SCOTUS | Feb. 28 | 8am-12pm ET

The Debt Collective is not waiting idly for courts to opine on student debt cancellation.

Of possible interest: Student Debt: Cancel it All or Don’t Bother

The President refuses to declare a climate emergency. But hey look, we’re getting EV vouchers!

The Washington Post is among media outlets reading the tea leaves in advance of tonight’s State of the Union address by President Joe Biden. It’s a good time to see what climate rhetoric the administration’s using and how it matches with what we’re getting. If you’re aware of the latest IPCC report findings, you’re way ahead of most US pundits and nearly all elected officials.

The WaPo column “At State of the Union, Biden may tout a climate law that Europe hates” focuses on a contretemps over materials sourcing that has surfaced in the wake of the Inflation Reduction Act’s passage. I’m not going to get into the details of the conflict, although it seems both foreseeable and avoidable. I don’t want to focus on it partly because I don’t know enough about it and partly because—like nearly all “clean energy” media coverage — it fails to question fundamental assumptions about resource and energy usage. It just starts from “WE WANT EEVEES!”

This part, however, got my undivided attention:

“A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on the climate elements of Biden’s speech, but in a fact sheet released Monday, the White House said the president would discuss how his economic plan is “transitioning the clean energy economy and lowering households’ energy costs.”

No no no no no Biden’s economic plan fucking well is not “transitioning the clean energy economy”. I will accept that statement when we start hearing schedules for decommissioning oil and gas infrastructure.

I will accept that—maybe—the Biden administration understands the stakes when it declares a climate emergency.

I will accept that it cares about household costs when it starts talking about the Green New Deal. Not the business-as-usual + renewables path laid out by the Inflation Reduction Act. The no-bullshit Green New Deal, with universal healthcare and housing and the whole shebang. An economic plan that addresses root causes of inflation instead of just raising interest rates and praying.

As it is, the White House can’t even bring themselves to say “just energy transition”, just “clean energy economy”.

As Adam McKay, director of DON’T LOOK UP said last fall, “these people do not get it.”

The bar is too low. We must raise our expectations.

We cannot let the state of the union remain oblivious.

Of possible interest: The “Inflation Reduction Act” is not the Green New Deal; Victory Speech for a Third-Party President

Two short-run left-of-liberal podcasts

Google Union protests purge of 12,000 workers

“Google laid off 12,000 employees last week saying it couldn’t afford these workers. The only problem? Google made nearly $14 billion in profit last quarter. Breakthrough News’s Kei Pritsker attended a protest by the Alphabet Workers Union, who are taking on one of the world’s largest corporations.”

An 80s great trends again

As the credits rolled on episode four of The Last of Us, my ears perked up. I love love love this song.

I’ve had this Sophie Ellis-Bextor cover in heavy rotation for the past few years:

Of possible interest: The Last of Us

So activists are pushing him.

Declare Emergency, which is part of the A22 global climate action network that also includes Just Stop Oil, just updated their site.

They’re recruiting people right now for spring climate action.

When the actions begin, everyone will have a choice: Punch up by demanding that President Biden declare a climate emergency, or punch down by howling about nonviolent protesters.

Keep an eye on those who choose the latter.

Of possible interest: The Climate Activist Bad-Faith FAQ, The State of the Union is Oblivious, The “Inflation Reduction Act” Is Not the Green New Deal

Alaska’s new state rep, a Dem, is serving up more of the same.

“In an interview Thursday, [Rep. Mary] Peltola argued that ConocoPhillips’s Willow project would provide crucial jobs and revenue for Alaska, a state whose struggling economy is heavily dependent on oil and gas.

“The Alaska economy “has no growth,” Peltola said. “We’re not in a slump. We’re not in a ditch. We’re in a crevasse. And it doesn’t seem like there’s any upswing.”

So the answer is to rubber-stamp more oil and gas?!

Hegemony’s trending in the lexicon. Why?

“To do all of this, they need to have the capitalist world all marching to America’s beat. And so the Cold War is more or less ginned up and anti-communism becomes the principle around which the US empire is organized. So it’s an empire, but it’s not an empire that says ‘we are an empire and we’re going out to rule the world.’ 

Instead, it is packaged as a defensive response to a terrible threat. And so communism is the perfect foil because you can basically castigate any left-wing idea that you don’t like as being part of this global communist plot, whether domestically or around the world. And they use this to legitimate, really, an attack on the whole world and also on the US population.” 

—Aaron Good

Good is this week’s guest on Macro and Cheese.

Of possible interest: Conspiracy

Served with a contrasting course in The Luddite Club

“Ralph welcomes professor Karen Levy, who talks to us about how regulations aimed at making trucking safer have been turned into a tool of corporate surveillance as chronicled in her book “Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance.” And on the opposite side of the tech spectrum, high school senior, Logan Lane joins to tell us how she and her friends have liberated themselves from their iPhones and social media by forming a group they call “The Luddite Club.”

Did Michael Moore reassess *again* in 2020?

After utterly clowning himself in 2004, it looks like Michael Moore reassessed at least once, in 2020.

Update: I’m 2min in and really glad I gave this a chance. I had no idea of Moore’s personal history with Nader. Moore’s 2004 performance with Bill Maher was still clown shit, but this context is super-useful. Disapproving of a passion project like ROGER AND ME is poor leadership.

Of possible interest: “Spoiler or Scapegoat?”