Biden may well lose the 2024 election for his steadfast support of the slaughter of innocent Palestinians in Gaza by the ultra-right Israeli government. Although I am a life long Democrat, I don't agree with his support for war crimes.
I also think Biden will lose the election bc this govt is enabling Israel to commit genocide in Gaza. I cannot vote for someone who is supplying Israel with arms
What do you think about Israeli women getting raped and their genitals literally mutilated by HAMAS? And no, Biden is not enabling Israel to commit genocide. I heard him tell Netanyahoo that he had to follow the "laws of war" which do not permit genocide.
The Crucial Years is about addressing global heating, a topic on which all of his subscribers agree. Would you please remove your comment that will only distract us from what McKibben and presumably the rest of us are trying to address here?
Hey, Ron! They want to de-platform you! Consider it an honor. Congratulations!
A careful reader will note that Bill has endorsed Biden, both previously and in this very post. A comment pointing out Biden's weakness as a candidate is relevant. And Bill's endorsement of an incumbent with a net negative climate record is a puzzle.
That is why it is so important to vote in the PRIMARY. If he gets to November, we're doomed either way. And vote for good candidates down-ballot as well, because those set the context within which a president works. But in the presidential primary, vote for Marianne Williamson, even if you can think of no better reason than that a good showing by her may force Biden out and open the door for other candidates you like better. Remember that LBJ won the New Hampshire primary without even campaigning, yet the close result was enough to make him drop out.
(My personal interest: I like Marianne Williamson quite a lot.)
If you think Marianne Williamson would have a chance in hell,
A bridge o'er to Brooklyn's incredibly swell
And to you, for just two thousand dollars, I'll sell.
More importantly, Biden is the best president of my lifetime, and I was born the first summer of the Eisenhower Administration. And that's despite the fact that he has done poorly on my pet issue--because he's done so well on everything else.
Still more importantly, this is supposed to be a discussion about dealing with global warming, not presidential politics.
I would have agreed with you, almost, until recently; since I broke with Biden on one big issue, I've come to realize that the sense of disquiet I kept feeling, about voting rights, the climate and other things, could no longer be suppressed. Biden has done a good job on the economy; he fought off the Fed's attempts to create a recession. I will give him that. In everything else I can think of, he has been a word-breaking disappointment. And I'm a few months older than you, so listen to your elders!
As for Marianne Williamson not having a chance, that remains to be seen. In any event, I'm sure you recall that Gene McCarthy did not win the nomination but he still had an impact. If Marianne can accomplish what he did, and candidates stay out of hotel kitchens, good things may happen.
I would have argued with you, but you were so nice about disagreeing, that I'd happily get coffee with you if you're in the Boston area. I disagree with you about Biden; he's the best pres of our lifetimes IMO. I learned over the years that no president gives you everything you want, but Biden has given me everything except for my pet issue, and I'm just going to be happy with that.
Gene McCarthy would have been a major step towards changing the world, had RFK not been assassinated. RFK had an amazing transformation in his last years, and would probably have been the best pres of the century, if not ever, had he lived.
Talk is cheap, cutting off all aide to Israel is effective. ACT now with STOP all weapons and aide and military advice and support. All other aide stopped until real negotiations begin and war will end with release of all hostages and Prisoners called " administrative" detainees from Palestine who have never been charged or had hearings for any crime, now in prisons or currently detained or disappeared..
Bill McKibben's posts are about dealing with global warming. You, and Ron, directly above you are bringing in a very volatile topic that will distract many of us away from the point of this post. Presumably those of us who subscribe to Mr. McKibben are all interested in cooling the planet. Lets cool the rhetoric by leaving the Middle East out of this discussion.
It is a fact that many voters are horrified that our govt is complicit in Israel's genocide in Gaza. They are saying they will not vote for Biden unless the US makes aide to Israel contingent on an immediate permanent ceasefire. You cannot make this fact go away by ignoring it. We need to discuss this and figure out a way to deal with it. Also people are becoming disillusioned with environmental movements that will not speak out against genocide. If we want people to listen to us on the climate emergency, we need to speak out against colonialism and genocide. Silence allows crimes against humanity to continue.
After reading all the threads, I am encouraged by most of the intelligence. But completely dismayed by the division that is rampant. No one is 100% correct and absolutism is a zero sum game. Or you can just hop on over to fascism. You can't cancel yourself out of an election or climate change or the brutality of the situation in Gaza. By blaming, saying no and dismissive commentary we will careen into a world none of us want. I don't have concrete answers. Anyone who does is kidding themselves or 'gaslighting' the public. But c'mon people we have to come together, even if we don't all agree. Yes protest is our right in our democracy, but compromise is another part of living in one. Love or at least don't cancel your neighbor. Peace out.
I know it is scarry, but if Biden is greenlighting LNG and other fossil fuel options like never before and not supporting a cease fire in Gaza, sending weapons and supporting more war (the biggest distroyer of life on the planet and of greenhouse gasses,) peace and environmental groups might support someone else.
I write Bidden every day, signed dozens of requests to take the actions that would allow us to get rid of de Joy. Nothing changes.
Agreed Joyce! Discussions about the need to stop fossil fuels absolutely should include the war machine. It is unconscionable what this administration is doing to support the mass killing of innocents and the destruction of entire cities. Not only are FFs used in the production and use of the materiel but they’ll be used in rebuilding and reconstruction after the war--and so the cycle repeats. You cannot talk about fossil fuels and not mention the military industrial complex.
Biden is by far the best President of my lifetime, which began the first summer of the Eisenhower Administration. He hasn't done everything I'd like, but he's done so much more good than any previous president I've been aware of.
Furthermore, if we get Republicans, our country will stop trying to reduce global warming emissions, and if Trump should be voted in again, we will lose our Democracy making it impossible to make the changes we all want to make. We are truly living in frightening times, and the best thing we can do over the next 11 months to mitigate that and global warming is to do our utmost to make sure Biden is re-elected.
Anyone who thinks some dream candidate is going to replace him is dreaming.
And the Middle East is a complex situation, but Biden is doing the best any president could do with what is a bad situation, and I'm very glad he's the one, and not any of the presidents or candidates who preceeded him. He has more experience than almost any politician ever, and he has learned from that experience, unlike many.
Your writing to Biden on the LNG is a good thing to do, and if you can get friends to do so, that's great. As for the Middle East, I think Biden knows better than any of us what he needs to do, and he is doing it. Signing of actions, among other things, that urge getting rid of de Joy are certainly also good things to do.
There are other thigns you could do as well, for example to ensure we keep our Democracy, and I would urge you to subscribe to Robert Hubbell to get more of that (he's on substack). You can do so for free, although to be able to comment you have to pay, but I think you'd find him helpful.
Despite claiming throughout the 2020 campaign that he would not allow any new on or off-shore drilling and no subsidies for fossil fuels, once in office he approved the Sea Port Oil Terminal, the Alaska LNG Project, the Willow Project and he has re-opened new drilling both on and off-shore. As McKibben states in this article both the Biden and Trump administrations have granted fossil fuel companies every permit they've asked for, and there is so much oil pouring out through the gulf now that it wipes out all of the emission reductions made since the turn of the century.
Combined with...
Biden's abject submission to every demand that Netanyahu has made, thereby making himself guilty of ongoing war crimes...
and how he forced an end to the rail workers strike denying them sick leave...
his botched and horribly tragic withdrawal from Afghanistan...
his public humiliation of Anita Hill which helped put Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, the mass incarceration law which bears his name, his leadership of the Catfood Commission, his history of favoring laws that would place huge debt on the shoulders of students, and numerous charges of sexual abuse against him which were all quickly swept under the rug by the Democratic party once he entered the 2020 race...
He has accepted more money from the pharmaceutical, health insurance, corporate hospital industries, commercial banking and defense than any other politician in history.
He fought the plank in the 2020 Dem platform to end fossil fuel subsidies and the plank to ban fracking.
He voted for: NAFTA, the Iraq War (c), the Defense of Marriage Act, the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
Despite all of that, Mr. McKibben, for whom I still have very high regard, tries to use the 'lesser of two evils' logic to try to make us believe that we 'owe' Biden our vote.
Thanks for the seeds of hope re LNG, the visionary strategy for Biden to lead and inspire young people, and the brilliant analytics of Taylor Swift’s lyrics as a metaphor for environmental action. You rock, Bill!
From what I understand, a big reason Biden is sinking in the polls is that he's vetoing resolutions at the UN for a ceasefire. I wish more environmental movements would speak out about this.
Not only is the genocide immoral, but military equipment, wars and bombs are huge polluters. It's one of those social and environmental issues that we need to get behind.
Unfortunately it's more complicated than you're making it out to be. From the NYT:
The United States on Friday vetoed a United Nations resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has launched hundreds of strikes, relief efforts were faltering and people were growing so desperate for basic necessities that some were stoning and raiding aid convoys.
The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, and most members of the Security Council had backed the measure, saying that the humanitarian catastrophe in the coastal enclave where 2.2 million Palestinians live could threaten world stability.
But the United States, which is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, blocked the resolution, arguing that Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas attacks. The vote was 13 to 1, with Britain abstaining and some U.S. allies like France voting for a cease-fire.
Robert A. Wood, who was representing the United States on the Council, said after the veto that the resolution for an unconditional and immediate cease-fire “was not only unrealistic, but dangerous — it would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on Oct. 7.”
The failed resolution came as the United Nations reported that it was struggling to deliver essential goods like food, medicine and cooking gas to desperate civilians who have packed into shelters and tent cities after two months of war.
“Civil order is breaking down,” Thomas White, the Gaza director of the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, wrote Friday on social media. He added: “Some aid convoys are being looted and UN vehicles stoned. Society is on the brink of full-blown collapse.”
Mr. White spoke a day after the Biden administration warned that the Israeli military had not done enough to reduce harm to civilians in Gaza.
“It is imperative — it remains imperative — that Israel put a premium on civilian protection,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters in Washington on Thursday. “And there does remain a gap between exactly what I said when I was there, the intent to protect civilians, and the actual results that we’re seeing on the ground.”
Fighting has been raging in southern Gaza’s largest city, Khan Younis, and in northern Gaza, where Israeli troops have focused on the Shajaiye neighborhood of Gaza City, and Jabaliya, a densely populated neighborhood north of the city, where they say Hamas operatives continue to hide.
An Israeli government spokesman, Eylon Levy, said that Israel had been taking steps to keep civilians safe “despite attempts by their own leaders to deliberately sacrifice them as human shields.”
“That’s why we published a very detailed map to help civilians evacuate; it’s why we surrendered the element of surprise by urging the evacuation of areas before moving in,” Mr. Levy said. He added, “We believe we are setting the highest possible standard for the minimization of civilian casualties in counterterrorism operations in urban areas.”
And Biden is actually rising in the polls, according to Simon Rosenberg, who follows this stuff closely on his substack. (Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a URL, but if you'll send me your email, at HolzmanDC@outlook.com I'll forward you his substack from today where he goes into detail on that.)
You can not be a warmonger where your actions are for the geopolitics centered on dirty energy -- engaging in the activity that causes the most degradation to the environment (war and military aggression) -- and, think you’re doing right by the environment. That’s too much cognitive dissonance.
If the president does the right thing in the right spirit on LNG exports, he’ll be able to say he’s done more than president before him not just on clean energy but also on the dirty stuff. He’ll be the leader he promised to be.”
He’s already done the wrong thing over LNG by pulling Ukraine away from peace negotiations with Russia -- before and after Putin’s invasion. And, he helped Manchin scuttle much better legislation.
On top of that, he made promises to the Left he hasn’t kept. And, actually let us know how much he is not a labor president and not for the Medicare option. “Nothing has fundamentally changed.”
The environment can not be disengaged from all other matters of Peace and Justice. Fragmentation of policy does not lead to the mitigation of climate change and the restoration of our ecological life support system. If you want to win, you must realize that Biden will not achieve that victory. You can not be a warmonger where your actions are for the geopolitics centered on dirty energy -- engaging in the activity that causes the most degradation to the environment (war and military aggression) -- and, think you’re doing right by the environment. That’s too much cognitive dissonance.
Wake up and support candidates who get that all progressive policies are tied to the environment. Biden will not take us where we need to go -- and he is hemorrhaging support.
Bill, with all due respect your column overlooks the elephant in the room. If the environmental movement wants to re-elect Biden, he must be convinced to immediately reverse course on Palestine. It may already be too late to save him, frankly...but it's essential we try.
"Taylor Swift flies her private jet everywhere and threw a concert in lethal heat index numbers, and at least one fan did die, and people were not allowed to bring their own water into the concert and were charged $2 for tiny cups. Her fans are insane and if I were anyone of note they would be calling for blood for me pointing all of this out, just as surely as any of Trump's deranged supporters would go after anyone outside their cult for suggesting the 2020 election was legit. She's a gaslighter too."
You've already announced your support for Biden so that he has no incentive to court it. And you then quote Taylor Swift on how to end an abusive relationship. Am I missing something or are you?
Because 12-year-old me never really left, I have to point out that the LNG tanker looks like two butts mooning. And, that it is, literally, passing gas. 🍑💨🍑💨
There is nothing simple about an "LNG" facility. They become multi-faceted petro chemical industries with dangerous, volatile chemical production and complex air quality and water quality, danger from weather events and real danger from sabotage potential. You may no longer HAVE a backyard if this is built in your backyard. WE do not need this energy in the USA and other nations can build out other, cheaper green energy for carbon free and lower cost choices for the future.
DON'T cancel the activism or the march on Washington. Just make it in strong SUPPORT of honest evaluation of the effects of the terminals. If you read the Parrot and the Igloo, or any of the other climate denial histories, this could just a the point that we all get thrown off guard and off track. Get those rocking chairs out !!!!!!
Biden may well lose the 2024 election for his steadfast support of the slaughter of innocent Palestinians in Gaza by the ultra-right Israeli government. Although I am a life long Democrat, I don't agree with his support for war crimes.
I also think Biden will lose the election bc this govt is enabling Israel to commit genocide in Gaza. I cannot vote for someone who is supplying Israel with arms
What do you think about Israeli women getting raped and their genitals literally mutilated by HAMAS? And no, Biden is not enabling Israel to commit genocide. I heard him tell Netanyahoo that he had to follow the "laws of war" which do not permit genocide.
https://deborahcopaken.substack.com/p/cest-la-vie-cest-la-guerre?r=1exgz
The Crucial Years is about addressing global heating, a topic on which all of his subscribers agree. Would you please remove your comment that will only distract us from what McKibben and presumably the rest of us are trying to address here?
Hey, Ron! They want to de-platform you! Consider it an honor. Congratulations!
A careful reader will note that Bill has endorsed Biden, both previously and in this very post. A comment pointing out Biden's weakness as a candidate is relevant. And Bill's endorsement of an incumbent with a net negative climate record is a puzzle.
That is why it is so important to vote in the PRIMARY. If he gets to November, we're doomed either way. And vote for good candidates down-ballot as well, because those set the context within which a president works. But in the presidential primary, vote for Marianne Williamson, even if you can think of no better reason than that a good showing by her may force Biden out and open the door for other candidates you like better. Remember that LBJ won the New Hampshire primary without even campaigning, yet the close result was enough to make him drop out.
(My personal interest: I like Marianne Williamson quite a lot.)
If you think Marianne Williamson would have a chance in hell,
A bridge o'er to Brooklyn's incredibly swell
And to you, for just two thousand dollars, I'll sell.
More importantly, Biden is the best president of my lifetime, and I was born the first summer of the Eisenhower Administration. And that's despite the fact that he has done poorly on my pet issue--because he's done so well on everything else.
Still more importantly, this is supposed to be a discussion about dealing with global warming, not presidential politics.
I would have agreed with you, almost, until recently; since I broke with Biden on one big issue, I've come to realize that the sense of disquiet I kept feeling, about voting rights, the climate and other things, could no longer be suppressed. Biden has done a good job on the economy; he fought off the Fed's attempts to create a recession. I will give him that. In everything else I can think of, he has been a word-breaking disappointment. And I'm a few months older than you, so listen to your elders!
As for Marianne Williamson not having a chance, that remains to be seen. In any event, I'm sure you recall that Gene McCarthy did not win the nomination but he still had an impact. If Marianne can accomplish what he did, and candidates stay out of hotel kitchens, good things may happen.
I would have argued with you, but you were so nice about disagreeing, that I'd happily get coffee with you if you're in the Boston area. I disagree with you about Biden; he's the best pres of our lifetimes IMO. I learned over the years that no president gives you everything you want, but Biden has given me everything except for my pet issue, and I'm just going to be happy with that.
Gene McCarthy would have been a major step towards changing the world, had RFK not been assassinated. RFK had an amazing transformation in his last years, and would probably have been the best pres of the century, if not ever, had he lived.
Talk is cheap, cutting off all aide to Israel is effective. ACT now with STOP all weapons and aide and military advice and support. All other aide stopped until real negotiations begin and war will end with release of all hostages and Prisoners called " administrative" detainees from Palestine who have never been charged or had hearings for any crime, now in prisons or currently detained or disappeared..
Bill McKibben's posts are about dealing with global warming. You, and Ron, directly above you are bringing in a very volatile topic that will distract many of us away from the point of this post. Presumably those of us who subscribe to Mr. McKibben are all interested in cooling the planet. Lets cool the rhetoric by leaving the Middle East out of this discussion.
It is a fact that many voters are horrified that our govt is complicit in Israel's genocide in Gaza. They are saying they will not vote for Biden unless the US makes aide to Israel contingent on an immediate permanent ceasefire. You cannot make this fact go away by ignoring it. We need to discuss this and figure out a way to deal with it. Also people are becoming disillusioned with environmental movements that will not speak out against genocide. If we want people to listen to us on the climate emergency, we need to speak out against colonialism and genocide. Silence allows crimes against humanity to continue.
This post is about CLIMATE; please stick to the topic at hand. Write about your concerns about genocide elsewhere.
After reading all the threads, I am encouraged by most of the intelligence. But completely dismayed by the division that is rampant. No one is 100% correct and absolutism is a zero sum game. Or you can just hop on over to fascism. You can't cancel yourself out of an election or climate change or the brutality of the situation in Gaza. By blaming, saying no and dismissive commentary we will careen into a world none of us want. I don't have concrete answers. Anyone who does is kidding themselves or 'gaslighting' the public. But c'mon people we have to come together, even if we don't all agree. Yes protest is our right in our democracy, but compromise is another part of living in one. Love or at least don't cancel your neighbor. Peace out.
Thank you Deborah, for such a wise post. We need it.
Thank you Bill for this well thought out advice. Let's hope the Wh House listens.
I know it is scarry, but if Biden is greenlighting LNG and other fossil fuel options like never before and not supporting a cease fire in Gaza, sending weapons and supporting more war (the biggest distroyer of life on the planet and of greenhouse gasses,) peace and environmental groups might support someone else.
I write Bidden every day, signed dozens of requests to take the actions that would allow us to get rid of de Joy. Nothing changes.
Agreed Joyce! Discussions about the need to stop fossil fuels absolutely should include the war machine. It is unconscionable what this administration is doing to support the mass killing of innocents and the destruction of entire cities. Not only are FFs used in the production and use of the materiel but they’ll be used in rebuilding and reconstruction after the war--and so the cycle repeats. You cannot talk about fossil fuels and not mention the military industrial complex.
Biden is by far the best President of my lifetime, which began the first summer of the Eisenhower Administration. He hasn't done everything I'd like, but he's done so much more good than any previous president I've been aware of.
Furthermore, if we get Republicans, our country will stop trying to reduce global warming emissions, and if Trump should be voted in again, we will lose our Democracy making it impossible to make the changes we all want to make. We are truly living in frightening times, and the best thing we can do over the next 11 months to mitigate that and global warming is to do our utmost to make sure Biden is re-elected.
Anyone who thinks some dream candidate is going to replace him is dreaming.
And the Middle East is a complex situation, but Biden is doing the best any president could do with what is a bad situation, and I'm very glad he's the one, and not any of the presidents or candidates who preceeded him. He has more experience than almost any politician ever, and he has learned from that experience, unlike many.
Your writing to Biden on the LNG is a good thing to do, and if you can get friends to do so, that's great. As for the Middle East, I think Biden knows better than any of us what he needs to do, and he is doing it. Signing of actions, among other things, that urge getting rid of de Joy are certainly also good things to do.
There are other thigns you could do as well, for example to ensure we keep our Democracy, and I would urge you to subscribe to Robert Hubbell to get more of that (he's on substack). You can do so for free, although to be able to comment you have to pay, but I think you'd find him helpful.
Despite claiming throughout the 2020 campaign that he would not allow any new on or off-shore drilling and no subsidies for fossil fuels, once in office he approved the Sea Port Oil Terminal, the Alaska LNG Project, the Willow Project and he has re-opened new drilling both on and off-shore. As McKibben states in this article both the Biden and Trump administrations have granted fossil fuel companies every permit they've asked for, and there is so much oil pouring out through the gulf now that it wipes out all of the emission reductions made since the turn of the century.
Combined with...
Biden's abject submission to every demand that Netanyahu has made, thereby making himself guilty of ongoing war crimes...
and how he forced an end to the rail workers strike denying them sick leave...
his botched and horribly tragic withdrawal from Afghanistan...
his public humiliation of Anita Hill which helped put Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, the mass incarceration law which bears his name, his leadership of the Catfood Commission, his history of favoring laws that would place huge debt on the shoulders of students, and numerous charges of sexual abuse against him which were all quickly swept under the rug by the Democratic party once he entered the 2020 race...
He has accepted more money from the pharmaceutical, health insurance, corporate hospital industries, commercial banking and defense than any other politician in history.
He fought the plank in the 2020 Dem platform to end fossil fuel subsidies and the plank to ban fracking.
He voted for: NAFTA, the Iraq War (c), the Defense of Marriage Act, the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
Despite all of that, Mr. McKibben, for whom I still have very high regard, tries to use the 'lesser of two evils' logic to try to make us believe that we 'owe' Biden our vote.
Sad and pathetic.
Thanks for the seeds of hope re LNG, the visionary strategy for Biden to lead and inspire young people, and the brilliant analytics of Taylor Swift’s lyrics as a metaphor for environmental action. You rock, Bill!
I hope LNG production is reduced.
From what I understand, a big reason Biden is sinking in the polls is that he's vetoing resolutions at the UN for a ceasefire. I wish more environmental movements would speak out about this.
Not only is the genocide immoral, but military equipment, wars and bombs are huge polluters. It's one of those social and environmental issues that we need to get behind.
Unfortunately it's more complicated than you're making it out to be. From the NYT:
The United States on Friday vetoed a United Nations resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has launched hundreds of strikes, relief efforts were faltering and people were growing so desperate for basic necessities that some were stoning and raiding aid convoys.
The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, and most members of the Security Council had backed the measure, saying that the humanitarian catastrophe in the coastal enclave where 2.2 million Palestinians live could threaten world stability.
But the United States, which is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, blocked the resolution, arguing that Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas attacks. The vote was 13 to 1, with Britain abstaining and some U.S. allies like France voting for a cease-fire.
Robert A. Wood, who was representing the United States on the Council, said after the veto that the resolution for an unconditional and immediate cease-fire “was not only unrealistic, but dangerous — it would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on Oct. 7.”
The failed resolution came as the United Nations reported that it was struggling to deliver essential goods like food, medicine and cooking gas to desperate civilians who have packed into shelters and tent cities after two months of war.
“Civil order is breaking down,” Thomas White, the Gaza director of the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, wrote Friday on social media. He added: “Some aid convoys are being looted and UN vehicles stoned. Society is on the brink of full-blown collapse.”
Mr. White spoke a day after the Biden administration warned that the Israeli military had not done enough to reduce harm to civilians in Gaza.
“It is imperative — it remains imperative — that Israel put a premium on civilian protection,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters in Washington on Thursday. “And there does remain a gap between exactly what I said when I was there, the intent to protect civilians, and the actual results that we’re seeing on the ground.”
Fighting has been raging in southern Gaza’s largest city, Khan Younis, and in northern Gaza, where Israeli troops have focused on the Shajaiye neighborhood of Gaza City, and Jabaliya, a densely populated neighborhood north of the city, where they say Hamas operatives continue to hide.
An Israeli government spokesman, Eylon Levy, said that Israel had been taking steps to keep civilians safe “despite attempts by their own leaders to deliberately sacrifice them as human shields.”
“That’s why we published a very detailed map to help civilians evacuate; it’s why we surrendered the element of surprise by urging the evacuation of areas before moving in,” Mr. Levy said. He added, “We believe we are setting the highest possible standard for the minimization of civilian casualties in counterterrorism operations in urban areas.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-gaza-aid.html
And Biden is actually rising in the polls, according to Simon Rosenberg, who follows this stuff closely on his substack. (Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a URL, but if you'll send me your email, at HolzmanDC@outlook.com I'll forward you his substack from today where he goes into detail on that.)
https://deborahcopaken.substack.com/p/cest-la-vie-cest-la-guerre?r=1exgz
You can not be a warmonger where your actions are for the geopolitics centered on dirty energy -- engaging in the activity that causes the most degradation to the environment (war and military aggression) -- and, think you’re doing right by the environment. That’s too much cognitive dissonance.
If the president does the right thing in the right spirit on LNG exports, he’ll be able to say he’s done more than president before him not just on clean energy but also on the dirty stuff. He’ll be the leader he promised to be.”
He’s already done the wrong thing over LNG by pulling Ukraine away from peace negotiations with Russia -- before and after Putin’s invasion. And, he helped Manchin scuttle much better legislation.
On top of that, he made promises to the Left he hasn’t kept. And, actually let us know how much he is not a labor president and not for the Medicare option. “Nothing has fundamentally changed.”
The environment can not be disengaged from all other matters of Peace and Justice. Fragmentation of policy does not lead to the mitigation of climate change and the restoration of our ecological life support system. If you want to win, you must realize that Biden will not achieve that victory. You can not be a warmonger where your actions are for the geopolitics centered on dirty energy -- engaging in the activity that causes the most degradation to the environment (war and military aggression) -- and, think you’re doing right by the environment. That’s too much cognitive dissonance.
Wake up and support candidates who get that all progressive policies are tied to the environment. Biden will not take us where we need to go -- and he is hemorrhaging support.
Bill, with all due respect your column overlooks the elephant in the room. If the environmental movement wants to re-elect Biden, he must be convinced to immediately reverse course on Palestine. It may already be too late to save him, frankly...but it's essential we try.
Taylor Swift: has a history of poor choices in men, endorses Biden.
Really? That's the best you can do?
I did better in a new thread:
"Taylor Swift flies her private jet everywhere and threw a concert in lethal heat index numbers, and at least one fan did die, and people were not allowed to bring their own water into the concert and were charged $2 for tiny cups. Her fans are insane and if I were anyone of note they would be calling for blood for me pointing all of this out, just as surely as any of Trump's deranged supporters would go after anyone outside their cult for suggesting the 2020 election was legit. She's a gaslighter too."
You've already announced your support for Biden so that he has no incentive to court it. And you then quote Taylor Swift on how to end an abusive relationship. Am I missing something or are you?
BP setting up generations of LNG (aka “fracking” for Africa.
https://www.offshore-energy.biz/allseas-starts-subsea-pipelay-work-for-bps-giant-lng-project-in-africa/
Because 12-year-old me never really left, I have to point out that the LNG tanker looks like two butts mooning. And, that it is, literally, passing gas. 🍑💨🍑💨
There is nothing simple about an "LNG" facility. They become multi-faceted petro chemical industries with dangerous, volatile chemical production and complex air quality and water quality, danger from weather events and real danger from sabotage potential. You may no longer HAVE a backyard if this is built in your backyard. WE do not need this energy in the USA and other nations can build out other, cheaper green energy for carbon free and lower cost choices for the future.
DON'T cancel the activism or the march on Washington. Just make it in strong SUPPORT of honest evaluation of the effects of the terminals. If you read the Parrot and the Igloo, or any of the other climate denial histories, this could just a the point that we all get thrown off guard and off track. Get those rocking chairs out !!!!!!