By Ramin Mazaheri – for the Saker Blog
A party built around climate change is a luxury only the West can afford, and like most luxuries it is a corrupting influence.
While covering a protest in France several years ago a union member told me how she hoped Iran would stop selling its oil in order to protect the environment.
“Sure,” I told her, “how many billions of euros can we expect France to send us so we can buy food?” I assume she is still ignoring this inconvenient truth and enormous flaw in climate change demands on non-Western countries.
Nobody knows how things will shake out in May 2020 – just how bad the West’s Double Bubble + Great Lockdown economy will soon be – but prior to coronavirus green parties were poised to become a top two party across the West for the first time. In 2019 European Parliament elections they shockingly won 10% of seats and 13% of France’s.
That’s not a majority, but the up-to-the-minute reality is that everybody else has been discredited across the Eurozone: the conservatives, the fake-leftists/pseudo-socialists, the nouveau centrists like Emmanuel Macron, the real-but-disliked leftists. Voters who don’t go far-right have only one choice, and that’s a Green party.
The corona overreaction is throwing a spanner into the works, but are we really predicting a revolution in the Western political trajectory?
It’s certain that the neoliberal response cannot possibly satisfy the lower classes, thus incumbents aren’t going to survive their next election: the next five years should be the same as pre-corona – green parties will play the role of ineffectual opposition/status quo-enforcers to far-right corporate fascists who are more jingoistic than patriotic. That’s what politics will be in much of the West, though not in the two-party Anglophone world.
And yet greens will do what fake-leftists always do: screw up, sell out and falsely claim total ownership of the moral high ground.
Given that greens are the political force most poised to profit in the post-corona profit we should ask: Why are the greens such fake-leftists and so unable to provide adequate solutions for the Western lower classes?
Thomas Piketty and why we have to remind hippies that humans have feelings too, just like crystals do
On a moral level greens are human-hating Malthusians at heart – who could deny that? They put rocks and squirrels ahead of people.
On a political level the problem with handing the greens power amid an economic crisis is how very neoliberal their economics are: capitalism-imperialism fringed with a green garland is still rapacious capitalism-imperialism, after all. Perhaps because they are such animal and nature worshippers greens have totally swallowed the idea that “animal spirits” are the only thing which can possibly guide the economy. Which totem animal corresponds to the spirt of compound debt, I wonder?
We can now understand how very easy it will be for the Western 1% to pivot and embrace green parties as a “solution” to pacify the masses post-corona, much like Barry Obama rebranded the US in 2008.
To prove my point: take this extended interview from April 27 with economist-of-the-decade Thomas Piketty by The Intelligencer, which is part of the fake-leftist New York Media digital empire: here we can witness fake-leftist Westerners have it dawn on them that… oh yeah, it seems politics actually can shape economic outcomes?
Piketty is known as the “scholar of inequality”, and while such issues are the focus of leftists it does not mean he automatically is a socialist and not a capitalist. In the interview he discusses his new book and its solution to the Great Recession-cum-Great Depression 2: “participatory socialism”.
Much like Bernie Sanders (the Democratic Party chiefs he repeatedly bows to surely think: “Thank God we have a donkey like him!”) and his “democratic socialism”, Piketty also misunderstands socialism so very much that he thinks he needs a modifying adjective. At best, we can say that these fake-leftists only grasp the primary aspect of socialism (economic redistribution), but not its second, twin pillar (political power redistribution).
The idea that socialism is not “participatory” is easily and overwhelmingly disproven:
Last year Cuba approved a new constitution: “Some 133,680 meetings were held in neighborhoods and places of work and study. There were 8,945,521 participants, with an estimated two million attending more than one, so that the participation rate was approximately three-quarters of the population. There were 1,706,872 commentaries by the people, with 783,174 proposed modifications, additions, or eliminations. On the basis of the opinions and proposals of the people, the Constitutional Commission revised the draft. More than 50% of the proposals of the people were included in the modifications; nearly 60% of the articles were modified in some form.”
Is that not “participatory” enough?
Piketty seems to have swallowed the lie that socialism has no second pillar which upholds political empowerment of the humble citizen? We see how millions of Cuban hands wrote their constitution in a bottom-up manner, as opposed to the top-down technocracy/aristocracy of Western liberalism.
Fake-leftists fear socialism because they made no personal effort to understand it, thus their conception of socialism is based on ignorance, propaganda and self-interest, and not logic or history. We see all of these things on display from the otherwise estimable Piketty in this interview.
The West gives Piketty a chance: if he doesn’t seize the moment now then he is an idol in an ivory tower
What can we expect New York Media to say when confronted with the rapacity of neoliberalism anything but, “We had no idea?!”
We should expect more from Piketty – we can judge here if he is more than just a detached theoretician who poses no threat to status quo capitalism-imperialism.
The Intelligencer: “One of the main responses to the last book, at least among the American audience, was to treat r > g (Piketty’s shorthand for the fact that the returns to capital have been greater than the growth of the economy as a whole) as though it were a law of nature that could be modified only very occasionally through exceptional political change. But actually, the fact that a rich person’s bank account grows faster than the national GDP, that’s just a phenomenon created by a particular political structure too. It’s a creation of politics.”
This illustrates my point: Western fake-leftists – from those approved by investor banker scions to write for New York Media group to the greens – have no idea about how politics shapes economics even though this is the very stuff which socialism’s first pillar is made of. Yes, of course economics are created by a political structure! We see that the neoliberally-indoctrinated never question their core beliefs and “animal spirits” until it is too late.
Piketty’s mildest-of-responses – apologetic and inexplicably guilty – shows why he is so appealing to fake-leftist Westerners: the West’s favourite “leftist economist” shows how his values are not based around socialist critiques but the values of diversity drawn from cosmopolitanism, and culminating in a relativistic moral nihilism which is absolutely unacceptable in the black and white field of economics, with its measurable outcomes.
Piketty: It is.
Probably I was not sufficiently clear about that.
I must say in general I have learned a lot from all the discussion from my previous book. I have learned a lot by traveling to many countries to which I had not traveled sufficiently before. I think by broadening the scope of countries and historical trajectories I look at, it also made me realize this incredible diversity of human ideologies and human imagination to restructure all the time the societies. And that’s probably the main lesson of history, that the idea that there is only one way and there is no alternative is just wrong.
The Intelligencer: You heard that a lot starting in the 1990s and all through 2008: There’s only one way. (The standard formation of this is ‘TINA: There Is No Alternative (to neoliberalism and neo-imperialism)’.)
Piketty: It’s wrong.
We “heard that a lot” from Westerners – everywhere else people who were not aspiring to being Western clients/puppets were disagreeing… and getting bombed/blockaded for it.
Being “wrong” on this issue merits a lot of public admission of shame and guilt, but Piketty is content to allow decades of deadly mismanagement to be summarised with two words! I wish my teachers had been so leniently brief when I was wrong.
He doesn’t have to be a political firebrand or a raging poet, but we need more than just two words here: Piketty’s reticence is both culturally self-serving (Piketty is French) and also dangerous because the West’s refusal to let anyone go their own way has had such deadly and impoverishing results. Their conversation continues:
The Intelligencer: Since the crash, there has been a sort of acknowledgment from places like the IMF, World Bank, Financial Times, The Economist, all these voices of elite globalized neoliberalism saying, “Okay, there are some real problems here.” But they still aren’t thinking much about alternative models.
Piketty: If you look at how things happen, you’ll see a potential for political mobilization and historical change through social and economic and political processes, which always happen much faster than what the dominant discourse tends to imagine.
The journalist is essentially saying to Piketty: give us an alternative model, please! But Piketty backs away and exonerates those entities by saying, “Well, life moves fast.”
That’s his whole answer – it isn’t much. It’s as if Piketty wants to stay on the good side of these institutions and media – to keep getting book reviews, praise and invites to speak.
Today is the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day – do you know the socialist version of what happened?
It only takes a few paragraphs…
What Piketty does not say is that we need to learn from the history of socialism, which is an alternative model that has been in practice for over a century but which neoliberalism violently opposes.
Western fake-leftists know what waits for them if they say that history openly: blacklisting, de facto censorship, no more invites to speak, no more fawning reviews – it’s the same glass ceiling/first-to-be-fired which vocal union members face in their jobs. This is partially why Piketty wants to invent a “new” socialist model and thus erase a century of global history – he doesn’t want to risk his position.
Another component is that for Westerners socialism in any form is not an “alternative model” but a dead model, even though – gasp! – it clearly is a victorious model. This historical revisionism/ignorance goes back to the millions-murdering formative years of industrial capitalism (the last third of the 19th century), as I wrote about last week in The Western 1% colluded to start WWI – is the Great Lockdown also a conspiracy?
Crucially, Piketty’s generation – and the one before it and the one after it – was taught that US-led “freedom” defeated fascism. Please note neither has an economic component – it is good versus evil, liberty versus repression – whereas socialism always has a loaded economic component; the pity is that its political component (democracy both direct and indirect, like in Western democracies) was caricatured into a totalitarian dictatorship by a capitalist-imperialist 1% waging perpetual war.
Thus, 75 years later the West still does not realise that WWII saw corporate fascism defeat other corporate fascists – the US, full of Jim Crow and a military-industry complex, was indeed a corporate fascist state which defeated the German and Japanese corporate fascists.
However, even that view is false propaganda! It is the Soviet and Chinese socialists who bore the brunt of the effort to topple corporate fascism in Europe and East Asia. Western ideology rejects the obviously exponentially-larger WWII sacrifices of socialist- inspired nations, and thus for them socialism is a tragic experiment instead of a victorious concept. US corporate fascism continued unabated – it began regrowing corporate fascism (now rebranded as “neoliberalism”) in Japan, Germany and the Eurozone.
This socialist analyst crucially shows how “Corporate fascism with American characteristics” was thus never discredited, until 2008.
This illogical historical analysis is why the West is so at a loss to deal with their problems caused by modern corporate fascism (neoliberalism), and why they scratch their head say “Gee, maybe politics can influence economic outcomes?” “Of course!” is what I would have said if I only was given two words, but Piketty says, almost lamenting, “It’s true.”
We can pick up directly with the interview, continuing with the journalist’s intellectual ignorance/faux-shock with Piketty’s academic detachment/indifference. They were discussing the failure of neoliberalism’s leading lights and the possibility of “thinking” about – not discussing nor implementing – alternative models.
Piketty is not about to stand up for human, suffering Yellow Vests, but he will for Mother Nature
The Intelligencer: But of course it’s also true that those people can help design the system and how it evolves, especially in the case of something like the Great Recession. How much did that recovery worsen inequality, in your view? A layman might look at the history and say, “It’s those who have access to capital who can buy distressed assets, and, as a result, unless there is really dramatic intervention, it will always be the forces of capital that benefit from the crisis.” Is that a fair read of how we emerged from the recession?
The journalist suggested the truth – capitalism is always collusion – but Piketty does not rise to the occasion.
Piketty: You’re right that the people at the top have done better once again than average. How do you explain this? I think it’s because if you take the whole compact of fiscal, social, legal, competition policy, there has been insufficient change. In the end, probably the only lesson from the 1929 crisis both from the right and the left, if you look at economist Milton Friedman, monetary economists, everybody agreed that the Federal Reserve and the central banks in Europe made a huge mistake in the 1930s by letting banks fall one after the other. The only lesson from history in a way was “We are going to do whatever it takes, we are going to print whatever money needs to be printed, in order to save the financial sector.” Indeed, it allowed us to avoid the worst, which is a complete fall in economic activity of the kind we had in the 1930s. It’s good news in a way. We have learned something from history.
The problem, of course, is that we are not going to solve everything with central banks. There was nothing else, really, in store. What I’m a bit concerned with today is that even though there’s a lot of motivation to address structural problems, in particular the climate crisis or today’s pandemic crisis, I think there’s insufficient thinking about how to change the economic rules, the organization of property relations in particular, how much private property we want. We need to take seriously the fact that the distribution of the burden has to be discussed from a democratic viewpoint, has to be distributed across income groups. Sometimes, the climate activists, environmental activists, are so convinced that the No. 1 problem is the climate that they don’t want to hear about anything that sounds like income or wages.
Piketty does, however, agree with the thesis of my 10-part series last winter: that Western bankers are the West’s vanguard, enlightened party which is tasked to “solve everything”. But Infinity QE proves that the Western “bankocracy” model cannot promote anything new – there is “nothing else, really, in store”. We should not expect any vanguard party to admit otherwise either, including the Chinese Communist Party or the Iranian Basij, because all three groups view themselves as their system’s champions and saviors. The latter two, of course, have the advantages of being grassroots in composition, thus embodying political power redistribution, who are then tasked with enforcing economic redistribution, which goes a very long way in explaining their enduring popular support. Bankocrats… not so much.
Right after “central banks” was when Piketty could have proposed a “Western, secular Basij” or a “Party for Socialism with European Characteristics”, but not only does he totally ignore these examples – he thinks he has to reinvent the wheel, which is far worse: Piketty dismissed as insufficient the century of theory and practice socialists have already given “about how to change the economic rules, the organization of property relations in particular, how much private property we want.”
If this is what this academic is teaching his 18-year old students he is letting them believe that something called “socialism” never even existed. But, for Piketty, socialism is both a dead idea and one that may make his own career dead. The interview continues:
The Intelligencer: Some climate activists think the solution is to shrink our economies. They call it “degrowth.”
And now we see clearly the reason for this article – the danger of letting greens run the corona recovery. Piketty just hinted at this when he discussed the “climate crisis or today’s pandemic crisis” (clearly, in terms of urgency the latter is the bigger crisis, yet it is secondary for Piketty) – the open Malthusianism of the Greens, which can never satisfy the 99%.
What is posited by The Intelligencer is that humans are the problems – not the tools they use nor choice of systems. It’s a fake-leftist tack which says the problem is not unfair distribution of economic and political power, but the mere act of production. Rather then perfecting socialism – let’s choose de-progress? Piketty knows he is treading on revolutionary ground with such a (dumb) idea:
Piketty: Which has to be discussed very precisely because then you need to be very careful about what exactly you are proposing to the bottom 50 percent in societies. I think it’s possible to design a plan, but we have to be very careful. In France, we had the yellow-vest movement. The government said that it was going to raise the energy tax and carbon tax for the good of the climate….
Piketty then reaches back to a Sarkozy-era initiative of carbon pricing – he has only brought up the Yellow Vests as a cautionary tale, not to relate their socioeconomic views. That is even though – despite the constant propaganda campaigns which glorified the weekly repression of them – (the rarely commissioned) polls showed the Yellow Vests have always been supported by at least 50% of the country. Piketty believes the Yellow Vests exist not as equals, peers and co-leaders but as a wild force who exist to menace the status quo as a sort of way to keep the Western elite honest.
Piketty knows, though would never say it, that if he regularly marched among the Yellow Vests he’d no longer be invited for interviews by New York Media, The Economist, the World Bank, etc. Piketty gets these calls because even as he calls for change he supports the status quo – he is as much an “EU patriot” as Emmanuel Macron and so many of their elite peers. Piketty admits later that EU patriotism is a fundamentally-elitist waste of time:
Piketty: What this shows is that we should all be concerned about how we rewrite the system. Many people find this very boring, and I can tell you when you try to talk about the transformation and the democratization of European institutions, most people stop listening after five minutes.
We can now elucidate the main problem of the Western left: they cannot galvanise anybody. They have no ideas and no language to excite people to support this status quo that arrived via unbloody “velvet revolutions” and which have continued via an apathy and anti-democratic disconnect built into the US-written pan-European project.
In Iran, for example, they created a new language: people like Ali Shariati combined the revolutionary language of socialism with the revolutionary language, symbols and heroes of Islam (with an emphasis on Shia heroes) to inspire the masses. Forty years later the staunchest Zionist must concede that the ability of “Revolutionary Shi’ism” to galvanise is succeeding in a broad enough manner so as to thwart any neoliberal “velvet (counter) revolution” in Iran. Contrarily, if they’d actually honor democratic votes the EU might be dissolved this very day.
Semi-pantheistic, human-hating Western greens are not about to die for change, nor are they about to inspire anyone in the lower classes (or the Yellow Vests, who expertly dissect French and EU politics).
Therefore what is interesting is not the upcoming multiyear battle between green parties and far-right parties as the new “two mainstream parties” in the West, but what comes after this: What does Europe do when their fake-leftists prove to be the same old neoliberals who sell out the masses, but this time give you more flowers?
Do they finally turn to socialism, or return to corporate fascism & neo-imperialism? Even with corona, we may need another five years to find that out.
The times make the man – who is left and who is not will be crystal clear post-corona
Piketty is not a fake-leftist on the level of the New York Media group, but he is certainly not a socialist: he supports MMT (modern monetary theory) and its notion that QE can actually be given without banker middlemen directly to the people, but not nationalising banks; he supports a basic universal income which hardly sounds like the massive redistributions enacted in the USSR, China, Iran, etc.; he laments that to pay for that “you have to have progressive taxation” instead calling for taxing only capital and the rich (in Iran, because of this fundamental socialist principle, half the country pays no taxes and no farmer does).
Piketty should be lauded for documenting inequality and some of his ideas go left of the mainstream, but he doesn’t go much further than that. The upcoming months of chaos will tell if he is an “objective” intellectual, just as journalists are supposed to be in the West – stuck in an ivory tower, where they have no social responsibility; despite their greater awareness of a problem, they are told not to feel any personal responsibility as well. The same goes for Western pop culture stars – any political involvement contrary to the 1%’s stances means no fawning airtime.
Yes, Piketty cares about inequality and changing economic structures – “Over the past ten years, we’ve been saving banks, but have we solved our problem with rising inequality, with global warming?” – but he also cares about saving the planet a tremendous, tremendous amount. He cares about it so much that he has apparently not had time to actually examine socialism and become persuaded that class warfare is continuously waged by the capitalist-imperialist 1% against the 99%.
Bottom line: In the 21st century there is no major issue which is so class-neutered as ecology.
Thus, I refuse to play along: a global ecological solution obviously requires global cooperation, which is something only socialism can offer and which is impossible under a capitalist system, as it is based instead on competition.
Talk about the environment is thus just empty talk until capitalism-imperialism is eradicated – this is why a Green party takeover will be welcomed by the Western 1% as a brand change as effective as Barack Obama was in 2008.
It’s not hard for a neo-pantheist to grasp: The West could profit from Iranian oil for decades, but once we get it – oh, the time for oil is over? Either fork over many, MANY scores of billions or: Pump away, Iran!
The reality is that if Piketty ever consistently marched with the Yellow Vests he’d realise they also care deeply about the environment. But Earth will not be destroyed before “la fin du mois” (“the end of the month” – the primary slogan of the Vesters, which illustrates how they struggle to pay their most basic bills at the end of each month) whereas the lives of millions of Frenchmen will be destroyed amid this corona hysteria. Mother Nature is not the problem – Western politics are.
It should be clear: green parties are a useless distraction – they should not be accepted as a substitute for true leftism. Maybe the Double Bubble + Great Lockdown will set off a revolution, but for now neoliberal, Malthusian, pantheistic, fake-leftist green parties remain the West’s political trajectory.
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Corona contrarianism? How about some corona common sense? Here is my list of articles published regarding the corona crisis, and I hope you will find them useful in your leftist struggle!
Capitalist-imperialist West stays home over corona – they grew a conscience? – March 22, 2020
Corona meds in every pot & a People’s QE: the Trumpian populism they hoped for? – March 23, 2020
A day’s diary from a US CEO during the Corona crisis (satire) March 23, 2020
MSNBC: Chicago price gouging up 9,000% & the sports-journalization of US media – March 25, 2020
Tough times need vanguard parties – are ‘social media users’ the West’s? – March 26, 2020
If Germany rejects Corona bonds they must quit the Eurozone – March 30, 2020
Landlord class: Waive or donate rent-profits now or fear the Cultural Revolution – March 31, 2020
Corona repeating 9/11 & Y2K hysterias? Both saw huge economic overreactions – April 1, 2020
(A Soviet?) Superman: Red Son – the new socialist film to watch on lockdown – April 2, 2020
Corona rewrites capitalist bust-chronology & proves: It’s the nation-state, stupid – April 3, 2020
Condensing the data leaves no doubt: Fear corona-economy more than the virus – April 5, 2020
‘We’re Going Wrong’: The West’s middling, middle-class corona response – April 10, 2020
Why does the UK have an ‘army’ of volunteers but the US has a shortage? – April 12, 2020
No buybacks allowed or dared? Then wave goodbye to Western stock market gains – April 13, 2020
Pity post-corona Millennials… if they don’t openly push socialism – April 14, 2020
No, the dollar will only strengthen post-corona, as usual: it’s a crisis, after all – April 16, 2020
Same 2008 QE playbook, but the Eurozone will kick off Western chaos not the US – April 18, 2020
We’re giving up our civil liberties. Fine, but to which type of state? – April 20, 2020
Coronavirus – Macron’s savior. A ‘united Europe’ – France’s murderer – April 22, 2020
The same 12-year itch: Will banks loan down QE money this time? – April 26, 2020
The end of globalisation won’t be televised, despite the hopes of the Western 99% (2/2) – April 27, 2020
What would it take for proponents to say: ‘The Great Lockdown was wrong’? – April 28, 2020
ZeroHedge, a response to Mr. Littlejohn & the future of dollar dominance – April 30, 2020
Given Western history, is it the ‘Great Segregation’ and not the ‘Great Lockdown’? – May 2, 2020
The Western 1% colluded to start WWI – is the Great Lockdown also a conspiracy? – May 4, 2020
May 17: The date the Great Lockdown must end or Everything Bubble 2 pops – May 6, 2020
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of the books ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’ and the upcoming ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’.
Talk about the environment is thus just empty talk until capitalism-imperialism is eradicated – this is why a Green party takeover will be welcomed by the Western 1% as a brand change [every bit] as effective as Barack Obama was in 2008.
Nailed it in one sentence! Keep up the great work my friend!
This argument is directly to the point. I specifically remember in 1970 the American capitalist ruling class was becoming very worried about the inroads of the hippy counter culture. It feared a natural unity between the counter culture’s class struggle socialist dimension and the rising feminist and ecological movements. So it came up with a solution of its own making. Divide and conquer in the realm of soft culture. It wanted to inflate the environmental movement and in so doing suck all the energy out of the American class struggle. For them everything was tolerable – except – working class struggle.
So what did they do? They decided to move in and take over. Just like the Swedish bankocray moved in and took over the Nobel Prize prestige platform. The bankers created a wonderful self promotion platform called “the Nobel Prize for Economics.” Nothing to do with Nobel at all. But I digress to illustrate.
In 1970 the capitalist propaganda machine invented and supported “Earth Day.” From there ecology and recycling was given wide opportunity to push its virtue game to the fore. This deliberate application of ancient divide and rule worked like a charm. Loving the Earth and all variations of environmentalism became “safe” struggles. So they knew their proletariat well. Almost overnight the American working class struggle began to deflate and finally lose all its energy. From now on bourgeois approved forms of progressivism were deemed ideal for safe virtue signalling, and everyone went to bed with a clear conscience now, because they had taken out the recycling. All very effective class war on the level of soft culture, on the part of the American capitalist class. One could admire its mastery! And we thought Bernays had the last word.
So over the years the consequence of this deliberately catabolic intrusion into the instinctive integral unity within American progressive culture has done its slowly poisonous work. Leaving us exactly where Ramin sees us.
As a result objectively, now, real class struggle is the key to it all. Why, because it is the one piece of the whole which has been pushed most deeply into the underground – i.e; Jung’s collective unconscious. Hence it forms the deepest of connections. In that connection progressive class awareness and class struggle touch the very alchemy of our real relation with the planet itself. It is now, in effect, the highest environmentalism.
” and everyone went to bed with a clear conscience now, because they had taken out the recycling. ”
So true! I do count myself as an environrmentalist—was raised very frugally, even “rough,” long before Earth Day came along—and as such I attend events about enviromental and ecological issues, and generallly there is a question-and-answer session. At most of these the first question from the the audience is “But what can we DO??”
And the answer is invariably: Each one of us can * make a difference*” by reducing our footprint. Basically the only options discussed are “in your consumer choices.”
(I have come to detest that phrase “Making a difference!” It seems to embody all of the feel-good sticky gunk of self-delusion also described by Snow Leopard, that is served up to Americans every day.)
So, it is all up to the individual to try to “make a difference” and “save the oceans” etc. The observation is unwelcome that what individuals can do to improve the earth’s environment is severely limited by many aspects of economic and physical infrastructure, and we need something more powerful, and what do you suggest? Like, some kind of government actions, mandates, something. That question is never taken up.
I am thinking specifically of an informational event where the main talking head was Philip Duffy, the head of the Woods Hole Research institute, in Falmouth, Mass. He was unwilling to speculate (in response to my question) as to how we get beyond the “make a difference in your consumer choices” level. BTW the Woods Hole Research Institute does do very valuable science, to the extent that I as a nonscientist can judge this.
It takes a special kind of genius to create a bridge between scientific or statistical findings and social and political policy. And so much science is already compromised. As we have seen with the corona circus.
Maybe one has to be grateful if someone is doing honest scientific and statistical work, and not expect much else from them.
Political leaders must do their reading and lead the charge to create viable political movements. In this respect I had quite a lot of hopes for Robert Kennedy Jr., even though he didn’t come across very well in the Jeff Gibbs film “Planet of the Humans.”
(That film exposed a lot of bad science—bad physics—regarding the rush to biomass as a way to break dependence on fossil fuels. Like, specifically it seemed like there is a big problem understanding the First Law of Thermodynamics. These issues have been obvious for decades now and various environmentalists talk about these issues in private. Mainly, the tradeoff between “renewables” and habitat destruction and the need to increase the amount of fossil fuels burned to provide backup power in a grid that includes intermittent sources such as wind and solar. Now critics of that film are using it as a battering ram against anyone who questions the validity of decisions being made to replace fossil fuels with renewables, accusing Gibbs and anyone who likes the film of being “climate change deniers.” Not to mention the idea that a most of the current focus in “green energy” is that our life styles can continue as before. There is no more real focus on conserving energy. We will not have to change our lives or our society. Questioners raising issues regarding the wisdom of the construction of, say, large offshore wind “farms” or dependence on biomass are treated the same as those who question the assumptions behind lockdowns as a response to the corona virus. The latter are accused of not caring about “sacrificing Granny.” You have to toe the [new] official line or you are a nonperson and your arguments or points are simply dismissed. Ultimately these absolutist positions result from misuses of science and technology—to maintain the psychic status quo. Now with the corona crisis people are not going to be able to “continue as before” and “make a difference with consumer choices” because they won’t have any money. . . . It will be interesting how the rock of American expectations meets the hard place of a real dearth of money. Maybe this will finally clear the air. It certainly is making inroads into municipal housing markets worldwide, as Airbnb basically seems to be biting the dust . . . but I digress . . . )
Anyhow I haven’t completely lost hope in Kennedy, although he seems disinclined to become a real political leader. Maybe he doesn’t want to get shot, which would be a sensible fear.
It seems a bit unfair that environmentalists who insist that our lives must change and maybe we should just outlaw, say, SUVs; maybe we should pass some law that limits how much energy and water a person can use; maybe we should introduce some controls are written off as obnoxious, annoying anti-human scolds who put animals first.
Yet isn’t that what Ramin is saying? Environmentalists are just obnoxious control freaks?
Isn’t he also simultaneously saying, Our lives must change. Our society must change. We must radically change our social profile.
Yet anyone who insists that humans must reduce their footprint on earth if any of it is to survive is anti-human.
This sounds like a no-win view of things.
This zero-sum view turns environmentalists into the problem, even criminals. Yet it is political leaders who have failed and who have continued to look for easy solutions that don’t rock any boats. LIke, we can all be “green” and continue to get rich.
I do think it is counterproductive to bad-mouth environmentalists. There are some silly people in all groups—even in the Yellow Vests. .
Katherine
Re : ‘In 1970 the capitalist propaganda machine invented and supported “Earth Day.” From there ecology and recycling was given wide opportunity to push its virtue game to the fore. This deliberate application of ancient divide and rule worked like a charm. Loving the Earth and all variations of environmentalism became “safe”” struggles.”
That is a well expressed statement on moves by the Divide and Conquer regime that truly does suck the will. life and substance out of any existing human spiritual realities and endeavors or forming developmental movements, so apparently innocuous, well meaning, forward thinking, social, and powerful in the ability to destroy.
I have been thinking of this for some time, trying to fathom the psychology behind the practice, how conscious it is, whether motivated by ambition and desire to influence control, or blind entirely. I guess it is indeed a virtue game, and only true virtue itself will win.
Here are the numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
April 2020
Participation Rate 60%
Employment to population ratio 51.3%
Official Unemployment Rate 14.4%
Number of employed 133.326 million
Not in Labor Force 104.066 million ( i.e. the long term unemployed i.e. those not receiving unemployment benefits)
Of the people “not in the labor force” approximately 63 million are retirees or on disability, that leaves 41 million unaccounted for.
Number of males employed 71.810 million
Number of females employed 61.516 million
Not in labor force is also you people in higher education.
It is comment in developed countries for education to take well into the 20s, sometimes into 30s even.
Then there is a huge force of disabled /in poorer countries these people often die young/ etc.
Not to mention, we live in a post-industrial society.
When you need 2% of the people to produce enough food /with help of machines/ and 20% to produce enough good for all, (un)employment becomes more a social issue ref. cohesion of the society than anything.
The biggest problem is that your “lower 40%” people on the skill or education side simply have no work for them – most of it was taken over by machines burning natural resources like crazy.
Hi Ramin,
Thanks for this article. Welcome to the age of Happytalism! You are one of the few writers these days who touches upon the link between the Covid clusterbunk and the many fallacies regurgitated by environmentalists and the crews around the Sanders and Gretas of this world. I wrote the following document as a contribution to the UN Human Rights Council back in February this year and it is an attempt at explaining the “whole” backstory behind the “reset” now being sold to us via Covid. I am currently using this document to thoroughly (thoroughly) attack a Swiss prosecutor and about two dozen scientific fraudsters acting as “climatologists” in Swiss academia. Two months into my first salvo, none have yet made any counter claims, nor attempted to sue me in court.
Here is a link to the original submission. The link at the bottom of this document will take you to another 160 pages of references. http://nuremberg2.org/UN/UNHRC_20Feb._3_2020.pdf
The following addendum is of interest as it explains different aspects of the agenda being shoved down our throats as I write these lines. It is 666 pages and will take a few minutes to load. The books mentioned towards the end are highly recommended.
http://nuremberg2.org/UN/Addendum_1_-_Climate_Change_for_Dummies.pdf
Cheers,
Olivier
Very nice perspective.
Merci beaucoup Rahminnd’ouvrir nos esprits.
Tu nous forces à étirer nos consciences pour comprendre toutes les subtilités de la situation. Tu nous forces à “créer des liaisons neuroniques” de premier ordre.
J’apprécie énormément .
Humans are the only species so concerned with their own wealth, politics, and competition that they’re willing to destroy the habitability of this planet to achieve it. I don’t know to what degree the current climate change is man-made (or not), but people will eventually have to face the consequences of overpopulation, resource depletion, pollution, and the destruction of the natural order. It’s not going to be pretty.
So, what you are saying is that the European Union Sock Puppet Theater continues?
“Piketty should be lauded for documenting inequality”
Well, he isn’t a politician. He is an academic, not a social guru or political agitator.
It is too bad that Piketty can’t empathize with the Yellow Vests. But isn’t he primarily a statistician?
It is probably for others to pick up the baton and carry Piketty’s data and conclusions to their politicosocioeconomic logical consequences.
Why should he give up his job to lead the masses?
Is it really his job to figure out where society should go from here?
He has already done quite a lot in documenting inequality . . .
Regarding environmentalists being “anti-human,” as a human I do hope to continue to exist, so I guess I am pro-human.
But if my, and my children’s, continued existence depends on maintaining a minimally viable biosphere—which it does—I guess that shoots me into some kind of “pro-animal, anti-human” camp.
Katherine
Well behind every ‘occupy’ is a rich guy, in the case of OWS ( occupy-wall-street ) it was a CIA operation through Canada. ( Manged in BC )
“Yellow Vests” are owned by somebody, do not kid yourself that its a grass-roots op, anymore than the unions aren’t all owned by somebody.
To get any viral press operation moving, a lot of mouths must be fed, even the Soros “Open-Society” ops in the USA take 100’s of millions just for the buses to get them to the events, feed them, and per-diem them.
Thus why should Piketty pity the yellow-vests? What you have is a battle between rich tribes.
I agree Piketty is an academic, and I read his book when it first came out, and it was boring.
Regarding ‘environment’ the rich have long kept the ‘game’ for themselves and banned the plebes from the woods, and kept the plebes in the towns or farms; Then & now the ‘environment’ talk is just locking down the plebes and keeping the woods safe for the gentry.
I’ve never read any Piketty – not even a paragraph of his work, and I have no intention to either. I think a lot of us are very aware there’s a lot of gatekeepers out here masquerading as ‘socialist’ or ‘anti establishment’…. to in reality maintain the status quo.
In the UK, correct me if I’m wrong, but the nickname for the Greens is ‘conservatives on bikes’, and yes, fully agree that at their core, the Greens are for capitalism and imperialism, albeit with a green hue.
When push comes to shove, and you peel off the onion layers, you’ll find a lot of Western leftists are the same.
In fact, I would argue there is no mass Western Left anywhere. None. They have all drowned themselves in the rancid stew of identity politics, and, in fact, don’t even genuinely want a radical, egalitarian overhaul of society.
I would further argue that a lot of these self proclaimed ‘socialists’ actually despise and have contempt for the working poor, the homeless, and destitute.
As I’ve discovered many times first hand.
Appreciate your words Ramin.
Here in SE-Asia where I live, the IMF is flooding any and every country with unlimited USD for COVID-19, and everybody is stepping up for this cash.
The funny thing is that 2+ months ago the banks quit accepting USD notes, and now I’m told that in the future they will never accept foreign notes, as they expect to see a lot less tourists, ergo no reason to have foreign exchange.
So here the country’s are piling into debt, this week denominated in USD, but the banks are not printing currency in their own currency, just borrowing from IMF.
The 1+1=2 here tells me that everyone expects the IMF to forgive debt, and that the USD to become worthless in the future, the reason they will not accept the physical now, as to what are they doing with IMF cash? Basically same as USA “helipcopter money’ to those locked-down. Which is spent now, and not kept, thus no worry about future ‘holding the bag’.
The obvious thing is those $100 USD notes are here worthless, and in the future USA post paper-cash, they will be given a short time to turn-in.
The fact that the entire world is orchestrated and working together should show all that there is no difference between Iran, China, or USA, UK.
Ramin you are a genius: “humans have feelings too, just like crystals do” :)
Humans and crystals both consist of electromagnetic waves.
I think Ramin is a genius of a far greater and more profound domain than electromagnetic waves, not wishing to denigrate these, but he has after all connected the earth and our human capacity as sentient living beings to possess consciousness, those of the crystals, stones and rock formations of the earth, belonging to a far higher spiritual realm than we are able to perceive and therefore evaluate whereas our own, we are able to discern and know. Knowledge without Borders is the way forward
Cynicism and profound disregard for the wonders of nature and our own place in relation to her will never help us to care for the earth.
Green is where you send container-loads of dirty plastic waste to low-income countries and preen yourself by saying how clean your back yard is.
It is where you flush your effluent down the hill into the favelas and spray yourself with scent uptown.
I do wish someone would provide the great unwashed me with a roadmap as to how an individual, and a society, or part of a society (say, a community) can be sincerely and effectively and socialistically green.
It seems to me that “to each according to needs” means that we need some definition of “needs.”
That implies defining some limits. LIke, in grocery stores these days.
Obviously, people will accept limits if they have no choice.
It is weird that retail clerks in grocery stores are enforcing the new socialistic limits.
Is anyone commenting here willing to tackle that job? I mean, specifics?
Is anyone allowed to have a car?
Is anyone allowed to have two houses?
How much is one allowed to spend on food?
On books? “Devices”?
Unless someone steps up to the plate and proposes actual limits on what anyone can have, I don’t think we’ll get too far with any socialist green agenda.
If you don’t know where you are going, you will never get there.
Katherine
Katherine, ‘People’ will be allowed to have Cars and Airplanes and as many houses as they can afford, The Qualifier is, what can you afford? How much Money you have, and your ability to keep it, will be the thing that determines your status, It would be an act against the very ‘God’ who dispenses the wealth, to deny those who are favored, from having what they want!
“What can you afford”
Huh? I thought we were talking about socialism in this thread.
Confused.
Katherine
@John Russell
When the financial capitalists, represented by private banks, are authorized to create all money ex nihilo as interest bearing debt imposed on all other sectors of the economy, it definitely gives them a head start in the money grubbing business.
É sempre bom lermos um artigo que nos faz pensar. Obrigado por nos fazer pensar, Senhor Ramin Mazaheri.
Está mais do que provado que o que constitui a base do cimento ideológico do actual “ecologismo” é um profundo ódio à raça humana. Se até agora a esquerda falsificada dos partidos socialistas e social-democratas europeus apoiou de alma e coração todo e qualquer imperialismo “humanitário” e “democratizador”, doravante os ecologistas apoiarão toda e qualquer guerra imperialista que reduza, num qualquer país distante e de gente castanha, o contingente humano em uns quantos milhões de almas (deixando de fora do arsenal libertador o napalm e os agentes desfolhantes que tanto dano causam às florestas…).
Não deixa de ser curioso que o discurso do excesso de população mundial e de produção industrial planetária só se tenha tornado uma moda – e de uma forma estranhamente rápida e massiva – quando a China e a Índia atingiram (ou estão em vias de atingir) os lugares cimeiros do desenvolvimento industrial, económico e humano. O capitalismo e a sua produção industrial só são um problema quando não é o Ocidente a ocupar o primeiro lugar nesses particulares campos. Sendo esse primeiro lugar ocidental hoje em dia uma ilusão só suportada pelos indigentes mentais a soldo dos imperialistas/globalistas, há que fazer entrar os ambientalistas para o lugar cimeiro do circo político ocidental. para que ponham travão ao desenvolvimento do Hemisfério Sul e ensinem aos bárbaros de pele escura que coisas como a alimentação (e se passamos ou não passamos fome e de fome morremos), a habitação, a saúde, a educação e o trabalho são coisas sem importância se comparadas com a redução populacional do extraordinário caranguejo de tenazes brancas das Ilhas Fiji.
Como na fábula de La Palisse a raposa às uvas não chegando as dizia verdes, também agora, perdendo o Ocidente a corrida da produção industrial, diz esse mesmo Ocidente ser essa produção um “crime ambiental” que deve ser parado a todo o custo.
E não nos enganemos: o 1% que arquitecta todo o circo ambientalista que agora vivemos pode contar com o apoio massivo e entusiástico das tão burguesas quanto acéfalas opiniões públicas ocidentais nesta sua cruzada racista, genocida, a-histórica, anti-científica e anti-humana, pois esse apoio é a única forma de essas massas encontrarem um sentido (por mais patético que esse sentido seja) para as suas miseráveis vidas.
Translate by google – mod
It is always good to read an article that makes us think. Thank you for making us think, Mr Ramin Mazaheri.
It is more than proven that what constitutes the base of the ideological cement of the current “ecologism” is a deep hatred for the human race. If, until now, the counterfeit left of European socialist and social democratic parties has supported wholeheartedly any “humanitarian” and “democratizing” imperialism, from now on ecologists will support any and all imperialist war that reduces, in any distant country and people chestnut, the human contingent in a few million souls (leaving napalm and the defoliating agents that cause so much damage to forests out of the liberating arsenal).
It is curious that the discourse of excess world population and planetary industrial production only became a fashion – and in a strangely rapid and massive way – when China and India reached (or are in the process of reaching) the top places in industrial, economic and human development. Capitalism and its industrial production are only a problem when the West does not occupy the first place in these particular fields. Since that first western place today is an illusion only supported by the mentally destitute in the pay of imperialists / globalists, environmentalists must be brought to the top place of the Western political circus. so that they put a brake on the development of the Southern Hemisphere and teach dark-skinned barbarians that things like food (and whether or not we are hungry and starving die), housing, health, education and work are unimportant things compared to the population reduction of the Fijian extraordinary white-clawed crab.
As in the fable of La Palisse the fox to the grapes did not arrive said green, even now, losing to the West the race of the industrial production, this same West says that this production is an “environmental crime” that must be stopped at all costs.
And make no mistake: the 1% that architect the entire environmental circus that we now live in can count on the massive and enthusiastic support of so bourgeois as headless Western public opinions in their racist, genocidal, a-historical, anti-scientific and anti-scientific crusade. human, because this support is the only way for these masses to find meaning (however pathetic that meaning may be) for their miserable lives.
Wow!
“It is more than proven that what constitutes the base of the ideological cement of the current “ecologism” is a deep hatred for the human race.”
“because this support is the only way for these masses to find meaning (however pathetic that meaning may be) for their miserable lives.”
I think I do detect a deep hatred for the human race.
Cheers, KS
Não, a cara katherine não detecta, nem pode detectar, qualquer tipo de ódio pela raça humana vindo da minha parte. E não detecta tal ódio por uma boa razão: eu não vejo os patéticos ecologistas ocidentais e os seus acéfalos apoiantes como sendo A Humanidade.
Grande parte dos nossos irmãos (que, na sua esmagadora maioria, não pertencem ao Ocidente) deste planeta que é a nossa casa dedica-se a actividades de tão escassa importância vital como sejam as de arranjar o que comer, as de encontrar onde viver e as de dar aos filhos um futuro que não seja a reprodução da sua teimosamente persistente vida de miséria e de fome. Interessa-lhes muito pouco o obsceno espectáculo de quem, tendo as suas necessidades de pão, saúde, educação e habitação asseguradas, salva o Mundo do conforto do sua sala e dá lições de moral ecologista à senhora sudanesa que todos os dias faz meio dia de caminhada para ir buscar água e lenha para poder fazer a única refeição que os seus filhos comerão em 24 horas.
Há, cara Katherine, uma frase que explica muita coisa no que toca ao actual ecologismo anti-humano, anti-ciência e anti-progresso: “Quando começamos a tratar os animais como pessoas, inevitavelmente acabamos a tratar as pessoas como animais”. Exemplo? Não me custa imaginar ver aqueles muitos ecologistas burgueses que – em tempos pré-COVID19 – foram para o metro de Londres impedir gente trabalhadora de chegar ao seu emprego, no seu regresso aos seus acolhedores lares alimentarem com carinho e devoção os seus gatos e os seus cães. Os filhos daqueles que foram impedidos de trabalhar é que sofreram uma deterioração na alimentação devido ao corte nas horas de trabalho e seu consequente pagamento dos pais.
Não me peça, cara Katherine, que trate com o maior respeito gente que eleva a dignidade de um bicho sobre a dignidade de um ser humano. Desprezo esse tipo de gente e creio convictamente que essa gente, se não for energicamente impedida, fará do mundo onde vivemos um inferno para pessoas que – como eu ( a Katherine também?) – entendem a Humanidade como um grupo de irmãos (sem penas nem escamas e com pouco pelo) que compartilha a mesma casa.
Por fim, em tempos viveu um senhor que, pelo evangelho muitíssimo ecologista que agora está tão na moda, seria um exemplo de respeito pelo ambiente: não fumava. não bebia, era vegetariano, abominava a caça e os caçadores, tinha uma paixão imensa pela Natureza e adorava animais. O seu nome? Adolf Hitler. Já me esquecia: também ele se preocupava imenso com o excesso (de certa – Judeus, Eslavos, Ciganos…) população. E, antes que me acusem de recorrer a um exemplo extremo, devo afirmar que apenas pretendo sublinhar que os monstros nascem, prosperam e acabam por devorar os seus criadores e os seus admiradores quando a narrativa – o eco-fascismo de agora ou a componente ecológica do nazismo de ontem – passa a ser encarada como dogma e, consequentemente, quase todos nos transformamos em mudas e inertes caricaturas dos homens e das mulheres de vontade e pensamento inteiros que outrora fomos. Será isto o meu ódio à Humanidade a falar, cara Katherine?
My best regards, Katherine.
Google translation,MOD:
No, the katherine face does not detect, nor can it detect, any kind of hatred for the human race coming from me. And it does not detect such hatred for a good reason: I do not see pathetic Western ecologists and their supportive heads as Humanity.
A large part of our brothers (who, for the most part, do not belong to the West) of this planet that is our home is dedicated to activities of such little vital importance, such as arranging what to eat, finding where to live and to give children a future other than the reproduction of their stubbornly persistent life of misery and hunger. They care very little about the obscene spectacle of those who, having their needs for bread, health, education and housing ensured, save the world from the comfort of their living room and give lessons in ecological ethics to the Sudanese lady who makes half a day of it every day. walk to fetch water and firewood to be able to make the only meal that your children will eat in 24 hours.
There is, dear Katherine, a phrase that explains a lot about the current anti-human, anti-science and anti-progress ecologism: “When we start treating animals like people, inevitably we end up treating people like animals”. Example? It does not hurt to imagine seeing those many bourgeois ecologists who – in pre-COVID19 times – went to the London Underground to prevent working people from arriving at their jobs, on their return to their cozy homes, to feed their cats and their pets with affection and devotion. dogs. The children of those who were prevented from working suffered a deterioration in their food due to the cut in working hours and their consequent payment from their parents.
Don’t ask me, dear Katherine, to treat people with the greatest respect who elevate the dignity of an animal over the dignity of a human being. I despise these types of people and I firmly believe that these people, if not vigorously prevented, will make the world where we live hell for people who – like me (Katherine too?) – understand Humanity as a group of brothers (without feathers or scales and with little hair) that shares the same house.
Finally, there once was a man who, by the very ecologist gospel that is now so fashionable, would be an example of respect for the environment: he did not smoke. he did not drink, he was a vegetarian, he abhorred hunting and hunters, he had an immense passion for nature and he loved animals. Your name? Adolf Hitler. I forgot already: he too was very concerned with the excess (of course – Jews, Slavs, Gypsies …) population. And before I am accused of using an extreme example, I must say that I just want to underline that monsters are born, thrive and end up devouring their creators and their admirers when the narrative – the eco-fascism of today or the ecological component yesterday’s Nazism – is now seen as dogma and, consequently, almost all of us are transformed into dumb and inert caricatures of men and women of whole will and thought that we once were. Is this my hatred of humanity speaking, Katherine?
My best regards, Katherine.
Caro Kilombo Zumbi,
I merely quoted your own words.
thanks for that pointers as to which humans are more human than others.
May I recommend to you Malcolm X’s autobiography.
Katherine
Caro Kilombo Zumbi,
I merely quoted your own words.
thanks for the pointers as to which humans are more human than others.
May I recommend to you Malcolm X’s autobiography.
Katherine
Cara Katherine.
Obrigado pelas suas palavras e pela sua sugestão de leitura, mas já li o livro há muitos anos e, francamente, embora aprecie Malcolm X, aprecio muito mais a complexidade ideológica e o alcance do programa social de Martin Luther King Jr.
Quanto ao facto de a Katherine insistir na divisão – que erradamente diz que eu faço – entre pessoas que são humanas e outras que o não são, eu devo dizer-lhe que não é o meu mais perfeito desprezo (sim, sim, embora eu seja um admirador de MLK, não sou propriamente um seguidor da não violência… verbal) pelas ideias(?) de certa casta de eco-fascistas e dos seus apoiantes que faz dessa gente mais humana ou menos humana. O que faz ruir a humanidade dessa gente (gente essa que, mais uma vez o digo, é esmagadoramente ocidental e goza de um nível de vida mais do que confortável) é a sua convicção de que está no negar a quem passa fome e vive em condições miseráveis (geralmente no Sul e gente de pele mais ou menos castanha) o progresso industrial que o elevará como ser humano a condição necessária para evitar um suposto Armagedão ambiental. Dito de uma forma mais breve: quem radicalmente nega a humanidade alheia são aqueles que põem a dignidade e a vida de seres humanos seus irmãos a baixo da dignidade de uma qualquer foca, baleia, macaco ou grupo de árvores. Expliquei-me com clareza?Espero que sim…
My best regards.
Translation. Mod:
Thank you for your words and your suggestion for reading, but I’ve read the book many years ago, and frankly, while I appreciate Malcolm X, I appreciate much more the ideological complexity and scope of Martin Luther King Jr.’s social program.
As for the fact that Katherine insists on the division – which wrongly says I do – between people who are human and others who are not, I must tell her that it is not my most perfect contempt (yes, yes, although I am an admirer of MLK, I am not exactly a follower of nonviolence… verbal) for ideas (?) of a certain caste of eco-fascists and their supporters that makes these people more human or less human. What makes the humanity of these people collapse (people who, once again I say, are overwhelmingly Western and enjoy a more than comfortable standard of living) is their conviction that it is in denying those who go hungry and live in miserable conditions (usually in the South and people with more or less brown skin) the industrial progress that will raise them as a human being the necessary condition to avoid a supposed environmental Armageddon. Put more briefly: those who radically deny the humanity of others are those who put the dignity and life of human beings their brothers under the dignity of any seal, whale, monkey or group of trees. Did I make myself clear?I hope so…
“As for the fact that Katherine insists on the division – which wrongly says I do – between people who are human and others who are not,”
No. I quoted your own words and pointed to what you yourself said.
End of this story.
Katherine
Fim desta história? Esta história nem sequer começou dada a conveniência que lhe dá o tirar o que eu escrevi do antes e do depois que lhe dão sentido. E esse antes e esse depois nunca aqui a senhora se deu o trabalho de discutir.
Passe muito bem e mantenha-se saudável.
Google translation,MOD:
End of this story? This story did not even begin given the convenience it gives you to draw what I wrote from before and after that give you meaning. And this one before and one after that, you never bothered to discuss.
Do well and stay healthy.
Socialism vs. Capitalism strikes me as a false dichotomy for the simple reason that neither system addresses the basic underlying pathology in human affairs, which is psychopathy (the clinical definition, not the Hannibal Lecter variety).
Simply stated, in either (or any other) system, psychopaths rise to the top, as it is inherent in the nature of psychopathy to seek power over others. Being completely devoid of compassion or empathy, while at the same time being skilled at faking both, the psychopath rises to the top because he is not constrained by any sense of justice or morality.
Unlike the common sociopath, who through his actions reveals his true nature, the psychopath presents himself as a benefactor, a “man of the people” – someone who, through great courage and fortitude, is able to solve the intractable problems that inevitably arise in political or economic systems controlled by psychopaths! A perfect closed loop.
I don’t have a solution to this problem, I’m not even sure there is one, but until we recognize psychopathy as a fundamental problem that undermines every attempt at a just and rational society, we will forever run in circles, driven by the false dichotomies and failed “solutions” offered up by people whose only motivation is to control us, and for no other reason than power itself.
The newest psychopath on the block:
Bill Gates
Katherine
A vast number of things are happening right now, The economy of the West has been (purposely?) collapsed, many people don’t recognize that, yet!, But I have every belief that they shall, as alluded to in the Article the Green movement was and is, a feel good culture, funded by someones ‘Philanthropic’ NGO, where in the participants can feel righteous as they criticize their Daddies and attack the things which provide their life style, they call for change but there really is nothing to change into, and probably never will be!
A prominent Commentator, Academic is mentioned, because he is prominent he is a spokesperson for the status quo, if he wasn’t he wouldn’t have his career and income, so what he says,,is whatever those who pay him want him to say! ( Remember that as you listen to him, it is ‘Them’ speaking to you)
There was a question somewhere asking, “What is sustainable development”? I think, from what I’ve read that ‘Sustainable Development’, as currently planned,means abject poverty for the bottom 75 to 80%, but on the cheery side, there may be a plan afoot, to change their brains so that they won’t really know what is happening to them anyway, and so, mercifully, they may not protest too much!
I think, as I peruse the past, that there were always people who’s ability to comprehend reality was challenged, they were often people at the upper echelons, that is where those who’s circumstances didn’t require them to spend much effort on tending to their own survival lived, in our Modern Digital World many many cannot really distinguish between the World they see on their Media devices and the World outside the window, they have been encouraged to believe that their World and the World of Reality TV are interchangeable, and that it is only a matter of time, and a few technological breakthroughs, and then they will be able to be uploaded and live their lives as characters in the Shows they love so much!
Post Modern Philosophy, basically says that things are what we think they are, so perhaps they are right!
Hold tight to your Hats folks, a strong wind is going to Blow!
Have to agree with Mr Mazaheri: Socialism means liberation, participation and democracy for the mass of people or it means nothing at all.
As it stands the capitalist mode of production and circulation locks humanity into the economic, social and cultural ‘iron cage’ (as Max Weber put it) into an alienated form of social being, even including the capitalists themselves. This is Marxism 101 – ‘The German Ideology’ to wit:
”By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their active material life … Empirical observation must in each separate instance, brink out empirically, and without any mystification and speculation the connection of the social and political structure with production.”
The social-democratic, reformist left seems to have little or no understanding of these processes. Someone like Michael Hudson, who is a very good and able economic critic of contemporary world capitalism but seems to lack any substantive multi-dimensional of capitalism. Worse still he seems to be mixed up with the monetary crack-pots of MMT. (This really requires a separate analysis). What seems to be advocated is a type of top-down State Capitalism administrated by a class of bureaucrats, the EU being such a bureaucratic monstrosity. I don’t think these are bad people but their views and policies are essentially two-dimensional (Hudson) and frankly crack-pot (Wray)
“Worse still he seems to be mixed up with the monetary crack-pots of MMT.”
Why do you say “crackpots”?
My understanding of what Hudson says about fiat money is that there is a big difference between creating fiat money and giving it to banks to lend into the economy, and creating fiat money to just inject directly into the economy or spend it into the economy.
What is wrong with the latter? Isn’t that what Lincoln did with greenbacks? I thought most of the “good” people approved of this. (I don’t dare use the word “leftist,” “progressive,” “virtuous,” or any other such designation, but you understand what I mean I am sure! )
Katherine
this article should raise some real environmental concerns; i mean, imagine if all those straw men should go up in smoke at the same time! it would truly blacken the sky and give us an ad hominem nuclear winter.
while i sit in awe of the mental capacity and travel schedule of someone who has obviously talked to EVERY member of EVERY green party in EVERY country and synthesized their beliefs, such superhuman abilities should probably be used elsewhere. maybe aim your psychic mind beams at the next G20 meeting and find out how they’re going to bow to emperor bill gates and start dragging grannies from our homes to put in COVID gitmo?
i kid. mostly because it’s impossible to take an article seriously when it has such side-splitters as “all greens are misanthropic and want human extinction” and “an economy without oil? lol your retardid!!11!”
funny how that “argument” has played out:
1. “reduced or eliminate oil?!?!? that could take thirty to forty years!!”
2. repeat for thirty to forty years.
3. ???????
4. success!
I think you need to look beyond the official line.
The environmentalism is mainly flourishing in countries which DO NOT have abundant natural resources.
Sure, the official like is ecology.
But the real reason is that – especially most of Europe – got high-on-drugs living of their colonies and post-colonies as far as natural resources went. For centuries.
This is because /especially Europe/ being well developed these countries have already extracted most of their natural resources.
/I come from place where e.g. Gold and other special metals were mined *on an industrial scale* for ca 500 years between ca 1400 – 1900 such that most easy to reach deposits were extracted more than a hundred years ago./
So yes, the official line is a sham. It is there to make the populace feel good about themselves while the real goal is to reduce the dependence of these countries on natural resource imports.
Simples once one looks beyond the rhetoric onto the fundamentals. BTW, China is on the exact same path for the exact same reasons. It is in their best interests.
Oh, an it is in the best interest of everyone on this ball called Earth. Be it by coincidence or not.
I think the author is over-optimistic.
The reality is that this crisis will, if anything *delay* any systemic crisis of the post-industrial economic systems.
All major economists were gearing for the next depression cycle. This crisis – being external to the system – will not only fulfill need for a capitalist system to be regularly “cleansed” of inefficient/ineffective entities. It will also PROTECT the currently inept political class from the wrath of the people for the impacts of the crisis – everything will (partially correctly) be blamed on the “Covid crisis”.
In a way. It is the best thing that could have happened to the over-extended countries.
The elites knew they needed either a war or some big external crisis to force the general populace to accept they can no longer live-off the colonies so will be inevitably poorer than before.
The fact this crisis came without a war is a blessing.
Blessing for these elites, but mainly a blessing for the rest of the world. Before, these folks were “in the corner”, dangerous. Now they are no longer. That nameless “Covid-19” guy is there.
Good.
All you need to know about the Green movement is the name of its ideological father, Ricardo Walther Óscar Darré. Google him.