Look at the comments on this linked Facebook post:
How Did The End Of The World Become Old News?
(the article referred to in the post is here.)
It’s a very serious post about the human species walking inexorably into a torturous extinction. When someone asks “what can we do when we feel powerless?” The thread becomes about praying and whether you are vegan. I thought it was sarcastic, at first, but they’re serious. If everyone would pray we’d “manifest rain to put out the fires”.
Kijjiketchme Southern-Fox
“Is the problem really that we don’t notice, don’t care, and don’t speak up? My feed is full of the news about the Amazon. I think it’s more accurate to say, the problem is that we have no way to stop it. We have no control over our political institutions and no way to actually re-structure capitalism. Seriously, what can an ordinary person do??”
Si Chung
”Kijjiketchme Southern-Fox Pray mass prayer and sincere positive meditation sensing hope and light to shine into the shadows...if everybody else does this...then we will manifest rain to put out the fire..🙏”
Kaysie Meehan
“Are you vegan?”
If you aren’t vegan, it’s you’re fault. Those of us who are can righteously blame you.
Liberalism and the focus on “individual responsibility” paves the path to extinction. The Amazon is burning and people really believe it’s because we didn’t pray enough. Or weren’t “optimistic” enough. Or ate meat.
Our individual responsibility was to not allow an elite class to have so much power over us and the earth’s resources that we can’t stop them from driving us to extinction. Our individual responsibility is to recognize that our personal choices aren’t making a difference because the overwhelming source of destruction is in manufacturing and militarism. Our individual responsibility was to revolt against capitalism, militarism, authoritarianism, hierarchy, greed, and an owner-based society. We do not own the earth and it is letting us know.
It’s been made abundantly clear that your choice of food, your personal choice of transportation, your consumer choices and your recycling efforts have had less than zero impact on the impending climate crisis. Military operations and industrial practices are the culprits. We can never fix the eco damage we’ve done without addressing those. (Stop funding the fucking military! Don’t allow anyone into office who will. That’s a moral imperative, but in an amoral world, no one can put it into practice.)
We don’t have fewer plastic bottles because people opted for reusable bottles. The way to end the production of plastic bottles was to end ownership of water source, maker clean water freely available to all and ban industries from using plastic bottles. This approach needs to be taken to everything that is produced. End the ownership of land, minerals, plants and animals. Ban any production practices which cause harm to the ecosystem. Ban ownership of any of earth’s resources. Demand equal access to them. Force a shift to renewable energy. End militarism. Consumers then won’t be stuck with a devil’s dilemma for every choice they make. We’d be far more motivated to figure out how to work together to generate mutual sustainability, as there would be almost no avenues for personal greed.
Whipping up personal guilt over consumer choices has simply abetted the extinction process. It erodes solidarity. It redirects people’s energy and attention from where it needs to be placed. It shifts the burden of guilt to the least privileged, because they have fewer resources for change and have more psychological damage from surviving in a system of multiple forms of oppression. If you’re judging other people or shaming them over their personal consumption or habits, you’re an obstacle to addressing the real problem.
The whole planet is dying. People keeping taking pot shots at the least powerful, calling for magical thinking such as “optimism” and praying for rain.
There are a few families and handful of corporations who are the main drivers behind all of this. We need to eliminate them. All that “non-violent” talk about peaceful political action ushered in the deaths of billions. Nature knows that to stop intransigent destructive behavior you have to take merciless action. Kill a few to make life sustainable for the rest. There is no natural model of avoiding death of others in hopes that they won’t continue doing harm. That’s a construct imparted to us by those enabling the power elite.
I’ve been accused of wanting to blow everything up. Everything is blowing up. This is what I wanted us prevent. Saying that those of us who have called for resisting capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy and authoritarianism are idealists or not pragmatic or harbingers of chaos is the biggest case of gaslighting of all.
Thinking capitalism is humane or sustainable is idealistic. Thwarting those who would offer better visions and work toward more sustainable social structures is not pragmatic. Claiming that capitalism and faux democracy is the best we can do is the harbinger of the chaos we’re headed into. It’s an ideology based on not trusting human beings to find a way to live sustainably together. Well, guess what? That was a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s a construct filled with lies and a world where every8ne keeps,on trusting liars. (How much evidence of corporate media lying to us do we need before we stop giving them any credence? Stop watching and reading those gaslighting generals!)
Thanks to all those who wouldn’t stand on any principles, at all (can’t even get people to agree to not vote for politicians who fund genocide), we’ll all be facing a horrifying few decades before we’re finally eliminated. The ecosystem gave us a lot of chances and plenty of warnings. Now, it’s going to exterminate us because we wouldn’t give up our selfish greed and live mutually with the rest of the species here.
So long and thanks for all the gaslighting. But, at least the dolphins were going somewhere better. *sigh*