- cross-posted to:
- collapse@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- collapse@sopuli.xyz
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/1097575
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Remember, their families got rich by fucking our families over.
We need to stop pretending they’re on our side because they are our enemies.
Where does the money they get come from?
who keeps giving them money?
take their money
absolutely essential. Oil, weapons, media, zionists destroy election integrity through treasonous fraud. They all collude and support each other to boot. When SCC says money is speach, money is fraud, treason, and oppression. Take it away from the traitorous oppressors.
And God said “LET CORPORATIONS DESTROY THE PLANET AND ERADICATE ALL LIFE”.
Guess this is the modern alternative to the flood.
Put a garnishing order on their past 50 years of profits. All proceeds go to infrastructure investments for the developing world in climate mitigation and food security.
Wait but I always say “Thanks ExxonMobil” sarcastically but this looks like I should be thanking Shell?
But it is us, secondarily because we run our gas cars and such.
I’d say it goes a bit deeper than us.
It’s “us” because we keep voting for, and alongside, the people fucking us over. We like to blame the ruling class for buying our government, but it’s the stupid-ass workers that keep being herded like sheep and getting mad at anyone who calls it out.
In essence, most people deserve the state of the world because most people did nothing to stop it because they didn’t want to look bad in front of their idiot peers.
Anyone who legitimately fought back gets my condolences, but that certainly isn’t most of us.
Congress. For not taxing carbon emissions according to the damage they cause.
(And other countries’ legislatures, but as an American voter, I first need to hold my own legislature responsible.)
I first need to hold my own legislature responsible
Don’t think that’s really a thing in America anymore.
It’s just a vibe I get. It may have something to do with felon rapist pedophiles running the legislature.
I thought it is me, because I’m Not recycling hard enough. Puh, got lucky here /s
I know for a FACT that Shell bought up every patent it could on Hydrogen use in the 1960’s. My dad worked in England back then in the main office; way up in the tree and he witnessed this himself. FACT. Maybe I’m not completely clear: F A C T !!! He told me when I was a boy and I never forgot. (Was I clear? FACT!!!)
What do you have to be a TOTALLY ROTTEN COMPANY to even NOW not use those inventions and implement Hydrogen as a fuel so the world will be saved.
I truely HATE Shell with all my guts.
Green hydrogen only works when you have more energy than needed and you’re 100% renewable electricity. You could have done that with nuclear power in the 60s in theory. But solar in abundance is the only likely route it will work.
Hydrogen will never be a viable fuel and will never save the world. It leaks like hell, has a low energy density so it needs to be either highly compressed or highly refrigerated to liquify it to be even usable for something that is moving, which needs a lot of energy and induces a lot of constraints.
Basically, everywhere where electricity is a meaningful solution, hydrogen is just outclassed. Which leaves heavy industries and maybe cargo ships. The rest must either electrify, or just go.
We ought to seize all the top companies.
They’re just holding companies. They don’t make anything. They don’t produce anything. They just bleed off a kick, like a mob boss, and use those gains to amass political power.
Seize them all and use the assets (and annual profits) to fund American society.
Absolutely.
Take their wealth by force.
No thanks, BP and Saudi Aramco already prop up the US enough.
Shell also dodge paying fair taxes. https://www.ftm.eu/articles/shell-shifted-billions-in-profits-to-tax-havens-leaked-files-reveal
Please, dodging taxes is the least of Shell’s atrocities.
To the people who are saying “Yeah but you’re the one who buys the oil!!!” Please stop. Please think about any of the context surrounding those supposedly individualist decisions. Please think about what the most practical solutions are for fixing the problem. You can do that and be helpful or you can be smug and look down on others.
Sure, you buy and drive the car, but you didn’t:
- Design towns and cities that can only be easily traversed by car.
- Decide where jobs and housing were located.
- Spend millions of dollars to lobby against public transit.
- Spend millions of dollars to lobby against regulations.
- Spend millions of dollars to lobby against green energy investments.
- Spend millions of dollars to lobby for imperialist wars to access oil.
- Spend millions of dollars to spread misinformation about climate change.
- Decide what cars were available to buy and at what price. (Demand driving supply only makes sense if consumers have a way to signal that they want something that isn’t being offered. The main market way of doing that would be to not buy anything until the right good is offered… but as stated above, people can’t just opt out of needing a car if the places where they can live and work are built around cars.)
- Decide to be too poor to buy luxury goods masquerading as green alternatives.
Framing the issue in terms of individual decisions lets the people who have most actively stood in the way of progress off the hook and ironically shirks any real responsibility to fix the issue. You think by saying that it’s us doing it that you take responsibility for your actions and therefore because YOU got a hybrid car or some shit, you did your part and everyone else needs to do the same and it’s not your responsibility anymore. Needing to put in the political struggle to take on the corporate interests destroying the planet takes effort that deviates from your normal life. You have to actually talk to people, work with them, and take part in collective action. And your responsibility isn’t over until the problem is solved.
Also, sort of related: I always take issue with how dealing with issues like climate change is framed in terms of making sacrifices. Like sure, are we going to be able to do as much excessive consumption as we do now? No. But there are so many climate policies that would also just make life better for people in the short/medium term. We would be happier, healthier, and safer in a world where we got rid of our dependence on cars and replaced it with walkable cities and good mass transit. But instead of talking about how good it could be, instead the message ends up being “You’re a bad person for diving a car. You need to give up using your car and go either walk to your job which is too far away and across a bunch of busy streets or cram yourself onto the underfunded public transportation that is crowded, slow, unreliable, and falling apart.” No wonder people get so defensive. We don’t want them to have to use the bad infrastructure. We want it to be so good that it’s the best option by far. Pitch that future instead of lecturing people.
TL;DR: I WANT TRAINS! GIVE TRAINS!
Excellent comment!
Design towns and cities that can only be easily traversed by car.
Just to reiterate, there is something you can do about this. Lobby your local decision makers. They’re not waiting around to be guilted into anything, but they are generally happy to talk to residents and are open for reasonable arguments.
(That doesn’t mean local politicians are reasonable people. 90% of the ones who run things where I live are a lost case. But there are always the odd exceptions who are willing to listen and will work hard to make a difference.)
I agree, I love trains too!
American comment is American
USA #1!.. at a bunch of things you don’t want to be #1 at.
And regarding your other points, don’t forget urban planning. Trains and urban planning go hand in hand. You can’t transform transportation by trains alone if everything is suburbs and city jobs, for example.
110%. Walkable cities and trains. Let’s do it.
Yes, walkable cities and trains but also planning out where people live and work. Where people live is currently left up to the anarchy of the market, real estate speculation, where employment is located, etc. Then they have to get from where they live to other places they want or need to be, usually work. With some planning these things can be made intentionally dense, closer together, cheaper, and on transit lines.
I don’t understand this argument. On the one had you have sympathy for the average car user who hasn’t the time or resources to struggle with poor transport infrastructure and don’t necessarily have the resources to make preventative purchasing decisions, but then, on the other had you say
Needing to put in the political struggle to take on the corporate interests… takes effort that deviates from your normal life
You don’t seem to have avoided the responsibility being laid at the individual at all. You’ve kept it firmly in the same place. All you’ve done is allowed those individuals to keep their materialistic lifestyle because “It’s OK, I’m an ‘activist’”.
Activism, for most people, is not sacrifice. Its a jolly good day out with a cool social group, sometimes there’s even free music, circus acts, the works. You get to waive a flag, and everyone congratulates you on what an amazing person you are.
What’s properly amazing is taking a slightly less well-paying job because it’s on a bus route, or not going out twice a week so you can afford organic cotton instead of polyester, or avoiding that deal trip to Tibet to meditate with monks to save fuel. Zero social credit, zero visibility.
And if these big companies have the economic system so stitched up that individual choices barely matter, then what on earth makes you think they won’t have the political system similarly stitched up so that individual activism doesn’t make a difference either?
My point is, the important part isn’t assigning blame, it’s taking actions that actually have some path to success. You really can’t ethically consume your way out of climate change. Identifying the corporations and governments most responsible for blocking progress isn’t a mere moral victory, it’s focusing our efforts.
What’s properly amazing is taking a slightly less well-paying job because it’s on a bus route,
Sure, but not everyone can do that. And I don’t mean it’s just difficult, but literally there are a finite number of jobs and housing options that will fit that criteria. As our societies are set up now, it is not physically possible for enough people to make a sacrifice like that for it to make a difference. That’s why collective action is needed to make those big structural changes in the first place.
And if these big companies have the economic system so stitched up that individual choices barely matter, then what on earth makes you think they won’t have the political system similarly stitched up so that individual activism doesn’t make a difference either?
Oh 100%. I’m deeply concerned that there may be no peaceful, democratic way out of this. But that’s step 2. Step 1, regardless of what our strategy ought to be, is organizing. Whether we need voters, protestors, boycotters, or an army, we need people who are able to coordinate with others. It’s not individual activism, it’s collective action.
You say it’s important not to assign blame, yet this entire thread is about blaming companies. You keep using the word “ethically consume”, as if consumption is this magical shield that saves you from all responsibility. If I want to see a woman raped and I rape a woman and tape it, that’s obviously horrible. But if I instead find someone to PAY to create the video so I can CONSUME it, that suddenly cancels ANY AND ALL responsibility. WTF?
Calling for people to do what they can, which absolutely includes consuming differently, is the only correct choice here. Stop picking and choosing the parts of activism that require no effort from you personally. Stop pretending like the “system” is some kind of nefarious being in a cave we can just slay. We are all the system, we are all responsible to the degree that we have the power to change.
You might agree a little, but then talk about how little power we have. For one, do you think that’s true for feminism, or anti-racism? Me not making sexist jokes has a tiny, tiny impact on patriarchy. Can I then just keep doing that, because it makes no real difference? A bunch of rich patriarchs have so much more power, therefore can I just sit on my lazy ass and never do anything feminist, expect call myself feminist? Secondly, again, you’re picking and choosing what effort is ok to ask for. You ask for political activism, but draw the line at changing your habits where you can. That is simply non-sensical. Finally, you’re just wrong. Global climate change is GLOBAL. You do not get to shirk your duty on the pretense of powerlessness. The average American has the power and influence of ENTIRE FAMILIES in poorer countries. You know, the countries likely most affected?
I don’t look at companies like people, because they’re not. They’re profit optimization machines. Thinking about it in terms of blame is like getting mad at a math equation. The truly depressing thing about all the evils of capitalism is that they’re entirely rational and expected outcomes of the incentives and structures of the system. To a company, spending money to make a thing they can sell is functionally equivalent to spending money lobbying the government to get more favorable regulations. There is no moral calculation involved. Sure there are people who make those decisions within the companies, but over time the ones that make less financially lucrative decisions lose out to those who will do anything for a buck.
Recognizing this dynamic as our greatest barrier to progress is a necessary step to solving the problem. In order to be able to fight against such a powerful and organized enemy, we need to get as many people on our side and activate them enough to take coordinate collective action. To this end, we’ve seen how this individualized blame game has hurt our cause. (And the fossil fuel industry is at least partially responsible for pushing that narrative to the forefront.) People are naturally going to be hesitant to do things that diminish their quality of life and seeing people judge them for not doing so when they’re already living with so little while the rich pollute to their hearts content can make people feel alienated from the struggle. It makes it seem like these activists and politicians don’t understand or care about their circumstances. It makes it seem like we’re being petty and disingenuous by going after relatively small things. Nobody likes to feel like the bad guy, so they may even overcorrect and be more receptive to climate denial. Even if they accept the premise and reduce their consumption, if they’re convinced that this is sufficient and take no additional action, we’re still screwed. It also doesn’t help that the gov has been doing things to make even individual consumption changes even harder. China has made great strides in making cheap solar panels and electric vehicles, but we can’t have that, think of the shareholders! Lets put trade barriers up on their import.
Don’t get me wrong. I would never tell someone NOT to modify their behavior. If you are in a situation where you feel you can drive less, eat less meat, etc… go for it. My problem is using this framework as an overall marketing strategy for climate action. Look, climate change has just gotten worse over my lifetime. In fact, it’s gotten worse at an accelerating rate. Whatever we’ve been doing… IT HASN’T BEEN WORKING! Whatever tiny gains have been made by changes in consumption have been totally eclipsed by the wastefulness of the elite. If something isn’t working… you do something else.
Yep. Solidarity, collectivism.
Which presumably is why the left wing spends 100% of it’s time and energy on purity tests, cancelling, essentailist identity politics, and knee-jerk tribalism…
… classic solidarity-building. We should have this problem sorted in no time.
That is exactly what I’m trying to push back against. Guilting people over their tiny contribution to climate change is hurting the cause, not helping it. It’s a problem intrinsic to the consumption-oriented liberal approach to climate activism, but not exclusive to it.
I agree. I was pointing out that (even if perhaps inadvertently), your post just ends up guilting people who don’t do enough activism instead. It turns, not on the problem (reducing carbon emissions), but on your comrades (those who share your concern, but disagree about how best to achieve it).
The responses blaming individuals don’t seem to be exculpating corporations. They’re just adding a dimension they felt was missing.
Solidarity is about accepting into the fold anyone who agrees with a broad aim and working toward that end.
So anyone concerned about our impact on the planet can work together to minimise it. Some by campaigning to reduce consumption, some by campaigning against corporate overreach, some by campaigning for political parties who have better agendas. And each campaign supports and nurtures the other.
What we get instead are endless (and often furious) arguments between each campaign about how they’ve got it wrong and their approach will never work.
I suppose in the vein of “the one thing I don’t tolerate is intolerance”, I’d say the one thing I will always say isn’t going to work is telling every other well-meaning activist that their campaign isn’t going to work.
(The obvious caveat here is determining ‘well-meaning’, but hey, no system is perfect)
We’re all responsible. I’m sure a lot of Romans used this argument when their slaves came after them during the Servile Wars. And it probably didn’t go well.
Trains and trams are based af
Buses are pretty great too, to connect the more rural areas
As long as they’re not routed through main commute hubs. Where I live (near a major german city, so there indeed is at least something) all the bus connections to the closest subway station of the city are routed over a small portion of a major street. That alone causes massive delays every morning and often also in the evening when everyone pours in- and out of the city in their gas guzzlers.
I’m very much for having waaay more (semi-subway) trains even in rural areas. Even if it’s just small ones that never exceed 50kmh or something, having a trustworthy schedule would be worth it. Connect every milk can! (After giving it 5G)
That is definitely true. Buses are way more susceptible to shitty traffic engineering than railways. Though buses can work really well at traffic choke points too, when good traffic engineering is employed. Where I live, the bus can always zip right past all of the morning rush hour traffic and there is nothing more satisfying than looking out of a bus’ window and laughing at all the car-idiots standing still, stuck in traffic :3
But yeah, railways rule, I meant buses for the really bumblefuck places out there where rails wouldn’t be economical.
I find it hard to be enthused for trains, trams, and busses any more, since discovering over 20 years ago that clean energy and many other technologies and man-made innovations have been suppressed to maintain out dependence on scarce polluting energy because it’s easier to put a meter on to extract rents by. … So much so… y’know we could have had spaceships each since the 1930s? T Townsend Brown was not the first nor the leading pinnacle. Even back to the mid 1800s, when they were rigging their hot air balloons with faraday cages and high freq e.m. fields to reduce, and even eliminate inertia [… 1 small vacuum-proofing hop, and you have rudimentary interstellar flight capabilities]… … we never needed rockets, we never needed planes. … we don’t really need buses either. Or cars.
But if we make a nice world, buses still could be very nice to have.
Semi-subway trains too.
And cars even too. Track day, anyone? :)
Whole lot of vertical space unused in this world [and beyond]. We have so much headroom without the crooks holding us down. Heck! Even the crooks, even with their billions and trillions, would be better off, if we availed, each and all, all the emancipatory technologies.
Is it also not the fault of the 99% who vote for non-Green parties who then make the laws causing your bullet points?
Waaaaaaaay less than the people who have used their power to corrupt said system. Capitalists wouldn’t have spent this much money on lobbying and propaganda if it wasn’t needed. They try their best to keep some people from voting and the rest from having any viable choices that reflect what they want.
It’s just counterproductive to conceptualize our current situation in terms of individualized guilt. It’s not like going to privately check a box every few years is doing much more than choosing to consume a bit less. We need to be organized. Our enemies are and they’re winning.
Also the voting thing ignores the failure of electoral reform in preventing the two party system, and divorcing of the peoples intent from policy for the sake of lobbyist and corporate preference.
While more can be done locally, there have been think groups and other money-lead influencers affecting local efforts for as long as the heritage foundation has been supplying fascist mandates to USA presidents.
There were a lot of people trying to make that salient, and decide action in response to it, when suddenly all progressive groups decided the true threat was other progressive groups for some reason, and anyone trying to resolve that or encourage better communication or cooperation between progressive groups is actually secretly supporting the fascists somehow, because we out here dividing ourselves to be conquered.
Issue totally isn’t rich assholes with too much time and money pushing some policy sitting between feudalism, fascism, and whatever the fuck you would call what putin did to Russia.
I’ve been complaining about self segregation and communication issues for decades, and have been chastised/banned from a weird chunk of progressive spaces I’ve interacted with over this exact problem.
