@user-767784011: Agreed. It's something a lot of people on the left have ceded to antiscientific but well-meaning social ecology types.  We have reactors that can run on what was previously considered "nuclear waste"!  They are impervious to meltdowns, and nuclear is the only zero carbon method of providing baseline power unless we dam every single river a dozen times.

npr just had a story about, basically, "Biden has appointed all these fossil fuel executives to his cabinet. And that's a problem because these CLIMATE ACTIVISTS don't like it. But other than that it's totally fine." And then the same hour they had a story about measuring sea level rise. It got me thinking that npr's a pretty good example of what these guys are describing.

We are not serious about this issue because the solution is politically impossible under current framework - renewables and offsets won't be sufficient. The whole global economy needs to delever away from consumer consumption growth model.

We take a look at the recent hubbub surrounding the USPS, what motivates the drive toward privatization, and the larger ideological underpinnings of the Libertarian revolution.

Episode 94: Koch'd Up (Part I)

Waiting tables. Bartending. Hospitality, food delivery, beauty salons, rideshare driving. The service industry, as anyone who has worked in it knows all too well, is notorious for relying on tipping to undercut employee wages and deputize individual customers to determine how much money a worker should be able to take home. Amid increasing recognition of these injustices, a number of campaigns and new laws surfaced, pre-pandemic, to abolish or meaningfully reduce the practice of tipping.

But despite the best efforts of these campaigns, tipping remains the industry - and American society - standard. Indeed, the perverse logic of tipping has broadened into an ever-present 'snitch economy' - an ecosystem of tactics like mystery shoppers and Uber and Yelp rating systems designed to police the behavior of workers while outsourcing the costs of said supervision to customers and other workers. 

In the process, our snitch economy pits those being surveilled against those doing the watching, and the judging. Through a ubiquitous public-facing network of rating and reviewing other people’s labor - and often the behavioral disposition they exhibit while working - people with otherwise very little power are elevated to temporary positions of authority over others, fostering a culture of surveillance rather than one of solidarity. The snitch economy serves the dual purpose of not only giving working people a false sense of power when they’re the ones being served, but also reducing millions of human interactions to opportunities for not only snap judgments, but subjective rewards and retribution.

In this episode, we detail how businesses in the service industry, bolstered by friendly media, use tactics like tipping, mystery shoppers, and ubiquitous ratings systems in order to turn us all into petty, mean, busybodies carrying out the agenda of capital with nothing to show for it but a fleeting sense of self-satisfaction. 

Our guest is writer, editor and agitator Vicky Osterweil.

Ep. 118 - The Snitch Economy: How Rating Apps and Tipping Pit Working People Against Each Other

In this News Brief follow up to Episode 115 on Hollywood's symbiotic relationship with the Pentagon and CIA, we spoke with director and screenwriter Oliver Stone about his experience making mainstream motion pictures about often taboo subjects like the American imperialism and war crimes.

News Brief - Hollywood and the Pentagon: A Follow Up Conversation with Oliver Stone

Will talks to journalist Ollie Vargas about the victory for MAS in Bolivia, how it came about, and what it means for the future of the country.

Follow Ollie @OVargas52
His colleague Camila is @camilateleSUR

They contribute to Kawsachun News:
https://twitter.com/KawsachunNews
https://www.facebook.com/KawsachunNews/

Chapo Trap House

Bonus: Will interviews Ollie Vargas about Bolivia

“Climate change is real.” “Three words — science, science, and science.” “From coastal towns to rural farms to urban centers, climate change poses an existential threat.” “Now it is time to put our coalition to work and pass bold climate solutions.”

These are just some of the many statements — all of them true — that the U.S. public routinely hears from its Democratic Party leaders, expressing their unbridled commitment to acting on the ever-urgent issue of climate change.

But there is a tremendous gulf between Democratic leaders’ claims to believe climate change is an existential threat and their actual actions, which are the actions of people who do not believe climate change must be urgently and robustly tackled. Since climate change has ascended from thoroughly ignored to occasionally acknowledged issue in US political discourse and elections, Democratic leaders have for the most part only been willing to push for small-scale policy solutions — a carbon-capture tax credit here, a fossil-fuel subsidy cut there.

These solutions are almost always incremental and market-based, and these same Democrats refuse to embrace what’s actually needed: keep fossil fuels in the ground, and mobilize public resources so that we can make the broad social changes we need to address the climate crisis. The most powerful Democrats, people like Nancy Pelosi, have not only steered clear of more far-reaching policies, but have actively undermined them, as seen most clearly with her opposition to the Green New Deal — often under the guise of debt scolding.

When Democratic Party claims about the dire consequences of climate change are not matched by robust and necessary policy proposals, one can only assume one of three realities is true: (1) they do not care about the disastrous inevitably of environmental collapse, (2) they don’t truly believe the science on climate change in general, or (3) they’re simply hopeless and spineless. In any case, the resultant inertia amounts to an insidious form of climate denialism in its own right.

On this episode, part one of two tackling climate change, we discuss the net effect of this chasm - what we’re calling “the Climate Rhetoric-Policy Gap” - and how, from a messaging standpoint, it reads false and leads many to believe that climate change may be real in some abstract sense, but mostly not a matter of urgent moral importance.

Our guest is Basav Sen, Cli­mate Jus­tice Project Direc­tor at the Insti­tute for Pol­i­cy Stud­ies.

Ep. 121 - Climate Chaos (Part I):  How the Gap Between Liberal Rhetoric & Policy Promotes Denialism

We take the 2020 election cycle in for one final tune-up at the Beltway Garage. Featuring Virgil and Matt’s official final predictions for Presidential and Senate races, plus predictions of how an indecisive election night might pan out.

466 - Beltway Garage: Endgame (10/27/20)

We’re joined by Dave Anthony and Josh Olson of The West Wing Thing podcast to discuss Aarons Sorkin’s latest attempt to recontextualize American politics as people getting epically owned by logic in court rooms: The Trial of the Chicago 7.

Check out The West Wing Thing here: https://westwingthing.libsyn.com/
And check out their West Wing Reunion special, featuring many Chapos, on their patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/TheWestWingThing

UNLOCKED: 465 - Sorkinverse: Rise of the 7 feat. Dave Anthony and Josh Olson (10/23/20)

Welcome to TrueAnon’s inaugural Election Special 2020: Who Care edition. In this episode we discuss all relevant election news including: foot jobs, color revolutions, Soviet military technology, Steve Bannon, crack pipes, the lying fake news media, and Brace comes out as a Dengist. Happy Election everyone!!! #VoteTrueNoMatterWho

soundcloud.com/media-roots/bannon-tom-cotton-bill-gertz-anti-china-neocon-propaganda-in-the-wake-of-covid19-part-1-of-2

soundcloud.com/media-roots/the-committee-on-the-present-danger-china-as-dangerous-as-pnac

soundcloud.com/media-roots/dnc-republican-pandering-rnc-fascist-reality-show-bannon-indicted-on-fraud

Episode 114: Vote True No Matter Who

In this Sight Unseen film review, we recap the ideological currents and industry backers of J.D. Vance's white trash whisperer shtick and how it blames everyone for Appalachian poverty but corporations and Republicans.

News Brief - Review: Netflix's Charles Murray-Themed Hallmark Film 'Hillbilly Elegy'

In this News Brief, we talk with journalist Ashoka Jegroo about Giuliani's long history of racism, white liberal New Yorkers providing cover for his carceral sociopathy because they liked the results, and the pathetic, inevitable final chapter of the former New York mayor.

News Brief: It's Not a "Fall From Grace", This Has Always Been Who Giuliani Was

A woman falls prey to QAnon along with child custody hucksters “E-Clause” and ends up committing murder.

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Episode music by Nick Sena (http://nicksenamusic.com), Doom Chakra Tapes (http://doomchakratapes.bandcamp.com) and Matthew De La Torre (http://implantcreative.com)

Sources and primary documents can be found here: https://bit.ly/33eFtzm

Episode 118: The Tragic Tale of Neely Blanchard

Citations Needed is a podcast about the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit. It is hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson, and produced by Florence Barrau-Adams.

Ep. 121 - Climate Chaos (Part I): How the Gap Between Liberal Rhetoric & Policy Promotes Denialism

Citations Needed Podcast

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