The spite of rich men: GOP takes millions from FEMA to feed ICE

The obvious take on this would be to say that the Republicans are cutting off their nose to spite their face. They took ten million dollars from FEMA to increase their immigrant/refugee concentra- detainment center program. That would be giving them too much credit. The GOP, regardless of who its base might be, is a rich people’s party dedicated to the greed of rich people. They’re not cutting off their nose, they’re cutting off the nose of their constituency, to spite the scapegoat they tell their constituency to hate. The GOP loses nothing by destroying this country, so long as they keep making money, and their propaganda keeps working.

So far, it looks like the voters who keep the GOP in power have been willing to endure quite a lot of hardship if the people inflicting it have an (R) after their name. I hope Hurricane Florence won’t be as disastrous as expected, but if it is, I wonder if any Republican voters will take a second glance at the way their hero de-funded FEMA to pay for family internment.


If you found this post useful or enjoyable, please share it, and please consider becoming a patron over at my Patreon page. Your donations make this blog possible, and even as little as one dollar per month adds up to make a difference. If you feel you can afford more than that, you can get access to all sorts of other content and perks! Your patronage allows me to put more of my time and energy into making this blog a useful resource. Thanks for reading!

 

Natural Gas is Immoral: Fracking destroys potable water

Ending the use of fossil fuels isn’t just about slowing climate change. It’s also about surviving climate change. The extraction, processing, and use of fossil fuels all present hazards to human health that will only grow as the temperature rises.

From the dawn of fracking technology, there have been serious concerns about contamination of our water supply. These concerns were largely waved away, and in the years that followed, fracking became just another means for the fossil fuel industry to poison their surroundings for profit. Now, even as we hear about companies like Nestle hoarding access to fresh water, a new study has outlined the degree to which the fossil fuel industry is destroying the American water supply. Farron Cousins from Ring of Fire Radio has more: [Read more…]

Past is Prologue: Keystone brutality was allowed under Obama, but is encouraged under Trump

The Keystone pipeline has not gone away; nor has the mortal danger to all of us it represents. The constant shitstorm from the Republican Party has made it difficult to keep focus on any one issue, and the media has been largely complicit in creating that problem and in making it worse. Keystone is Old News, and the most immediate danger it presents is to poor people. American Tradition dictates that “their” problems be ignored if there’s more potential for profit elsewhere.

The announcement of Kennedy’s retirement, combined with the theft of a Supreme Court nomination, and the rest of the Republican campaign to take over the the Judicial Branch, means that we can expect any and all challenges to the fossil fuel industry to be crushed by the courts. Case in point, South Dakota’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal against a regulator’s approval of the pipeline.

This fight will not go away because for a lot of people, it’s literally a fight for survival. To crush any efforts toward actual justice, the biggest fossil fuel companies have budgets surpassing those of many nations, and they can afford to buy as many mercenaries as they think they need. The Oil Must Flow, and countless millions have been and will be killed to support that fanatical ideology.

Under Obama, mercenaries and police waged war on behalf of Enbridge. They set dogs on peaceful protestors, beat people, shot them with rubber bullets, sprayed them with water in sub-freezing temperatures, used tear gas and pepper spray, and even explosives that nearly blew off an arm of one of the protesters. And under Obama, they got away with it.

How long is it until ICE decides they have jurisdiction over Native Americans? Reservations are technically sovereign territory after all (not that we’ve ever respected that), so there are borders around them that just HAVE to be patrolled by trigger-happy white supremacists!

It might not be this year or next, but we’re going to see an increase in clashes between the interests of the super-rich, and the interests of humanity. Both major parties have a record of siding with money and power against people, but today’s Republicans won’t just “regretfully” allow companies to do what they want – they’re going to actively cheer on escalating brutality, and the more cruelty and sadism they show, the more the Republican base will love them.

I’ll try to keep my readers up to date on this, but you should also follow Dallas Goldtooth on Twitter, and keep an eye on the Indigenous Environmental Network.


If you found this post useful or enjoyable, please share it, and please consider becoming a patron over at my Patreon page. Your donations make this blog possible, and even as little as one dollar per month adds up to make a difference. If you feel you can afford more than that, you can get access to all sorts of other content and perks! Your patronage allows me to put more of my time and energy into making this blog a useful resource. Thanks for reading!

 

Discerning intent from action: Scott Pruitt and the Republican vision of America’s future

Scott Pruitt seems to be a trial run of whether or not the GOP can get away with the kind of corrupt behavior that is now standard operating procedure in the Russian oligarchy. Since he got into office, his actions have confirmed his intentions- Pruitt is there to turn the EPA into a cash and favors spigot for the wealthy, using taxpayer resources to undo environmental protections, do favors, and enrich himself. My only regret, from this video, is that Pruitt and his dining partner were apparently left to finish their meal in peace after this excessively polite interruption (EDIT: my bad for not looking deeper – he left of his own accord as she returned to her seat.):

We deserve to have somebody at the EPA who actually does protect our environment. Someone who believes in climate change and takes it seriously for the benefit of all of us, including our children. So, I would urge you to resign before your scandals push you out.

Good for her! Seriously – these people are taking actions that will kill billions if they are not stopped. They deserve no peace. Unfortunately, disrupting their ability to enjoy public spaces is not going to be enough. [Read more…]

Preparing for the future

The suite of problems facing American politics is starting to remind me of climate change. A few bad actors with vast resources have screwed everybody over with the silent consent of a majority of the country. To be sure, it’s not like we had managed to unscrew the country the way most of White America seemed to think, but we have been moving slowly in that direction, and had a glimpse of what it might be like to live up to our high-minded ideals. The 21st century could have been a monument to human rights and human ingenuity. At the moment, I don’t think that’s a possibility anymore.

It seems likely, with Trump on the verge of appointing another “Justice” to the supreme court, that we’re over the edge. Just as we have no realistic chance of avoiding catastrophic warming based on where we’re at right now, we may not have any realistic chance at preventing an American slide into full-on authoritarianism.

I suppose November will show us just how screwed we are, but in the meantime I think it’s time to really delve into how to keep working for justice under an oligarchy or something like that. [Read more…]

Water is life: American capitalism is a violation of human rights.

The picture shows a black and white illustration. To the left, a skeletal, starving child holds a hand out under a tap for water, while a man in a business suit pinches off the hose that would allow the child to drink. The word

Since American capitalism seems to be all about finding new ways to punish the poor for being poor, here’s some shit icing on the garbage cake – Nestle is paying $200 per year to pump enough water to supply 100,000 people into bottles to be sold. All of this is about two hours drive from Flint, MI.


If you found this post useful or enjoyable, please share it, and please consider becoming a patron over at my Patreon page. Your donations make this blog possible, and even as little as one dollar per month adds up to make a difference. If you feel you can afford more than that, you can get access to all sorts of other content and perks! Your patronage allows me to put more of my time and energy into making this blog a useful resource. Thanks for reading!

 

The Fossil Fuel Lobby: Killing people for fun and profit

This is a good example of how propaganda continues to be used to undermine wind energy. I don’t know where the funding for this came from, but over the years, the fossil fuel industry has invested millions in lying to people not just about climate science, but about any alternatives to fossil fuel energy generation. This strategy began while nearly identical misinformation campaigns were being waged by the lead industry to keep lead as a gasoline additive, and by the tobacco industry to keep the public from understanding the dangers of tobacco smoking.

I will keep saying it – these people are committing crimes against humanity, and a just society would lock them away, and use their assets to try to repair some of the damage they have done to satisfy their greed. Just as we are still grappling as a society with the damage done by tobacco and lead, we will continue dealing with climate change long after the people whose inaction created the problem are dead. Millions of lives will end this century because of the lies of the fossil fuel industry starting in the last century, and every step of the way there will be people still holding up those lies, and claiming that the deaths are due to anything BUT a changing climate.


If you found this post useful or enjoyable, please share it, and please consider becoming a patron over at my Patreon page. Even as little as one dollar per month adds up to make a difference, and if you feel you can afford more than that, you can get access to all sorts of other content and perks! Your patronage allows me to put more of my time and energy into making this blog a useful resource. Thanks for reading!

Attack of the Censorship Monkeys: Hear no science, see no science, speak no science.

If you watch no other video today, watch this one:

This is not a new video, but it’s an important one. NASA has been crucial in our understanding of how our climate works, and how it’s changing. The video is from 2014, and the data are from 2006. This may be one of the most important research efforts for the long-term survival of humanity, and of civilization (both as we know it, and as we’d like it to be).

And so, of course, the Trump administration has decided that this cannot stand.

[Read more…]

Ethical Black Hole: Fossil Fuel Interests Still Use Astroturfing to Subvert Democracy

I suppose one could argue this isn’t really “news”, since fossil fuel interests have been funding misinformation campaigns for decades. Still, every year they continue working to prevent a shift to renewable energy sources is another example of just how little they care about their fellow humans. From Climate Progress:

The paid actors, who played the role of civic-minded residents, held signs about the power plant project’s job-creating potential at New Orleans City Council meetings. Some of the actors also gave speeches in favor of the proposed Entergy New Orleans LLC power plant during the public comment period.

Roughly 50 people turned out to support a $210 million effort to build a power plant in the city during an October 2017 meeting. Several of them told the Lens, a local New Orleans news outlet, they were paid $60 to wear orange shirts. Others were paid more to speak in front of the city council members.

In a vote of 6-1, the New Orleans City Council in March ended up voting in favor of Entergy’s proposed power plant.

In my opinion, doing that should be illegal, and punished by banning any company or person trying it from all political spending or lobbying for a period of time. 5 years sounds good for a first offense.

Comparisons are regularly drawn between the fossil fuel industry’s misinformation campaign, and the tactics used by tobacco companies to hide that danger. I think that comparison is no longer fair to the tobacco lobby. Their kind of evil is global in scale, but small in scope. They profit from the destruction of individuals.

Companies and people who lie to the public about climate science while making money off of fossil fuels are profiting off of the destruction of civilization. Whether or not we end this century with an intact civilization, the world as we know it will be gone, and replaced with a less stable, more hostile one.

It’s hard to think of a greater crime against humanity.

Battles ahead – it will never be “too late”

Unsurprisingly, the sundry would-be Republican candidates for president have been less than inspiring this election season. One might think that with two candidates from Florida – a state that’s already starting to struggle with sea level rise – we might see at least hint of sanity from the national figures of Grand Old Party. One would be very wrong to think that, and if one really did, I would hazard a guess that one has not been paying attention.

Um, yeah. Climate denial is no surprise here. Peter Sinclair has more on the situation in Florida from rawstory and from his own video over at climatecrocks.com, but I wanted to talk about something slightly different.

Take a look at this video of Marco Rubio fielding a question sent in by the mayor of Miami (a Republican). Listen to the talking points:

Right-click and inspect element for transcript, or click here for full debate transcript

Some time ago, someone pulled together five stages of climate denial, which are unpacked well in this Guardian article by Dana Nuccitelli:

Stage 1: Deny the Problem Exists […]
Stage 2: Deny We’re the Cause […]
Stage 3: Deny It’s a Problem […]
Stage 4: Deny We can Solve It […]
Stage 5: It’s too Late […]

It’s pretty normal to get some combination of stages one through four in any given remark by a climate denier, and as Nuccitelli’s article shows, we’ve gotten pretty good at rebutting those arguments. Rubio mostly focused on Stages 2 and 4 in the video, with a nod to Stage 1. What I want to focus on in this post is “Stage 5”, because it’s an argument that makes a direct attempt to create despair. Let’s look at her discussion of Stage 5:

[Read more…]