Maybe it's not a coincidence that the more shameless politicians ignore peaceful protests while doing the bidding of lobbyists, the more climate-concerned people feel the need to escalate their nuisance tactics which conveniently makes those same shameless politicians feel that they can justify more draconian measures to stifle privacy, speech and activism.
I think politicians are skirting democratic accountability because they can, and not enough people are protesting the lack of this accountability. The most concerning thing about this proposed legislation is the fact that it can be used to further skirt accountability, by labeling protesters under the broad terms the bill covers.
Back in the day, in a more localized times (i.e your life was somewhat controlled by those within your vicinity), if our "leaders" were tratiours, we would get the torches and pitchforks and march to their homes as the citizen's form of keeping leaders accountable.
Post-enlightenment, we put down the torches and pitchforks, we outsourced the accountability function to the media/press. Shame and transparency were the new "torch and pitchforks".
As soon as the likes of Rupert Murdoch/Roger Ailes etc. got involved in media, the press no longer wields the people's power, which was delegated to them, for the people. Instead the press selectively uses that power for ulterior aims - whether that's the Oil & Gas industry, the war machine, or for foreign interests.
After Clinton, and in order to push the illegal Iraq war, politicians (no longer called "leaders") had to shed all their shame so that they would be immune to any press that came out about their illegal acts for the war machine. Wikileaks happened. Only the messenger was pursued.
Shame doesn't work anymore. The press use the power we gave them against us. Therefore no wonder protests don't work. They don't get covered and politicians are rewarded for shamelessly ignoring the people's interests.
The system is broken.
I don't blame climate protesters escalating. Especially while climate destruction is being escalated.
>As soon as the likes of Rupert Murdoch/Roger Ailes etc. got involved in media, the press no longer wields the people's power, which was delegated to them, for the people. Instead the press selectively uses that power for ulterior aims - whether that's the Oil & Gas industry, the war machine, or for foreign interests.
How does this square with the rise of insurgents like donald trump? He was basically snubbed by the GOP political establishment in 2016, but now the republican party is now enthralled to him. There was even a period where he tried to fight fox news and urged his supporters to watch OAN instead. Some of Trump's populist policies were so successful that even the democratic party copied it, eg. his anti-china policy. That's despite such policies being arguably anti-business, which under your framework shouldn't have happened.
Is it a surprise to you that I haven't fully encoded the current world order in one HN comment?
Just as the press usurped our power to block us out of it. Trump usurped the media's power (through his own showmanship) to block them out of it (this was the only reason CNN libs were mad really). At the end of the day Trump did the bidding of the common backgrounds interests so he was allowed to play the part:
- Sold $100s of billions of weapons to dictators (MIC)
- His anti-china policy was solely to stop their EVs from taking over the gas car market in the US (Oil & Gas)
- Escalated tensions in the middle east to keep netanyahu in power through the Abraham Weapons Deal and moving the US embassy illegally to Jerusalem (Foreign Interests)
The politicians, the media, they fall over, and fight amongst, each other to be top slave to these same various lobbies. The public are only there insofar to keep the facade in-tact, every 4 years people stand in line to larp as casting directors in the great pantomime. Most western states do not live in free, representative democracies - all the ones with significant sway have been totally usurped (in other countries we'd call it coups).
And unfortunately, the tech industry is now going in that direction (with YC now accepting MIC projects, lazy zero-alpha investors and VCs are crawling to the DoD infinite-money-glitch teat).
>- Sold $100s of billions of weapons to dictators (MIC) - His anti-china policy was solely to stop their EVs from taking over the gas car market in the US (Oil & Gas) - Escalated tensions in the middle east to keep netanyahu in power through the Abraham Weapons Deal and moving the US embassy illegally to Jerusalem (Foreign Interests)
Feels like for each of these, you can weave an alternate story with another set of benefactors if the opposite action was taken. For instance, his being pro china would benefit corporate interests through globalization, allowing multinationals to bleed the rust belt even more. Or that signing the Iran deal actually means Russia benefits somehow (dunno, maybe so their client state/ally isn't sanctioned anymore?) and trump is in the pockets of Russian oligarchs. Point is, no matter what policies get enacted, there's going to be someone benefiting, which means you can accuse the people in charge for doing "the bidding of the common backgrounds interests". Even something that should be an unalloyed good (eg. FTC outlawing noncompetes) can be cynically written off as "that's just them throwing us a bone to keep us placated".
To put another way, what would convince you that your theory is false? A full socialist revolution?
I'm not so arrogant as to claim the world as it is as "my theory". If you choose to gormlessly debate reality that's up to you. If you choose to see some things and not others, well that's your theory of living you can debate with yourself also.
If you were to ask me what I want. I want consistency and honesty. If politicians want to do the bidding of lobbies then don't waste our time with the quadrennial dog and pony show. If the press/media refuses to keep the powerful to account then just give us our torches and pitchforks back. If the justice system can be abused by people with power and money to squash the little guy then just rename it to something else. If international law only applies to what the status quo considers subhumans then just get rid of the ICC/ICJ and the entire concept of International Law. If profit motive is more important than the continuation of life on earth then just say so and stop paying useless consultants millions of dollars while the world burns and allow people who care about the climate to escalate as they see fit. If corporations are allowed to massacre people with their negligence and the "justice system" does nothing to hold them to account then just allow the people to do the same to negligent corporations. This whole setup of one side can always do the bad thing yet the other side always needs to politely go through "the right channels" to get an ounce of recourse is tiring. It's either "law & order" or the "law of the jungle" for all of us or none of us.
"Thus was born satyagraha (“devotion to truth”), a new technique for redressing wrongs through inviting, rather than inflicting, suffering, for resisting adversaries without rancor and fighting them without violence."
Devotion to one's ideals despite suffering for them is admirable, but not an option for many people. They have children to take care of, families to provide for. They just want to live their lives without inviting more pain into it. That is not something I'm going to hold against people or laugh at them for.
The problem is, and always has been, that you can pick a new round of ideals on your next turn in life and, as you grow older, you recognize that most of those ideals are, and I will generalize here, not ideal. The funny part is that most groups would want to tell you that their particular set of ideas are worth dying for. As is often the case, it seems to be only the rank and file and the young is doing the dying part though.
With that out of the way, maybe ideals is too charged of a word. Maybe the right word here is: priorities.
Of course, a more generous reading of my comment would have you realize I didn't mean literally anything, just as GP didn't mean something as relatively simple as giving up meat.
Invoking Gandhi's satyagrahas should always come with all the caveats that made the movement successful. It wasn't merely the act of peaceful protest that won India's independence, but the fact that it happened in the backdrop of WW2. Britain had to be much more careful to not risk escalating things into a full-blown revolt. Then, at the end of the war, they needed to focus their resources towards rebuilding.
Agree, but he started his work in South Africa with great success. I was just revealing that there are different ways to protest that entail people sacrificing now a little so they do not have to sacrifice a lot in the future.
My intent wasn't to say that Gandhi and satyagraha had no contribution, and I agree that there are better ways to protest than harassing people trying to survive and throwing beans on paintings. I just wanted to emphasize that part of the reason satyagraha remained mainly peaceful was that even the people being protested against couldn't risk it turning violent.
> But I will also argue, imagine if he did nothing?
I think that India would still have gotten independence a few years later, since either way, I don't think post-WW2 Britain had the capacity to hold on to India. However, I do believe that Gandhi's efforts ended up playing a significant role in creating a more unified national identity and helped to foster values that have allowed India to be a mostly stable democracy, in stark contrast to many of its neighbors. So, if he had done nothing, I figure that India might've fragmented into smaller countries with too much conflict to amount to much on the global stage.
> How about politicians setting the standard for not fucking up the whole world and their fellow humans?
I agree. But can we really only blame the politicians? I do not vote because every politician wants war. That is my small protest that aligns with my morals. They have to earn my vote. What if there were a group of people who got together and said we will only vote for the candidate that is against all war or where serious about climate change?
>Why must it be the people suffering the consequence of greedy politicians, who must be the ones behaving with the high moral compass?
Yes, unfortunate, but the only way out is for those of us with a moral compass to act as an example for others. To be the heroes who sacrifice and are remembered through history and change things for the better.
We as a species have to figure out a fool-proof test for sociopathy at a specific threshold, beyond which those people are not allowed to hold public office. Without this, the power-hungry will always, in the end, rule over those who seek to avoid conflict.
