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: Shell Game

 

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

 

The Only Winning Climate Policy Is a Pro-Worker Climate Policy

Well my friends, it certainly looks like its all over but the crying for Biden's milquetoast climate agenda; and perhaps the human species at large. As I, and many others predicted, the fossil fuel industry, anarcho-capitalist billionaires, and their in-pocket Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema appear to have torpedoed the Clean Electricity Performance Program, or CEPP, that is the centerpiece of Joe Biden's still-woefully inadequate climate action policies. Baring some kind of last minute miracle, liberal incrementalism (if you can even really call Biden a liberal) has once again screwed the pooch on behalf of their wealthy donors. 

Predictably, most of the public ire has fallen on Senators Manchin and Sinema; and why not? They are after all the most visible face of the plot to kill the world for capitalists at this point; although I'd wager such an analysis is letting billionaire supervillains, corporate America, and the mainstream media off lightly. Unfortunately however, as this November 4th, 2021 article by Matt Huber in Jacobin points out, even this analysis allows important culprits to ultimately escape responsibility; specifically President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party he presides over.

As our author details, both the CEPP and Biden's environmental agenda were always technocratic solutions dependent on enticing the free market to "go green" on its own. Biden explicitly rejected the Green New Deal, failed to tie his environmental policies to material improvements for the labor class, and surrendered control of the process to insiders, wonks and corporate stooges. Furthermore, despite rhetoric indicating that Palooka Joe regards climate crisis as the most important issue of our time, the President has failed to use the executive powers granted by his office to do more to mitigate climate catastrophe. All of which reflects poorly on Biden's visit to COP26, as the article notes:

"Which brings us to this week’s underwhelming round of COP negotiations. Joe Biden’s speech featured lofty rhetoric asserting that this is the “decisive decade” for climate action. Yet he’s also come to the meetings without any credible plan to rapidly decarbonize the world’s leading historic emitter.

It’s very easy to blame the downfall of Biden’s climate agenda on Joe Manchin. But while GND advocates spent much of 2018–20 demanding a transformative approach to climate policy, 2021 has been more of the same. When it comes to climate politics, Biden and elite Democrats seem to be saying, “We’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out of ideas.”

Frankly, you don't need me to tell you the Democratic Party is broken; the fact that they're getting rolled by fascists and can't even pass a budget despite controlling the House and Senate kind of makes that clear already. We have however been here before, and when dark history repeats itself despite the names and faces changing, that's a clear indication the problem is systemic. This in no way absolves Manchin and Sinema, who deserve every bit of animosity they receive, but there is a larger lesson here. Capitalist neoliberal technocrats are not going to save us from climate catastrophe, no matter what lofty rhetoric to the contrary they deploy at fancy international conferences.

Look, this isn't doomerism. We are still capable of preventing a climate apocalypse, if we just surrender capitalism. The time for dithering away at climate summits however, is growing short. Our choices at this point are pretty simple; we get left, or we get boiled. And as long as those decisions remain in the hands of men like Joe Biden, you can bet it's not going to be the former.

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: 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: Ahead of the Curve

 

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

 

Personally, I have never quite mastered the important internet art of relentless self promotion. In fact, that might be why this blog generally tops out of a few hundred readers. If there is one thing I've learned in my time publishing analysis online however, it's that sometimes you have to toot your own horn a little; if only because nobody is going to do it for ya. So today we're going to try something a little different; I'm counting coup with some help from bigger voices in the progressive media sphere online. 

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article arguing that most mainstream media coverage of the reconciliation bill fight in the US Senate amounted to complicit codswallop and "corporate-sponsored fan fiction for lanyards." In that article I noted that anarcho-capitalist billionaires and corporate America had poured millions into stopping the Build Back Better Act at all costs. This including buying off Democrat Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema; whose support is necessary to pass the bill. Finally I observed that corporate media was engaging in active propaganda on behalf of their rich owners by pretending this was any sort of good faith political dispute. The whole mystery was a stalling tactic, and as of now it appears to be working.

Well, it turns out that I'm not the only person who noticed:

 

TV Reports on Manchin and Sinema Leave Out Their Financial Conflicts 

In this October 22nd report by Spencer Snyder over at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, we find documented evidence that the willful blindness I observed in print media carries over to cable news coverage. In a review of twenty-one news programs covering the reconciliation bill fight (including programs from major players in corporate cable news), the author identified a total of forty-five seconds spent discussing conflict of interest issues; also know as corruption. Indeed, ABC's "Good Morning America" actually had former Senator Heidi Heitkamp on to admonish folks for questioning Manchin and Sinema's motives in stopping the bill. 

The article also goes on to detail Manchema's flagrant conflicts of interest; including donor money, Machin's one-step-removed coal empire, and Sinema's obviously corrupt relationship with a lobbying group in cahoots with Big Pharma. Finally, Snyder hammers away at cable media for spinning a narrative that ultimately sides with corporate power and the two corrupt Senators, while blaming the left for refusing to surrender. This is all great stuff, but given that I already wrote all of these same things, you probably could have guessed I'd feel that way.

 

Joe Biden Is Poised to Gut His Own Political Agenda; and the Democrats’ Electoral Prospects

In this October 21st article by Luke Savage in Jacobin, the author looks at the same corruption and coverage I did, and comes to the same conclusion; the fix is in and the media is in on it. In fairness to Savage, he then uses this discussion to point out that the Democratic Party (and Joe Biden; who was tepidly supporting the progressive position when I published) is also complicit in letting corporate lobbyists and two Senators hijack the negotiations. From the article:

"In exposing the deep dysfunction of America’s political institutions, the reconciliation battle has also, yet again, laid bare the structuring contradiction of the Democratic Party as a vehicle for real reform. Having begun the process by proposing trillions in big programs and new spending, the party’s subsequent negotiation with itself looks set to yield something both ideologically feeble and electorally counterproductive.

Among other things, that’s because the Democratic coalition is less a coherent ideological formation than it is a Frankenstein hodgepodge of progressives, public interest groups, liberally minded voters and corporate lobbies — with the latter, by virtue of its influence in DC, bottomless reserve of campaign cash, and de facto purchase of many elected representatives almost invariably carrying the day."

 

Now, I want to be clear; I'm absolutely not accusing either of this guys of plagiarism. What I'm suggesting you to do is look at the dates all three of these pieces were published, and then ask yourself one simple question. Why wouldn't someone who wanted to be informed on the cutting edge of left wing political analysis, subscribe to ninaillingworth.com, this blog, and all the social media services listed in my signature at the bottom of this post? 

Exactly, such a decision would be inexplicable; which is why you should sign up if you haven't already my friends.

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: Nobody Gets Out Unscathed

 

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

Lancet Report Warns Planetary Crisis Will Spur More Infectious Diseases, Climate Refugees

One of the more important things living through the early stages of climate catastrophe has taught me, is that most people have no real concept of what we mean when we say this is a global crisis. Oh sure, folks realize that some animals might die, and coastal property might sink below the sea, but most people seem pretty certain that somehow, they'll survive a global collapse of our biosphere just fine. As a recent report published in the Lancet (and timed to precede the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow) details however; climate crisis is already killing people far away from the "frontiers" of global warming, and it's going to kill a lot more.

As Jessica Corbett writing in Common Dreams details in this story, the report is a collaborative effort by dozens of recognized academics and UN experts, and the findings are grim. From a rise in infectious disease spread, to extreme heat, and fatal air pollution, the Lancet report makes it clear that on our current trajectory, climate change "will become the defining narrative of human health." Literally millions upon millions of lives are at stake here, and that's from knock on health effects of climate crisis alone; doctors are calling it a "code red" health situation.

Pointing to the nationalist failures in addressing the coronavirus crisis, the report's authors also note that "tackling climate change requires all countries to deliver an urgent and coordinated response." As lead author Maria Romanello says "it's time to realize that no one is safe from the effects of climate change." In a sane world, this would be understood as a rational call for socialism in the face of our collective impending global heat death. Here however, it's clearly a reference to the Glasgow conference. 

In fairness the report isn't all doom and gloom; even at this late an hour, there is still time to pull our society back from the brink. The authors note that with the current global incentive to invest in a coronavirus recovery, it is possible to spend that money on curbing carbon emissions in the name of global health. Once again, it's a great idea, for a world where guys like Joe Manchin don't need a new boat. Sadly, we're not living in that sane kind of world, so I guess we're all doomed.

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: A Question of Priorities

 

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

Senate Quietly Adds $10 Billion to Pentagon Budget While Blocking Climate Action

Look, I don't want to say that the mainstream media always lies, because most of the time they don't really have to. As I've explained before, it's pretty easy to abuse context, or lack thereof, to distort how the news is perceived, while still technically reporting "the truth." Recently for example, I've watched this technique being deployed while reporting on various aspects of federal spending by the Biden administration. Consider for a moment the wildly different ways our record $778 billion defense budge for 2022, and the social spending in the budget reconciliation bill are being reporting.

Not only is the focus on reporting the highest possible spending number (over 10 years) when reporting the reconciliation bill, but the media also credulously accepts the complaints of so called budget hawk Senators demanding huge funding cuts for social and environmental programs. As Sharon Zhang notes over on Truthout however, nobody even bats an eyelash when those same "budget hawks" fall all over themselves to give the Pentagon more money than it asked for! Sorry kids; we're pawning your future so Lockheed Martin can bill the government for more Javelin missiles we absolutely don't need. This situation is not only absurd, but it's an active threat to what passes for American democracy. Oh, and also all life on earth.

As I've written recently; figuring out why Democrats can't pass the Build Back Better Act isn't a convoluted mystery. The answer is bald-faced corruption; anarcho-capitalist billionaires and corporations have bribed two Senators to sink it at all costs. Maybe you can argue that the political media in America can't report that because bribery is effectively legal. I don't agree with that argument, but it exists. A truly adversarial free press however, would at least report the fact that these guys are shoveling cash at a carbon-spewing war machine, at the same time as they're crying that the country's coffers are too short to pay for climate crisis reduction programs. 

The problem here of course is that we don't have a free and adversarial press. We have a corporate propaganda machine actively partnered with the war machine, to make bucket loads of money keeping America perpetually prepared for, or engaging in, another war. Social spending costs rich people money, while weapons contracts make rich people money; this isn't that complex. Obviously in an economy built on blood and oil, the survival of the species just doesn't rate. 

Maybe poor kids and polar bears should hire themselves some lobbyists.

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: Fish Gotta Swim

 

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

Manchin Has Received $1.5 Million From Corporate Interests Attacking Biden Agenda: Report

This article from Jake Johnson at Common Dreams has forced me to ask an important question; is it even possible to make an "I told you so" post about such crass and obvious corruption? In an era of legalized bribery, and zero accountability for the rich and powerful, does bald-faced self-enrichment at the highest levels of government even shock us anymore? Probably not; especially in a neofeudalist oligarchy. Clearly in this stage of capitalism, asking a U.S. Senator to forgo bribes from corporate lobbyists is like asking a fish to stop swimming.

Joe Manchin, everyone's favorite coal baron Senate obstructionist, is back in the news cycle again and it's not because he's such a style icon. In a revelation that won't surprise anyone who read my last essay (Six Things I Think: Reconciliation and the Dirty Pair) even more evidence has emerged that Manchin is on the take from forces that want to kill the Build Back Better Act. It turns out that in addition to the oil lobby money, and the polluter utilities money, Manchin has also scarfed up at least $1.5 million in donations from corporations and business lobby groups; including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

Given that all of these groups represent corporations who oppose even moderate tax increases, as do Manchin's new friends inside the Kochtopus, it's not all that hard to figure out what the money is for. Correspondingly, the "other Joe" is still working to whittle trillions in funding off the reconciliation bill while protecting his corporate donors from even Biden's moderate tax increases. Of course one might be tempted to ask why companies keep bribing Manchin to kill a bill he's already committed to destroying, but there's no need to ask why the Senator from West Virginia would keep going back to the well. After all, everyone already knows he's greasier than a pork rind dipped in lard; and nobody has done a goddamn thing about it yet.

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…”

 

Six Things I Think: Reconciliation and the Dirty Pair on NIDC

 

Editor’s note: Six Things I Think is an ongoing political media deconstruction and analysis series, featured on NIDC.

Fan Fiction for Lanyards in a Model Modern Oligarchy

Well folks, I finally did it; I wrote a full length essay for the first time since I was forced to stop working and manage my long covid symptoms. In today's edition of Six Things I Think, I'm conducting an in-depth investigation into a riddle nobody outside of the Beltway was struggling to solve: "why can't Democrats pass the reconciliation bill?!" 

The answer is of course, because rich people don't want them to; but don't tell that to the Manchinologists and Sinema-Whisperers in Beltway media! We've got budget reconciliation, greasy dark money, the Kochtopus, and two Democrat Senators who owe their souls to the company store, today on NIDC.

"At this point, I’m convinced Sinema is actually some type of human thought experiment designed to measure how long corporate cash donations alone can animate a terminal political career. Loathed by nearly every human who’s ever met her, the Arizona Senator has recently taken to cowering in the bathroom to avoid having to face her constituents."  

To check it out over on ninaillingworth.com, click on the quotation block above, or the header below:

Six Things I Think: Reconciliation and the Dirty Pair 

 

 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…”