Ain't That a Shame

As monstrous and awful as Exxon's corporate strategy is, it is also horrifically rational from their point of view, as long as people insist on consuming what they're selling, as much as possible. Next time you take a drive -- or even a walk around the block -- count the jacked-up king-cab gas-guzzlers you see, and multiply by a million, or maybe ten million. Maybe you drive one yourself.

How much meat do you eat, and how often, and where do you acquire it? How many kids do you have? Are they grown, and if so, what do they drive? Again, multiply all those factors by millions, just in the USA, and you can see Exxon's rationale.

Exxon is not the problem. They are giving a critical mass of people what they want. Sure, the entire American corporate media system is really just a giant PR machine calibrated to turn you into a mindless Homer Simpson consumer drone who self-actualizes through big trucks and bigger cheeseburgers. But each of us -- a cell lit of awareness! -- gets to decide whether we want to wallow in that or not.

Economists talk of  behavioral "incentives" and "disincentives" through taxing and regulating various externalities, and they're not wrong. But the truth is much simpler and darker than that. We want to believe that people are intrinsically "good" and rationally self-interested, but we know that the former is subjective and conditional at best, and the latter is only occasionally true. The most charitable way to phrase it might be to point out the obvious -- that your "good" and my "good" almost certainly do not align 100%, and in fact may not even intersect.

One always has to take pains to preface these sorts of blanket statements with the usual "not all" disclaimer, and of course this applies here as well. But clearly a critical mass of people would rather engage perpetually in a dance of debt with instant gratification and gluttonous consumerism, than take even an afternoon to consider their various choices and make even slight reductions.

I hold no brief for the likes of Exxon. I make no excuses for their sociopathic indifference to the planet they despoil, and the people who eke out a living on it. But like the shitty corporate both-sider media, like the shitty corporate-owned oligarchic governance paradigm, they have identified an active consumer market and cultivated it well. Enough people have made a decision to consume the product, and devil take the hindmost.

It doesn't matter if climate change is a hoax or not, if you can't get enough people to give a shit -- and I don't mean heading over to the be-in for an afternoon, but making modest but necessary changes to consumption patterns. They won't until the planet breaks a fat one off in their asses.

Rapacious resource extractors and plutocratic insurgents have been a problem since probably not long after our Mesopotamian forerunners stockpiled the first agricultural surplus. But that problem has always been contingent on lulling just enough of the peons into a permanent state of disequilibrium, of identifying that magic number of doofuses necessary to leverage, and exploiting that subset to the maximum. We are finding out in so many ways that a committed -- or even a collectively disinterested -- minority is more useful and malleable than a dispersed majority. Look around you, and understand that the US is currently in the part between the "before" and "after" photos of a collapse.

That's one thing they didn't bother to tell you when you were in school -- unless you manage to secure enough money and/or power to insulate yourself from the dumbest third of your average classroom, you will always be at their mercy, one way or another.

Treason's Greetings

Even if you're a filthy atheist like me, it's easy to recognize some of the ideals Christmas stands for, or at least should represent:  charity; humility; compassion; the momentary contemplation of the idea that even the lowliest of people may turn out to be something special after all; that humans, individually and collectively, harbor within themselves an ineffable goodness, even if they have to be reminded of it once in a while.

An illegal immigrant couple, with a pregnant wife who has a really hinky story about how she got that way, sneak into an empire run by a mad king, and have their anchor baby. It's a story that should have extra resonance these days, at least to a population that wasn't already hopelessly desensitized by daily depredations, and Amazon commercials every thirty seconds exhorting them for the love of Christ almighty to fucking buy something and now.

Obviously, when someone bestows a gift on someone else, the gesture and the gift say something about the giver as well as the recipient, and about the nature of the relationship between them. So, for example, when the emperor decrees -- around Christmastime, no less -- that food assistance to the growing numbers of needy and desperate people shall be cut, it sends a message.

Ordinarily you could just say that that message is something along the usual grotesque lines of we don't give a shit, but when you factor in that some of these recipients are children, and many of the recipients live in states where they still loves them some Orange Foolius, that message gets a bit more complicated. Now it becomes something more like at least there might be some libturd out there taking it in the shorts worse than you.

But at least they can say Merry Christmas again without some jackbooted thug dragging them into the street and mercilessly truncheoning them within an inch of their sorry lives. I mean, that's what had been happening before Fat Orange Jesus came along, right? Pretty sure it was in all the papers.

To draw a scene in rather broad strokes, it seems that what passes for 'murkin dumbocracy these days boils down to four basic equations:

1. One citizen = one vote.
2. One dollar = one vote.
3. One acre = one vote.
4. One vote = waste of time.

Everyone falls into at least one group, though there is some overlap between the second and third groups. This is how greedy pelf-snuffling scumbags keep winning, by making sure that somewhere around half of the citizenry stays disgusted and demoralized enough to hang in the fourth group, and then by pitting the second and third groups against the first (most idealistic) group. It's Jay Gould's wicked dream of a hundred years ago writ large -- as long as the rabble are divided against each other, they can't unite sufficiently against the owners.

Filter that through a corporate media that keeps eating itself alive, in a futile attempt to recapture lost revenue, and a population that increasingly prefers to retreat into their epistemic bubbles, and it's become quite simple to maintain control.

I hadn't read King Leopold's Ghost in years, and on the re-read it has additional thematic impact for our current dynamic. The details of the Belgian genocide in the Congo are horrific, but what really hits home is the complicity with which everyone operated, heedlessly, always maintaining what good Christians they were. Locals were bribed or coerced into cooperating as well, committing atrocities on their neighbors in the next village, at the behest of greedy Europeans who paid them in brass rods and trinkets. Most of the journalists of the day preferred to merely chronicle the "achievements" of Leopold and his colonists, rather than discuss the brutalities that underwrote those accomplishments. Same as it ever was, as it's always been.

This may seem to be at odds with our earlier Christmas observation about (most) people being "good," but maybe it's just that "evil" is its own force multiplier. That is, it only takes a relative handful of genuinely rotten souls, with the assistance of their bribed enablers and minions, to subvert a much larger proportion of ordinary decent people. Fear and inertia and passivity do the rest of the heavy lifting.

The "good" news here is that, in this paradise of end-stage capitalism, even seemingly hardcore ideologues and religious fanatics are almost to a person really only and always about the money. Stripped of their true god, they have nothing. All the rest of us lack is the collective will to financially shun them.

As I mention from time to time, all we need to do is consider two seminal names from the lore of non-violent protest:  Rosa Parks and Mahatma Gandhi. The way their stories are conveyed and perpetuated obscure their true impacts, which reveals a great deal about who tells those stories.

For example, when most Americans hear Rosa Parks' name, they might get as far as "that lady who refused to go to the back of the bus." But that's not why you know her name. After Parks was arrested, the boycott of the Montgomery bus system by the black-majority rider base forced the system to change its policies.

Same with Gandhi; his crowning achievement, the one that really got the ball rolling against the British colonialists, was the simple act of leading masses of Indians to the sea, where he showed them how to make their own salt, thus depriving the British of a key source of colonial revenue.

The powers that be want you to believe that the only way you can get anything to change is by taking to the streets. The reality of this is that only two outcomes are possible:

1. You get the shit beaten out of you, whether by counter-protestors or cops.
2. You come out of it unscathed.

Either way, nothing changes. They can wait you out. Eventually you have to go back to work, pay your bills, live your life, get out of the weather. Standing around in a public place with a sign is just that and nothing more. I'm sorry, but that's really the way it is. Unless it motivates a sufficient number of people to take a specific, collective, concentrated set of actions -- something you can do with a social media account -- it won't matter, it'll be forgotten twelve hours after it's done.

We've become conditioned to anticipate the actions of others, whether we agree or disagree with them, and then to apply those assumptions to our own actions. Look at all the hand-wringing among Democratic voters over which candidate they "should" support. Many of them are frustrated because they feel obligated to support Diamond Joe Biden, because as awful as he is, he's been anointed as the most "electable."

[strokes chin thoughtfully] Hmmm, I wonder if the entities who own the media outlets who make these assessments and prognostications might have any vested interest in supporting candidates whose policies are most closely aligned to theirs?

Let me tell you something about "electability":  the person who makes the most people want to vote for them is the one that is the most electable. Crazy, right? Especially in a primary season, the minute you start trying to guess who other people will or should vote for is the minute you start playing a game you just can't win.

I think we'd all be surprised at what might happen if people simply decided who they want to vote for -- not the person they think "can beat" Trump, not the person they think this or that demographic voting bloc will vote for, but the person whose policies and statements most closely connect with what you believe.

I don't care who "black" people will vote for; in fact, I think the assumption that they (or anyone) are a predictive monolithic voting bloc is borderline insulting. And I really don't give a shit who people think the Real 'murka midwest cracker bloc will go for.

Here's a clue: if they voted for it last time, they'll do it again, no matter what it does or says, no matter what sort of class traitor tries to run neck-and-wattle against it. Those folks are getting what they want, and they want more of it. No matter how badly they get trampled by its policies, the rubes now have added incentive to simply not admit to themselves just how badly they fucked up. All I can add to that is that I sincerely wish I could let each and every one of them know that, aside from the headache I get when I hear their jabbering retard emperor open his burger-hole, I'm doing fine. I'm not losing the farm my grandfather built from nothing because of some idiotic trade war.

All those second-guessing games are designed to divide the opposition and muddle their thinking, pit them against each other with clever little diversions designed by soulless cubicle-rats pawning their services to moneyed weasels. Don't overthink it.

So to the extent one can bestow gifts and hopes and wishes upon distant strangers, here they are:

• To the grifters and traitors and abusers actively running and abetting this human centipede of an administration, I sincerely wish them all the very worst things this life has to offer. Use your imagination. They assist with the daily monstrosities and incompetencies, knowing full well the collective effects on actual humans, and they still do not care. Their indifference is vile and inhuman, and they know it. Their worst nightmare is full accountability. I pray it finds them.
• To the fools at large who still support this shitshow, people with nary a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out of, taking it straight in the ass for the benefit of the aristocracy, I wish for them the gift of reflection and insight, and everything that entails. The politicians they support use them and despise them. They're being hurt much more than the elite libturds they've been trained to hate. They can either stop for a moment and really think about the big picture, or they can continue down the road they're on, and find out the hard way when they're flushed like a handful of used toilet paper.
• To the corporate media, the gift of honesty, though most of them would have no fucking clue what to do with it. So maybe a sense of shame would be a more useful gift.
• To the people who see these things for what they really are, and are rightly despairing because the times have also revealed a disturbingly large percentage of people as willing dupes at best, I wish for them to have peace of mind and patience. Remember that two-thirds of Americans fucking despise Trump and everything he stands for; remember that if the Republicans weren't worried, they wouldn't be retiring in droves and trying to cheat; remember that the kids, whatever their faults, recognize greedy boomers and shady evilangelists for the hypocritical cowards they really are, and will remember their perfidy as the oceans reclaim what's theirs.
• To the non-voters out there, I offer the hope that they reflect for a moment as well, and make a decision that, as much of an exercise in futility as it may seem, it is actually not all that much to ask to take a few minutes to register, and then to actually cast that vote when it's time. I know they make it tough in some places -- but that's why they make it tough, to discourage you from exercising your rights. So just sack up and do it, every time. You might be surprised by what happens. Stop worrying about what other people might or might not do, and just make sure to do it yourself.
• And to the people who are doing it right across the board, voting with ballots and wallets at every opportunity, just keep at it. Keep doing the right thing, simply because it is exactly that. Live your life, while still paying attention, but not getting sucked in too much by the swirling chaos. They win by buying off or demoralizing people's innate sense of justice, that's how The Party gets you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. Once you make the decision for yourself that those things are your own, really all you ever will have in this world that's permanently yours, the rest falls into place. Keep this in mind at all times:  fuck those people. Whatever else, they can't take that away from you.

All of that could probably be summed up as simply hoping that everyone gets what they deserve. Whatever your holiday is, celebrate and enjoy. See you in 2020.

Two-Ply Journamalism

I'm not bothering to link to the fucking NY Times anymore; its mendacious toadying is a net detriment to the well-being of this society, even once you factor in the occasional "good" article you might get out of them. This Twitter thread describing the latest slop-ed piece is more than adequate in chronicling the bad-faith argumentation that comes out of them anymore.

It takes some real balls to lambaste climatologists, who have been presenting empirical data for decades regarding the dangers of climate change. This is the American political system in a nutshell:  absolve the rented politicians, and the reality-teevee-addled dupes who keep voting for them, by scapegoating the one group of people who actually showed up and did their fucking jobs. Both-siderism is the crushed fentanyl of gatekeeper journalists, who peddle their agenda behind bullshit "op-ed" pieces and anonymously-sourced bits of hackcess journalism. They have ruined this country just as surely as that turd Mark Burnett has.

That's how you end up with a chief executive who literally admitted just a few days ago to running a fraudulent charity that stole money from veterans, and everyone's already forgotten about it by Veterans' Day, of all things. A competent media ecosystem would ask him and his minions about that non-stop for a month, but they've already given up on it. They don't even try. Instead we get puff-piece profiles of billionaires' concerns about actually having to pay their fucking taxes, or provide a decent standard of living for the peons who shovel their shit every day.

Jamie Dimon should have been guillotined in the middle of Wall Street a decade ago, as a warning to the rest of that vile breed. Hope that clears things up.

I am also tired of hearing calls for "unity" from Democratic candidates. Each and every one of us has stark choices to confront for ourselves, and what we might consider our values. Either we are okay with a demented slapdick who lies about everything having all this responsibility, or we are not. Either we are okay with the very real, impending problem of climate change and its many dispersed effects, or we aren't. Either we're okay with working Americans dying from hoarding their insulin because of profiteering, or we're not. Either we're okay with children fleeing unthinkable levels of poverty and violence being torn from their parents and thrown into cages, being victimized by older children while their mothers are drinking from toilets, and ultimately being trafficked to American families looking for a cheap kid to adopt, or we find that sort of thing, you know, fucking abhorrent.

I have no intention of "coming together" with people in the first half of those descriptors. We all have relatives, friends, coworkers in our lives on that end of the discussion, and we've all made our personal calibrations as to how to deal (or not) with that. But that is a different matter than whether the candidate we end up being allowed to select to lead the country for the next four years has pre-emptively decided on a fool's errand of comity and appeasement with the "fuck your feelings" crowd..

This is a practical matter as well as a moral one. Unless Buttigieg and Biden are making cynical political calculations in preaching their unity gospel, they should head to the nearest neurologist and get checked for dementia, because they clearly have lost all short- and long-term memory.

In 2009, Barack Obama won the most electoral votes since Saint Reagan in 1984, and had both houses of Congress, including a supermajority in the Senate. It took the Republicons, years before Trump would waddle into view, about a month after Obama's inauguration to flat-out declare fuck what the clear majority voted for, we're going to obstruct this president at every opportunity, and create more opportunities to do so. And thanks to their little helper monkeys in the corporate gatekeeper media, that's exactly what they proceeded to do for the next eight years.

But Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg are apparently convinced that, between being nice guys themselves and Republicons secretly wanting to do the "right" thing, they can breach this gap. They are fucking high if they really believe that nonsense. Every day in every way, the GOP has told us, over and over and fucking over again, what they are really all about. Power and money, and the various uses thereof. Republican members of Congress refuse to confront Trump over his corruption not because they fear him, but because he's doing exactly all the things they want done.

This is not an aberration. This is the culmination of the party's efforts for the past five decades, explicitly so. They do not deny or try to hide any of this at all.

It's enormously difficult to figure out how Democrats and media monkeys could possibly be this stupid, to not see what has been in front of all of us all along. I assume it's the old Upton Sinclair line about people not understanding something because their paycheck depends on it.

Again, the Republicons make no effort to hide any of it. And they make no bones about what they're willing to do when they lose. Matt Bevin still hasn't conceded his loss in Kentucky. Republicans in the North Carolina state legislature have been openly joking for weeks about how they're just waiting for the Democrats to leave the legislative chamber so they can push a bunch of stuff through (which they did on September 11th, while Dem legislators were at a fucking 9/11 memorial).

Here in California, there is a petition drive to recall Gavin Newsom from the governor's seat. We all laughed at that shit back in 2003, and look how that worked out. It takes a shamefully low number of signatures to get an initiative on the ballot in this state, considering the huge population. There is nothing so low that these fuckers will not stoop to, and it precedes Trump by a longshot. He's just made it easier for them to mainstream it.

Because that's the other thing Democratic politicians need to get past -- this idiotic Anne Frank teleology that people are basically good. Some are, some aren't, and the ones that aren't don't worry about playing by the rules, and are more than willing to rent themselves out to the highest bidder. This idea that indecent people are suddenly going to grow a conscience, like a vestigial tail or something, is just so far beyond stupid, I'm not sure there's a word for it in the English language.

So I don't know what the fuck Diamond Joe and Mayor Pete are thinking when they spout nonsense like we need to get back to working together or whatever pablum they cynically think will win over some imaginary sliver of "swing" voters, who are clearly the dumbest motherfuckers alive.

Refer to the very brief list of terrible things above, and try to imagine the sort of halfwit who thinks there's some sort of middle ground to be had on those things. What if we kept those refugee kids in cages, but didn't let them get raped and didn't illegally give them to strangers? Like that maybe, is that what passes for compromise and unity? Could it possibly be more productive to motivate non-voters to vote, instead of debasing yourselves in a futile gesture to nasty morons?

Bringing it all back to climate change, and what we can hope to do about it politically, this ongoing political and media dynamic is simply not conducive to getting anything constructive done in that (or any other) area. And it has nothing to do with how scientists have presented their findings, or the many legitimate reasons why they tended not to be sufficiently "alarmist" about the situation. Even their moderate, empirically-backed and peer-reviewed claims were immediately shut down or ignored by the fossil fuel companies and the politicians they own.

(And by the way, I have already given you the template of actions that, collectively taken, would have real impact on climate change and the companies causing it:  eat less meat; drive smaller and smarter; have fewer children; consume less; buy local food as much as possible. Just about anyone can make most or all of these changes, and would in fact save money in doing so. But like vaccinations, it requires a critical mass of people to do it, or it won't work. And right now, even the majority of people who are aware of climate change seem to require government action to get anything done. And that's simply not correct. The challenge is in overcoming the average person's base Homer Simpson instinct of wanting someone else to do everything for them.)

And the fact of the matter is that, no matter how much it would cost to invest in mitigating or preventing further damage from issues related to climate change, it will cost more to do nothing. More lives. More money. That's just a fact, and you don't need to spend years comparing a bunch of permafrost core samples to know that, to observe all the symptoms going on and understand the connection.

So what, pray tell, would have gone differently if enough climatologists had gone up to DC and sat before this or that House subcommittee and testified under oath that yeaaahhhhh, about that global warming, if anything we're understating the case, it's really bad and we're really fucked and it's gonna all happen sooner than we think? Mister Slop-Ed can't rightly say, you know, because he was talking straight out of his asshole in the first place.

But he was allowed to talk out of his asshole in the New York Times. And that's the fucking problem.

Colon Cancel

You may have heard that out here in Cali, it's that time of the year -- wildfires roaring up and down the state, and the problem is now exacerbated by PG&E shutting down power to areas that might be in danger, or are experiencing high winds. (That is not a joke -- last Saturday night, it sounded like a fucking freight train running through my yard, all night.)

I'm very thankful to be out of the fire and shut-down zones (so far), but I have family and friends who are not so lucky, who are in their fourth day without power and counting, and/or have been evacuated multiple times, as the fires encroach evacuation sites.

So when I see these smug little fuckers cracking wise about how some mythical "woke" culture caused this, I want to cordially invite them to suck a fart out of my asshole. They can go fuck each other in the neck. You know who fights these fucking fires? Prisoners and professionals, period.

Dave Rubin doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, and I sincerely look forward to the day when he and Fuckface Carlson have their homes and irreplaceables destroyed by an event that can clearly be connected to climate change and its effects.

The most overused phrase from this misbegotten year is "cancel culture." I fucking despise that phrase, and the whiny millionaires who deploy it as some sort of preemptive license to be an asshole. Look, if you like something, no matter how bad a rep it has, watch it. Fucking binge-watch Real Inbred Housewives from Honey Boo Boo's Dirt Road till your brain cells start leaking out your ears, if that's what brings your pecker to full sail.

But when a professional "provocateur" steps over lines -- 'cause that's just what he does, man, he's a free thinker and you can't contain him with your "correctness" -- with flat-out lies that belittle what tens of thousands of people are enduring right now, he can't be too surprised when a critical mass of people see it and say, fuck you, asshole.

The First Amendment is the most important right we have in this country. It means you can say whatever the fuck you wanna say, and the gubmint can't throw your ass in jail. It doesn't matter if it's in poor taste, or even if it's an obvious lie, slapped on the table like a stale dog turd, defying you to call it for what it is.

But it doesn't grant you a guaranteed audience, nor does it compel anyone to give you a soapbox to use to spew your bullshit. So when I see shit like that, I just make a point to remind myself of who sponsors Carlson's shitshow, so I don't accidentally buy any of their products. I support free speech, but not paid lies.

When CNN gives jobs to unqualified propagandists like Corey Lewandowski and Sean Duffy, the latter of whom earlier today denigrated a decorated combat veteran, I know that that network adds no value to my existence. I avoid that network like the fucking plague. It doesn't help that they have professional liars such as Kellyanne Conway and Rudy Giuliani on routinely, or "Big Dick Toilet" chump and former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. I'm not rooting through the shit pile looking for the occasional corn kernel or peanut. The whole thing is shit.

Their currency is devalued by the constant stream of hacks and liars, posing as avatars of false equivalency and intellectual probity. No, that dipshit Duffy trashed a guy who earned his Purple Heart at the same time Duffy spent his twenties screwing around on MTV's Real World. Fuckin' profile in courage right there. The people who put him in Congress oughta be ashamed of themselves.

This has nothing to do with individuals expressing opinions that I don't like, or disagree with. That's never a problem. That's where the fun happens in political discourse. It's when one of these self-styled "gatekeepers" decides to grant air time to liars and propagandists. It's a vile, destructive recursion of treachery -- we know the liars are liars, the network knows they're liars, the network knows that we know they're liars, the liars know that the audience and the networks know that they're liars, and so on.

It's not news, nor is it even entertainment. It's clickbait. Well, fuck them, and fuck the companies that buy ad time on those shows. You wanna know who hates America and is actively ruining it? Those assholes, all of them. Think of every awful thing that has transpired in the last three years from the antics of this administration, and know that the corporate media is responsible for it happening. Billions of dollars' worth of free air time, and a bloodless commitment to absolute both-siderism, no matter how false.

I wish I knew how to put them out of business. Nothing would thrill me more than to watch Tucker Carlson or Van Jones asking you if you want fries with that. All any of us can do is let our wallets speak for us at every possible opportunity. And if enough of us do that, they'll notice. Don't be fooled by their bullshit "cancel culture" plaints. That's just them scared shitless at the prospect of consumers exercising their free choice, choosing not to have their airwaves relentlessly poisoned by these soulless weasels. That's never a bad thing.

Can't Someone Else Do It?

There have been more mass protests around the world this year, and for various reasons, but mostly revolving around either the predictable outcomes of engineered inequalities caused by late-stage capitalism, or the impending collective doom of climate change. I have mentioned my inherent skepticism of the effectiveness of protests, although I tend to support them as far as the basic principle of collective democratic expression goes.

The economic protests actually make more sense to me, as there is very little one can really do about not having enough money to survive or thrive, if you can't afford to move or you don't have enough time to find a better job. Pretty much every problem in life can be resolved with more money and/or time, but if you're already strapped for both, it can be very difficult to claw back more of either one.

Climate change, though, while a much bigger problem looming over us all, is oddly much more within the grasp of even a poor person. You can control how many children you have. You can control what sort of food you eat, and where it is produced. You can control what types and brands of products you choose to consume. You can control what sort of car you drive, whether or not you vote for politicians who will try to do something to address the impending crisis.

Now, we all live in the real world (except for religious fanatics who think this is all divine will and some providential intervention will save the righteous from catastrophe), and of course very few people truly have complete 100% control over all those things. The good news is that you don't have to have total control of those things. If a large enough number of people simply cut back ten percent on all those things, that would make a difference, and it would push companies and politicians alike to make real changes.

Perhaps the biggest dispute between climate change "believers" and skeptics is whether (or how much) of it is caused by human activity. The believers accept it as a given that it is mostly or wholly caused by human activity. And yet, curbing human overpopulation seems not to be a priority in the discussion. This is baffling, to say the least. No doubt there are historical, political, and cultural reasons why some people might be reluctant to address that factor, but as a purely practical matter, it is irresponsible not to talk about it. In the next few decades, there will be two billion more humans than there are right now. Where the hell are they -- and we -- supposed to go?

The photos of those massive public assemblies around the world were nothing short of inspiring. Tens of thousands of people in dozens of countries getting out there, demanding action. But what immediate effect can they have if they simply make a few modest changes as mentioned above? Start with ten percent and keep working it to a sustainable balance.

• Pick one or two days a week to not have any meat. (And no, "impossible whoppers" don't count. That's a scam, both nutritionally and as a point of sustainability.) Personally, I hate most vegetables, but things like black beans and polenta make great meatless meals. This is probably the single biggest area in which individuals can make a collective difference.


• Get as much (or at least ten percent) of your food from local sources as possible. This can be tricky for a lot of people, as farmers' markets can be expensive, or not as geographically prevalent in some areas. But one in eight Americans lives in California, which has everything everywhere as far as fresh produce and meat, and one in four Americans is in California, Texas, or Florida, all of which have abundant and diverse agricultural sectors. If just ten percent of the people just in those three states made the commitment and effort, it would make a difference. Food, especially processed and fast food, gets transported hundreds of miles on average. Many non-chain restaurants let you know about how they locally source as many ingredients as possible. Support them when you eat out.


• Vehicle choice is self-explanatory. Poor people can't afford SUVs and king-cab trucks in the first place, so that one is strictly a matter of Americans being conditioned to signal their prosperity and self-actualize through their choice of vehicle. Look, if you're really a farmer or a construction worker and you have a practical use for a beast vehicle, so be it. But if you're just an asshole trying to overcompensate or show off, that's a different story.

A big obstacle faced by environmentalists in marketing their prescriptions for the perils of modern life is that Americans are constantly bombarded with the trappings of consumerism. For example, we are conditioned to equate food with value, so meals get "super-sized" and all-you-can-eat buffets are popular. Convenience is a huge factor as well. Sometimes you may have to make a little extra effort, or find a better option for the product you want. But the bottom line is that when people are fat and vehicles are huge, that means that food and gasoline are too inexpensive. That's not politics, that's simple math.

We are taught to make our consumer choices to project our idealized versions of ourselves to the rest of the world. The style and make and model and color of our vehicle tells them about us. The knick-knacks and collectibles we populate our houses and garages with tell our visitors who we are.
So when some know-it-all comes along and explains how these objects we purchase and take for granted, how even the means of packaging and shipping them are contributing to the destruction of the planet, it becomes overwhelming to comprehend, and we react. Oh, I guess I have to ride a bike everywhere and eat weeds and twigs, huh?

And that's not the case at all. You can still drive a car, you can still eat meat. But if you give half a shit about what kind of world you're passing along to your kids and grandkids, you can very easily cut back on those things by ten percent. You might find pretty quickly that you can go twenty or thirty percent on some things; maybe a full-vegetarian diet suits you, or you can trade in your F150 for a Fusion hybrid without it cramping your lifestyle.

But I guarantee you that just about everyone in the western world living above subsistence level can do something. The trick is that after that feel-good event is over and you've shown the powers that be your collective will, you have to be willing to go back home and make those simple, modest changes in your lifestyle tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, without the crowds and cameras and media coverage.

It all comes down to whether enough of us actually want to do the work. We're going to find out how many people are willing to walk the talk, or if they're just expecting someone else to solve the situation for them. There is no "solve" anymore, there is only the choice of making modest changes now so that maybe most of humanity doesn't have to make truly drastic changes in the near future.

And vote for people who aren't in thrall to the fossil-fuel industry.