Even The Good News Is Bringing Me Down

Not that there's a lot of it

Ocean Rescue guys crossing paths with a surfer on the Pipeline shore break (Weldon Berger/Bad Crow Review)

I apologize especially to my paid subscribers but to all of you for the slow pace of posting in recent weeks. I’ve not had a contiguous few hours to write anything, for reasons.

Even The Good News Is Bringing Me Down

Climate activist extraordinaire Bill McKibben has a raft of encouraging climate-related news items this morning, prominent among them that India is transitioning to clean energy more rapidly than one could have expected from a country where an autocratic leader is in the pocket of, or perhaps just heavily invested in, the coal industry.

India—at the same GDP per capita as China in 2011—[is] taking a very different tack in its energy development, with coal use plateauing, and solar power taking off.

There are several reasons for this, but the most important by far is that when China was at a similar stage of development coal was cheap and solar and wind were still expensive. Now that’s flipped—indeed, it’s actually cheaper to build a new solar farm in India than to simply keep buying the coal for an existing coal-fired power plant. Think about that for a minute.
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If this continues—if it accelerates—then India has a real chance to clean up the foul air in its cities. China did, after all—fifteen years ago you couldn’t see across the street in Beijing, and now…you can. Here’s Sam Matey-Coste reporting yesterday, on what he described as a “beautiful winter morning, not a cloud in the bright blue sky.”

McKibben goes on to explain how the reduction in atmospheric particulates has added years to the lives of Beijing residents, something that is already happening, although not to the same extent, in India and other countries formerly reliant all but entirely on fossil fuels.

Even in the U.S., where the regime is promoting the interests of the fossil fuel industry at every turn—sometimes even beyond the point the industry believes reasonable—green energy is advancing, although the giant AI computer facilities, mostly powered by fossil fuels and themselves benefiting from regime largess and owned by people who if anything would like to shorten the lives of their neighbors, are already biting into the benefits of those advances. Those people don’t give a fuck beyond reliability.

So things are looking up! Common sense is winning out everywhere (except here)! Why am I not uplifted?

Because we’re still fucking doomed. I had an epiphany 17 years ago this past October which led me to become a chronic optimist—hard to tell, I know—but I am plumb out of optimism, particularly on the climate front. We’re doomed, or rather our children or grandchildren are; perhaps you and me too, depending upon one’s age. But a lot of us will be too dead to fully experience and appreciate the catastrophe precipitated by the past several generations of nihilistic capital.

This doesn’t mean that the good shit passes by unrecognized; just that the endorphin rush is drowned. The same is true of resistance to our fascist regime. What non-violent citizen protesters are doing in Minneapolis-St. Paul and environs is truly remarkable, especially in the face of an increasingly vicious paramilitary invading force. The bravery of the protesters is enough to make one weep. It’s not too much to say that some of them are heading toward territory occupied by the Tienanmen Square tank guy in terms of imagery and impact.

And they mounted a serious effort for a general strike today, organized by businesses, labor unions and community organizations—something which on a national scale would be vital for a truly effective resistance.

But of course Tienanmen did not end happily ever after; that regime didn’t hesitate to escalate, and if there are signs that this one is approaching its limits, I’m missing them. Only yesterday morning I read that our parochial STASI are claiming the right to conduct home invasions without a judicial warrant.

I remember when David Addington, the Dick Cheney to Dick Cheney, was quoted as saying with respect to the exercise of presidential power—both he and Cheney were big proponents of the “unitary executive” theory, something John Roberts strongly favors as well—that “we’ll push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop."

In their case the larger forces were Congress, eventually, and the courts, eventually—but only after the administration committed multiple crimes against humanity and wholesale crimes against Americans, none of which any of them paid any price for.

Bush, after all, is now a cuddly elder statesman beloved of “liberal” ex-presidents and their spouses. His torture consigliere, John Yoo, holds an endowed chair at the UC Berkeley law school. James Comey, a preening authoritarian who assisted the Bushies in various malefactions, was sentenced to eight years of abusing citizens, the law and his discretion at the FBI.

And Cheney died, at a ripe old age, as a fabulously wealthy old monster who was fêted by way too many Democrats for taking the bold stance of publicly disliking Trump.

So what “larger force” will this regime recognize? Clearly they don’t view instructions from Congress or the courts as binding—they’ve learned from the Bush administration’s errors in that regard. One of the few things I’ll take Trump’s word for is that he doesn’t see anything standing in his way but death, and he’s only the loudest expression of the regime, not necessarily the worst.

I’ve said before that I think we’ve arrived at the point as a society and as a species where palliative care is about the best we can do. Nobody should think, though, that palliative care isn’t really important; it can in fact be life-changing. People can live improved lives even while stuff around them falls apart.

Up to a point, anyway.

Little acts of rebellion

A University of Alaska student pulled off a neat little performance art piece.

On Tuesday, January 13, University of Alaska Fairbanks undergraduate student Graham Granger was detained after he had been found “ripping artwork off the walls and eating it in a reported protest,” according to the UAF police department. Granger was chewing and spitting out images pinned to the wall; this artwork was made by Masters of Fine Arts student Nick Dwyer in collaboration with artificial intelligence. Granger claimed that he destroyed the artwork because it was AI generated, according to the report by university police.

A reminder: artificial intelligence is not actually intelligence. You’ll know if it ever gets there.

The Daily Beast, a former Tina Brown vanity project, may be best known for merging with Newsweek after electronics guy Sidney Harmon bought the latter from The Washington Post for one American dollar. (It’s probably not best known for that but that’s how I remember it.)

Originally a news, opinion and gossip site, it has evolved through some tough times into a Brown-less opinion, news and gossip aggregator. And a month ago or two ago they modified the editorial policy to require routinely referring to Trump as “Trump, 79,” as in “Trump, 79, [did this or that].” Sometimes they say “Donald Trump, 79,” but they prefer the more dismissive construction.

Every news outfit should do this. They did it to Biden all the time; that wasn’t wrong, but it shouldn’t be exclusive to him.

In other Trump-related activities, Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer Laurent Gillieron took probably the most damning, widely distributed (and representative) photograph of Trump’s bizarre Davos excursion—the one where he looks like a brain-seeking zombie.

I mean, Gillieron is there to take pictures but I like to think he took this one with ill intent.

As usual, the U.S. press mostly blew it

Parker Molloy has an excellent site called The Present Age. Wednesday’s edition covered how Trump set up our news outlets to report as their main takeaway from his speech that he foreswore violence in his pursuit of Greenland.

The President of the United States just told a room full of world leaders and business executives that American military force would be “frankly unstoppable” against European allies. And then he said he wouldn’t do it. For now.

You won’t find this in any diplomacy textbook. It’s the language of a protection racket.

So how did reporters cover it?

NPR (original headline): “Trump says ‘I won’t use force’ to obtain Greenland in Davos speech”

ABC News: “Trump rules out using military force to acquire Greenland in Davos speech”

CNBC: “Trump calls for ‘immediate negotiations’ on Greenland, but rules out using force”

Molloy accurately characterizes much of the speech, and the Greenland-related parts particularly, as that of an extortionist.

Think about what he actually said. “We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force.” That “unless” is doing a lot of work. It’s a conditional. It means: if you don’t give me what I want, the “excessive strength” option remains available. The reassurance that follows doesn’t negate the threat. It completes it.

And there was another line in the speech that barely registered in most stories. Addressing the European leaders who have opposed his Greenland push, Trump said: “You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no, and we will remember.”

But none of our primary news outlets got it right. Molloy’s take is a good, short read which you should consume.

Music

Youth Lagoon, “Lucy Takes a Picture”

Bartees Strange, “Lie 95”

Maria Somerville, “Trip”

Lady Blackbird, “Like a Woman”

Sharon Van Etten, “Trouble”

Bonny Light Horseman, “I Know You Know”

Orlando Weeks and Rhian Teasdale, “Dig”

And that, comrades, is all I got. Please let me know and share it if you like it. If you’ve not already subscribed or considered doing so, please give it a thought. Free is good, paid is great.

Be well; take care.