Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
What should someone committed to fighting global climate change do?
Understand Biden and Democrats are in opposition to the changes they recognize as necessary as someone that takes climate science seriously for a start.
Kamala Harris literally cowrote the Climate Equity Act alongside AOC, which is based on the Green New Deal. I think that's a start, and then I think it comes down to voting more progressive Democrats into the House and Senate.
What should someone committed to fighting global climate change do?
Understand Biden and Democrats are in opposition to the changes they recognize as necessary as someone that takes climate science seriously for a start.
And then what? not vote? Who do you think doesn't understand that in this thread?
I mean obviously not JimmiC, but that's a given. I'd say dpb position qualifies as well. Generally speaking, the people that try to argue that not supporting Biden is irrational more or less.
You can of course recline back into the cozy "but my vote doesn't matter anyway, I am in Oregon" position. Let's just imagine, however, in a Kantian thought experiment, that you can vote Trump, vote Biden, or not vote. If you vote Trump or Biden then Trump or Biden would win. If you don't vote there's a random coin flip. What do you do?
I wouldn't really call it "reclining" or "cozy" in that it's one of the fundamental ways Democrats stand as opposition to policy goals a lot of people claim to be my ally in the pursuit of (and my/people like me's/people I care about survival depends on). So it is one of many aspects of the system I stand in opposition to.
If I accepted the framing It's not like I can't recognize Joe Biden is a white moderate and that white moderates are ostensibly closer to me politically. I say ostensibly because unless recognized as an oppositional force to the purportedly supported policy, then as MLK suggested they pose a greater stumbling block than the KKK members and that "Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
It's far more bewildering and disconcerting to me that there are people who understand the climate situation and support Biden than it is people that think climate change is a hoax and support Trump.
EDIT: I just thought I should mention (because of this + Show Spoiler +
I don't know why you talk so much about voting ...
)I didn't even bring up voting it's just the go to rejoinder when I unsettle people and I'm not ashamed to tell people I'm definitely not voting for Biden (or Trump). Then you specifically asked me who I was voting for.
Generally I see voting primarily as an organizing tool that has some functionality for short term damage mitigation, particularly at the local level. One fundamental difference between myself and pretty much everyone here is that I reject their mythical concept of time and paternal notions that my liberation is contingent on maintaining their comfort within the status quo.
GreenHorizons, have you ever looked at game theory? (EDIT: On rereading this sounds condescending, but I mean it as in "has it been something you've spent the time reading up on?")
Do you consider the benefits of voting 3rd party for President, whatever you think they may be, to outweigh the costs of having Trump rather than Biden?
I know you consider Biden to be a part of the machine, a proponent of incarceration, and not doing enough on climate change. Fair enough, I'm not too keen on him either.
I would be interested to see a breakdown from you of what you consider the positives and negatives of voting for Biden, voting for Trump(yes, really, I would be interested if you could come up with some positive reasons to vote Trump), or voting third party.
Then we could talk about the balancing of these different options and the likelihood of them.
Metagame choices, such as sending a message with your vote, are also legitimate options.
I don't think my liberation or solutions to the catastrophic challenges we face can be found in the current bourgeois electoral system any more than our founders thought they could relieve themselves (as relatively wealthy white men with land and often slaves) of the unacceptably oppressive system they refused to accept.
I'd argue anyone who thinks I should vote for Biden would have been a loyalist and never got their vote in the first place.
While I disagree, I believe that I understand (having followed this thread for many years) your reasoning for not voting for Biden (or the majority of other potential democratic candidates). But what about the supreme court, where influence can last for decades? I'm under the assumption that vacancies filled by Biden would be preferable to you as compared with those filled by Trump. Am I wrong in that assumption, or do you consider the difference so marginal that it's a reasonable sacrifice for potential revolutionary change in the future?
I've been genuinely curious about this and haven't seen the supreme court issue being discussed (unless I missed it); not interested in having a debate or criticizing your reasoning, just really curious, thanks.
On September 17 2020 12:34 WarSame wrote: OK I did not follow the first paragraph there. What do you mean?
US founders concluded that it was not possible/reasonable to expect to have their minimum acceptable level of self-determination and justice under their existing government and the only rational choice (and obligation) was to throw off that government.
I as a Black man in the US feel similarly and under more dire circumstances than the likes of Jefferson or the rest. Hence why I mentioned I find the idea of believing that the corresponding passage from the Declaration of Independence can be more aptly claimed by the likes of the "founding fathers" of the US a ghoulish farce.
How are our friends here in the northwest doing? Air quality of 150 (unhealthy) is bad enough down here, but Portland OR looks like it's deep into Hazardous with air quality as bad as 500. Sounds downright suffocating.
Good thing we all stocked up on those N95s and the like, eh?
On September 17 2020 13:08 LegalLord wrote: How are our friends here in the northwest doing? Air quality of 150 (unhealthy) is bad enough down here, but Portland OR looks like it's deep into Hazardous with air quality as bad as 500. Sounds downright suffocating.
Good thing we all stocked up on those N95s and the like, eh?
How am I doing? Somewhere between terrible and miserable. I could do 20 years of covid quarantine after this. You think quarantine is bad? How about you can't even go in your backyard? No running, no garage workouts. Just complete confinement. It is 99999x worse than it sounds. Being stuck inside is wayyyyyyyyy worse than covid quarantine.
We just don't go outside. My house has excellent windows, but not everyone can say the same. Lots of people needing to tape up all their windows.
A co-worker of mine wasn't able to eat because he had zero appetite from the fumes being so bad in his house.
On September 17 2020 13:08 LegalLord wrote: How are our friends here in the northwest doing? Air quality of 150 (unhealthy) is bad enough down here, but Portland OR looks like it's deep into Hazardous with air quality as bad as 500. Sounds downright suffocating.
Good thing we all stocked up on those N95s and the like, eh?
Someone pointed, stared, then asked me why the moon looked so red today to which I replied "that is the sun". Not as bad as Oregon up here but pretty damn miserable. I've found myself asking "Was that a covid cough, or a smoke cough?" of myself and others a lot the past few days.
On September 17 2020 12:34 WarSame wrote: OK I did not follow the first paragraph there. What do you mean?
US founders concluded that it was not possible/reasonable to expect to have their minimum acceptable level of self-determination and justice under their existing government and the only rational choice (and obligation) was to throw off that government.
I as a Black man in the US feel similarly and under more dire circumstances than the likes of Jefferson or the rest. Hence why I mentioned I find the idea of believing that the corresponding passage from the Declaration of Independence can be more aptly claimed by the likes of the "founding fathers" of the US a ghoulish farce.
I can agree with you on that front - "All men are created equal" while owning slaves is a farce.
What are your alternative propositions? Historically, they haven't worked well for a variety of reasons. Liberia? Nat Turner rebellion? Tulsa?
I can admit that a Black man in the US has plenty of reasons to feel disgusted by the system(and similarly Indigenous people in Canada). There is systemic racism in the US.
Redlining isn't gone, just gone underground. Black people are killed disproportionately in confrontations with police. Black victims are marginalized, or made out to be evil so White people can feel better in inaction. Black communities and family structures have been destroyed, often in a bid for political power.
These are all true things. I assume you agree on them. Feel free to add more to the established facts here.
We can also come up with a goal future state: equitable in every axis(race, ethnicity, gender, orientation, cis/trans, etc.), with good climate and environmental protections, with health, happiness and liberty for all.
Given the above, how do we achieve this, in your opinion? What is the correct course of action? How do we achieve it?
This is what's been frustrating me about the BLM movement. The cause is good, that Black people deserve equity. Not just in terms of getting killed by police, but in every metric. Yet when NBA or NFL players shut down their leagues for the message they simply don't have any idea what to do. Why use your platform for a message if you don't know what your message is? I understand that venting emotions is an integral thing, but if you're going to put your chips on the table it needs to be for something! You could have been promoting voting movements(which they did eventually), various political reforms, with a list of concrete SMART demands.
Eventually they talked to Obama and I think that was part of the reason they did end up coming out with a strong list of demands, but it is always better for a political movement to be proactive than reactive in messaging.
What, in your opinion, is the message? What is the plan of action?
Given the above, how do we achieve this, in your opinion? What is the correct course of action? How do we achieve it?
Honestly I think it boils down to white America looking inward rather than at movements like BLM or myself for those answers (if you think about it, white America has the power under our system to do it themselves even with every BIPOC in the country in opposition).
Beyond that, I'm not sure if you're asking what my ideas are, what ideas are out there (that I agree or disagree with to varying degrees), or what BLM and people like LeBron message/plan is?
To not be unnecessarily evasive, I'd describe my views as "Freireian influenced Revolutionary Communist, with Anarchist tendencies" probably? "Freire", "Revolutionary", "Communist", "Anarchist" are all large schools of thought but the gist of it is:
Freire is the general guide re message/plan of action: Collaborating in the immediate raising of critical consciousness through systemic community engagement.
Revolutionary is the framing of the scope and scale of the necessary changes specifically for climate (which science, + Show Spoiler +
not to be confused with Scientific American
is decided on) and speaks a bit to tactics/strategy/logistics as well.
Communist is (in combination with everything else) descriptive of the desired goals and in part how we get there
Anarchist is my idealism and frustration manifested in my politics. It's also reflective of the types of messages and actions I find appealing (although it conjures up farv's mention of the libidinal vs "right thing to do")
What should someone committed to fighting global climate change do?
Understand Biden and Democrats are in opposition to the changes they recognize as necessary as someone that takes climate science seriously for a start.
Kamala Harris literally cowrote the Climate Equity Act alongside AOC, which is based on the Green New Deal. I think that's a start, and then I think it comes down to voting more progressive Democrats into the House and Senate.
Earnest question: where in the Climate Equity Act is there given any power to anyone to actually do anything about climate change? It seems to me like it creates a committee that will make some reports and guidelines every couple years and not much else, but I am not experienced in reading legal documents. There's a bit about how they'll help in rulemaking or but there doesn't seem to be anything about anyone having to actually care about their advice? Is there anything in there that will directly make the changes necessary to combat climate change?
EPT
