Biden just demonstrated it. Basically, he just said “I don’t give a shit because none of this will affect me” and signed off on the Willow project – the largest oil extraction plan for Alaska, ever.
He ran as an environmentalist. Candidate Biden said: [whitehouse.gov]
I come here today with a message: As President, I have a responsibility to act with urgency and resolve when our nation faces clear and present danger. And that’s what climate change is about. It is literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger.
The health of our citizens and our communities is literally at stake.
The U.N.’s leading international climate scientists called the latest climate report nothing less than, quote, “code red for humanity.” Let me say it again: “Code red for humanity.” It’s not a group of political official — elected officials. These are the scientists.
He can’t even conveniently blame Joe Manchin or Kirsten Sinema for this one.
Climate change is literally an existential threat to our nation and to the world.
So my message today is this: Since Congress is not acting as it should — and these guys here are, but we’re not getting many Republican votes — this is an emergency. An emergency. And I will — I will look at it that way.
Of course we can’t expect honesty from politicians. Of course we are cynical and un-trusting. Of course we still have to consider “the lesser of two evils” when we look at the two bowls of shit the two party system serves up to us; naturally we’ll take the one with the sriracha sauce on it.
Midjourney AI and mjr: “Joe Biden lights Alaska on fire.”
Of course there are lots of folks up in Alaska who want this. Why wouldn’t they? It’s money and jobs and it’s going to create even more jobs when all the coastal cities flood, the midwest burns under drought, Calcutta floods, and there are massive die-offs from heat and drought. Those jobs that Biden is helping create won’t kick in until … safely after he’s dead and buried. So, check the “do not give a shit” box.
What is particularly annoying to me is that a president like Biden could actually not give a shit in a positive way: he could blow all of his “political capital” on climate change. He could strong-arm legislation through congress by threatening, bludgeoning, and leveraging legislation in the most ruthless way possible. He could, for example, threaten to close military bases in republican-controlled states unless those congresspeople vote for the green revolution (or whatever it wants to be called) The idea that the US president – the single most powerful person on Earth – can’t come up with effective leverage, that’s all nonsense unless he’s actually just worried about getting re-elected. That way we can have an ancient fossilized zombie for another term. About the only possible good that could come of that is maybe he’ll drop dead part way into it and we’ll have a person of color (but a cop) woman president. Assuming he doesn’t run with someone other than Harris, because apparently he squeezed all the mileage he’s going to get from her.
Of course Biden has an excuse: [cnn]
The venture was ultimately approved with three drilling pads. The administration felt it was constrained legally and had few options to cancel or significantly curtail the project – which was initially approved by the Trump administration. The administration determined that legally, courts wouldn’t have allowed them to fully reject the project, two government sources familiar with the approval told CNN.
The final scope of the project will cover 68,000 fewer acres than what ConocoPhillips was initially seeking, the sources said.
Again, “political capital” – as President, Biden could make the surrounding land national parkland, and ban mineral extraction or pipelines through it. “But how will we get in and out to get the oil?” ConocoPhillips’ lobbyists cry. “Sue me.” and then run out the clock. Learn from Donald.
Biden ran on a platform of being not Trump. I don’t know if there was anyone who was actually enthusiastic about Biden, most of us were just gasping for air. I wonder if he realizes that most of that massive vote for him was the “lesser of two evils” vote and nobody with a brain actually gave a shit about Biden. And, he delivered: lots of waffling (“I may do ${X}” … “but the republicans won’t let me”) Massive expansion of the military. Minimal retraction of the global war on everyone. Just a mixed bowl of shit, with a little squirt of sriracha on top – that’s the “not Trump” squirt.
He’s in for a hell of a surprise if the young people who voted him in this time, decide to stay home, next time. Who can get excited about a dried up old piece of shit like Biden? The hippies were right when they said “don’t trust anyone over 30” because once you start seeing the end of the runway in the distance, you start getting pragmatic and that seems to entail compromising anything you ever believed in, in order to run for office again, or have a nice retirement home in Florida that’s not under fucking water.
A few years ago, when I started this (2016 was it?) I opined that humanity’s ineffective response to global heating was going to put us on track for +3 or even +4 C. Well, now climate boffins are talking as though +3C is “baked in” – i.e.: it’s going to happen. I’d say it’s less than 50/50 that human civilization will survive the hundreds of thousands of years of drought and flooding that we’re buying ourselves. But, as they say, “I won’t be alive for it, so fuck you.”
The hippies were right when they said “don’t trust anyone over 30” …
The US Constitution explicitly requires untrustworthy Presidents, then.
I think that the USoA should lower the voting age to 16.
Citizens should get to vote about stuff that will directly affect them.
I’m not 100% convinced this is an age thing – there are plenty of young arseholes who would burn the world for short-term profit out there too. Just look at crytpo, for example.
I had no illusions about Biden when I voted for him. I knew that he was Not The Angry Cheeto (that is to say, not a sociopathic narcissist), that he wanted to do some of the things I favored, that he actually listened to other people, and that he could sometimes be persuaded to change his mind. I knew that getting someone in office who was Not The Angry Cheeto was the primary consideration, cuz honestly, a second Cheeto term would have left him finish reducing everything that even smelled like it might be vaguely progressive to a fucking parking lot.
Basically, I voted for the tourniquet that would keep the representative democracy from bleeding out.
I’m curious to know if there’s anyone, anyone at all, anywhere who is, honestly and sincerely, voting FOR someone. I certainly know hardly anyone who does. Practically everyone I know, and certainly this applies to myself, votes AGAINST someone.
@5: Yes, I do. They never win, but I do it anyway. Mind you, my constituency is pretty safe and the Scottish Parliament regional vote uses STV, so I can afford to…
I always vote FOR someone. I’m in Canada so I usually have 3 or more choices.
There is an element of voting AGAINST certain candidates based on their party but it’s always the same party.
(aside: i do know people who vote *for* candidates, but generally they’re people who are infuriatingly, *knowingly* wasting their vote.)
Thanks to the FPTP system and the politcal realities of the modern UK, my vote (except on the Scottish Parliament regional list) doesn’t count for shit no matter who I vote for, so I figure I may as well try and use it to open up some political space for what I actually believe in.
Remember, for quite a long time (under the pre-war Tory / Liberal duopoly) everybody who voted Labour was “wasting” their votes – but they built a movement which would eventually reshape the country and lead to the creation of the post-war social democratic consensus and the NHS. Achieving meaningful political change is a long-term process.
Fair point. I don’t see any such movement forming, though. If anything, politics seems to be fracturing. I blame social media.
sonofrojblake@#10:
Fair point. I don’t see any such movement forming, though
One problem we have in the US is that it appears any movement that might accomplish anything will immediately be suborned by FBI provocateurs, so that it can eventually be neutered.