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Global Warming Deniers Want us to Give Up. Don't let Them get Their Way! [1]

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Date: 2023-07-03

I did not include up top, as much as I’d like to be able to, a photo of the unseen faces behind the politicians that run our country. I know not whom they are individually. The elected political class does indeed have power to a certain extent, I’m not denying that, but there are a number of critical areas, not legislated or written into any laws, which are nevertheless enforced and maintained no matter who’s in political office.

Chief among them is the supremacy of capitalist interests and profits and the ability to prevent any significant encroachment in these areas by the popular will/public opinion. So when reformers are in power, we may indeed get reforms, but the reforms can not step too hard on the toes of their elite backers, and are never enough to solve economically caused or related problems.

No Doubts as to the Cause

Capitalism is the world’s real religion.

If ever there was a 100% economically caused problem, it is global warming and its deadly consequences. But industrial capitalism, which undeniably creates and forever expands on this problem, is America’s and most of the world’s sacred cow, backed with dogmatic, almost religious fervor, by our wealthy and political classes. Even reformers are quick to pledge allegiance to the current capitalist system, both in industry and agriculture, which has both created and worsened global climate change.

A very simple truth is that accumulated wealth to the extent possible under a poorly regulated capitalist system undermines popular democracy and prevents any challenge to their unwritten rules, trumping (lower case here) the changes that are needed to start combating global warming.

So What the Hell is Going On?

You may be thinking, “Civilization is threatened on a global basis” but all we hear are crickets from our leaders. Which you’d be mostly right about. This is a problem greater than global warming itself. I’d hazard a guess as to why:

Musky, the Wall Street Golden Calf. 1 — Our leaders, both elected and the ones anointed and put forth by mega-wealthy interests, cannot envision a society that does not worship the golden calf of unbridled, minimally regulated capitalism and unlimited profits. 2 — Fighting and fully acknowledging global warming will force major changes throughout society. 3 — The current elites will lose some of their many unearned privileges. 4 — The elites fear their day of reckoning, i.e. the popular backlash that will inevitably come from financing serious steps to fight global warming and acknowledging the problem. 5 — They fear an unfavorable reassessment of the tax table.

There are certainly more, but those were at the top of the s**t list. So what are we to do? The problems we face are unprecedented in human history. As activist Joe Hill once said many year ago to his supporters, shortly before he was executed, “Don’t waste time mourning for me, organize!

Organize: The Wheel that Squeaks Gets The Grease

If you look at the downfall of nations and empires and other major events in human history, many occurred almost without warning. Hitler and Napoleon were unbeatable until they were. Thousand year empires have fallen in days. The Berlin Wall fell swiftly because it symbolized the rot in an authoritarian state which divided a nation. As did the Soviet Union, not because either were socialist, but because they became authoritarian dictatorships, and neither was democratic in a true sense or socialist. A rot that we ourselves, it can be argued, suffer from as well.

UAW auto strike, 1937.

The U.S. stock market crashed in a day. We never thought the state would ever recognize civil rights, gay rights or gay marriage, until they were forced to. Or end the Vietnam War, it took massive popular and protracted struggle and the battle field courage of the Vietnamese. Victories such as these are not inevitable and will never be won unless we try. But it’s never won or protected without struggle.

It took close to a 100 years to establish wide spread industrial unions and they were officially recognized almost overnight when enough workers finally mobilized. Yet most benefits won during the 30s and 40s are again in danger.

As we’ve been bitterly reminded of recently, progress is not inevitable and can be reversed. Fascism currently is knocking at the door. A handful of religious extremists just wiped out federal abortion rights and many other hard fought ones in recent years. Our challenge is to unite with other progressive groups and movements, persuade them to support the struggle for action against global warming, and give our support to their struggles as much as we can.

Only a broad movement stands a chance against the forces which weaken and divide us. Unions must also be awakened and brought in. If successful, there would be many steps and projects conceived to help minimize fossil fuel output and maximize environmental damage. Millions of jobs would be created. A movement like this could also blow a huge hole in the Republican poison producing machine as well as give the Democrats a push in the right direction of saving the planet and taking it much more seriously.

What the Global Warming Deniers Want

Yogi was right.

They want us to lose hope and accept our fate. Lack of political action and mass organizing will result in the same thing, a self-fulfilling prophecy. The best of many Yogi-isms is still “It ain’t over until it’s over.”

Voting is also critical although it’s no where near enough by itself to change the deadly direction of our country. We need massive popular organizing against defeatism and that will force much greater government steps to limit the disasters being caused by fossil fuels and other sources of greenhouse gases as much as we need to keep the fascists out of power.

United action by civil right groups, anti-poverty groups, global warming activists, unions and as many other groups that can be drawn into the movement has the power to not only deliver votes but build broad pressures and action against the forces of crisis denial, reaction and fascism. Reminding people of the Republican position denying what most of us can see with our own eyes and tying this denial to fascism is also a critical short term goal.

Thoughts on Why Hope has Some Basis in Fact

Consider this if you mistakenly think all hope is lost and it’s too late to stop global warming.

A tipping point was reached about 13 years ago in Russia and parts of Europe in 2010, when extreme and deadly marine heat waves started appearing and things have gotten qualitatively much worse since then. While global climatic changes are traceable back to the early days of the industrial revolution two hundred years ago, it’s still may be possible that aggressive measures over a much shorter period than hundreds of years may be able to curb some of the worst effects.

Giving up and throwing the towel in would be a deadly mistake and could seal our fate. We and the rest of the world must change our ways or perish. We need a goal of filling Washington D.C. with a million people from as many groups as possible and force change and awaken Americans to the consequences of doing nothing.

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[1] Url: https://dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/3/2178840/-Global-Warming-Deniers-Want-us-to-Give-Up-Don-t-let-Them-get-Their-Way

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