking water supplies in the Midwest or small businesses in the Southeast, according to a draft scientific report being circulated by the federal government.

"The things Americans value most are at risk,” says the draft report, which could still undergo changes as it goes through the review process. “More intense extreme events and long-term climate changes make it harder to maintain safe homes and healthy families, reliable public services, a sustainable economy, thriving ecosystems and strong communities.”

As greenhouse gas emissions rise and the planet heats up, the authors write, the United States could face major disruptions to farms and fisheries that drive up food prices, while millions of Americans could be displaced by disasters such as severe wildfires in California, sea-level rise in Florida or frequent flooding in Texas.

“By bringing together the latest findings from climate science, the report underscores that Americans in every region of the country and every sector of the economy face real and sobering climate impacts,” said John Podesta, a senior adviser to President Biden on clean energy, adding that the draft report was still undergoing scientific peer review and public comment."

To put it bluntly; this is a US government-funded body of experts telling you that your leaders have already failed you and we're almost certainly headed for climate-induced Thunderdome here in America. Furthermore, while I cut out a paragraph of fluff, I quoted such a long section of this article to point out one of the many small ways mainstream capitalist media continues to downplay the problem. In three consecutive paragraphs, our authors go out of their way to tell you twice that the report isn't final; as if sometime in the next couple of months all these eggheads are going to say "whoops, forgot to carry the two; actually everything is fine."

The truth however is that you don't need me to tell you that everything isn't fine; nobody does. While it may be refreshing to hear the U.S. government admit we're already in the middle of a global warming hockey stick graph, folks living on a boiling planet could have told you that just by stepping outside the past few years. What's important here is what this document, and the thousands of other official studies just like it proves; that Joe Biden, and other Pig Empire political leaders also know climate catastrophe, caused by fossil fuel consumption, is already here. Furthermore, so do all the other politicians, lobbyists, and even media muppets trying to sell you on planting trees, carbon capture, and bullsh*t "net zero" policies that won't stop the coming apocalypse, and ultimately only serve to sustain the very capitalist order causing it.

Of course, maybe you didn't need me to tell you that either. Perhaps hearing it from the Department of Defense, or major international banks was enough. Maybe it should just be pretty obvious that when an American President says we need to increase fossil fuel production now, to be able to decrease it at some undefined point in the future,  we are all being taken for a morbidly insulting ride. Maybe that's why capital is spending billions trying to disempower the people and lull us all back to sleep; it's not like they can keep it a secret anymore. If that's the case however, the folks around me sure are acting funny for people who know their leaders intend to murder their families for capitalism.

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: Rigging America In The Open

 

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

Inside Steve Bannon’s ‘disturbing’ quest to radically rewrite the US constitution

Recently on Twitter, I devoted a few pithy words to mentioning that fascists in American society were "tapping every possible route to power that they can and hoping one hits." I know this because I've been writing about these efforts to override what passes for our "liberal democracy" for several years now; whether they occur by legalist means, or through highly illegal acts of terror and politicized violence. Given this, I think that it's probably saying something when I note that this October 19th, 2022 article by Ed Pilkington over in The Guardian made my blood run cold. 

While I strongly advise you to read the entire article, "the too long didn't read" here is that noted fascist strategist Steve Bannon is using his trash fire podcast to push a highly-plausible right wing conspiracy to re-write the constitution pretty much any way they please. The tactic involves using a thirty-four state conservative majority, to hold a Constitutional Convention. Given that this is a fascist movement that is currently denying the results of the last Presidential election, attempting to rig elections going forward, and organizing a pogrom against trans people, all out in the open, that prospect should be quite concerning to you. As the piece itself makes clear:

 

"Mark Meckler, a founder of the Tea Party who now leads one of the largest groups advocating for the tactic, the Convention of States Action (Cosa), spelled out some of the prime objectives on Bannon’s show. “We need to say constitutionally, ‘No, the federal government cannot be involved in education, or healthcare, or energy, or the environment’,” he said.

Meckler went on to divulge the anti-democratic nature of the state convention movement when he said a main aim was to prevent progressive policies being advanced through presidential elections. “The problem is, any time the administration swings back to Democrat – or radical progressive, or Marxist which is what they are – we are going to lose the gains. So you do the structural fix.”

The “structural fix” involves Republican state legislatures pushing conservative amendments to America’s foundational document. By cementing the policies into the US constitution, they would become largely immune to electoral challenge."

 

So how plausible is this really? Well this is where things get terrifying because we're talking about an extremely well-funded project with support across the broader mainstream right; this isn't one of Bannon's fascist fantasies, this project is on the wish list of powerful lobby groups and billionaires like the Mercer family and groups run by Leonard Leo. Furthermore, and as this article makes clear - these guys are making progress:

 

"Under Article V, 34 states would have to call for a constitutional convention to reach the two-thirds requirement. Cosa has so far succeeded in getting 19 states to sign up, with a further six in active consideration.

ALEC, which sets a narrower remit for a convention focused on its balanced budget amendment, has gone further with 28 states on board.

Either way, there is a shortfall. To address it, constitutional convention leaders have invented increasingly exotic mathematical formulas for attaining the magic number, 34."

 

Please keep in mind that due to aggressive gerrymandering and a concerted effort to control state legislatures by the Republican Party, the GOP currently controls thirty-one states and only needs thirty-four; even if not all of those state legislatures are currently on board with this plan, there's nothing to suggest that will remain true as the GOP continues to slide further into open fascist politics. Once that happens, all bets are off; and that's even setting aside the fact that a GOP Congress could simply decide to fudge the numbers.

All of which leaves only one obvious question; is it still "ridiculous" to call political movement actively working to eliminate democratic rights and permanently lock the destruction of all life on Earth into the constitution on behalf of fossil fuel capital, fascist? Asking for about seven billion friends who aren't part of the capitalist ruling class.

 

 

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: Any Fool Will Do

 

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

Understanding "longtermism": Why this suddenly influential philosophy is so toxic

In a number of recent posts, I've found myself talking about billionaires, ideology, and the mainstream rise of overt fascism in the Pig Empire. Today in Nina-Bytes then, I'd like to take a moment to look at this critically important August 2022 essay on Salon about the latest nightmare ideological fad for billionaire fascists and disillusioned neoliberals; longtermism. Just what is longtermism? Let's ask philosopher and historian Émile P. Torres, the author of this article:

"Longtermism is a quasi-religious worldview, influenced by transhumanism and utilitarian ethics, which asserts that there could be so many digital people living in vast computer simulations millions or billions of years in the future that one of our most important moral obligations today is to take actions that ensure as many of these digital people come into existence as possible. In practical terms, that means we must do whatever it takes to survive long enough to colonize space, convert planets into giant computer simulations and create unfathomable numbers of simulated beings."

 

At first glance, it may not be entirely clear to the casual observer why longtermism is in fact such a dangerous, and reactionary ideology. That is of course until you start asking who exactly these folks mean by "we" and what they're implying when they say "whatever it takes." Hint: we is more or less rich and powerful people, while whatever it takes pretty much consists of sacrificing the poor, and quite possibly the planet. After all, even billions of poor people probably aren't going to build super intelligent artificial minds that will "evolve" the human species and take "us" to Mars, or something.

In case my sarcasm doesn't make it clear, the plain truth is that I don't believe what so-called longtermists claim to believe matters at all. Rather, I think what matters is that longtermism is another ruling class word salad ideology designed to justify mass murder in order to maintain capitalism in the face of a dying planet; like neoliberalism before it, or eco-fascism today. Marketing murder for profit as an ideology takes all kinds of sales pitches, for all sorts of people, and ruling class billionaire freaks are no different.

At its root this longtermism is merely a mash up of fascism, futurism, and a little bit of neoliberalism for flavoring; and all three of those reactionary headcages have at least one key commonality - the idea that some deserve to live and rule, while some deserve to serve and die. Of course, adherents and acolytes will howl that the difference lies in how those decisions are made  and who ends up in what bucket, but I think you'll find that whether the culling is based on racial animus, economic class, or a fake meritocracy, the end result of who lives in luxury, and who dies in bondage, doesn't really change much.

In other words the rise of ruling-class interest in both longtermism, and fascism in the Pig Empire, are intertwined phenomenon. They represent some, but not all, of the capitalist class's response to the objective reality that climate catastrophe cannot be stopped without ending capitalism. The capitalists, who possess outsized power in our society, have made their choice already, and now they're casting about for justifications and mechanisms to ensure billionaire reactionaries, not liberal democracies full of people, survive the coming apocalypse.

So what is longtermism? Another excuse to genocide poor people for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what greedbag monsters and fascist killers tell themselves to fall asleep at night. What matters is that we stop them before they kill billions.

 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…”

 

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

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