This is a big push in the supermajority gerrymandered Ohio General Assembly. Thank you for highlighting that peaceful protest is a fundamental right, and nowhere near being a terrorist activity.
Corporate greed in our country and the world is a very real problem.
ALEC has its toxic tentacles in Ohio government and state governments throughout the country.
Making protest assembly a terrorist activity is something all citizens should be speaking out against in their respective state governments.
On a not directly related issue, Mr. McKibben, a conservative friend mentioned recently that car batteries for electric cars are being made with slave labor in The Congo. Is there any truth to that? Do you know? Or is it a pro fossil fuel what-aboutism? Thank you!
This is a primary weapon of Neoliberalism: the co-opting of words with emotional resonance in everyday speech by encoding those words with special meaning that is not actually emotionally resonant with the common use of that word.
Terrorism is random acts of violence against a population for the express purpose of creating widespread terror of random attacks as a strategy for forcing a political resolution to a conflict between populations.
In this sense, we are all victims of terrorism, because any one of us could be caught up in some future act of violence.
None of us are at risk of being harmed in organized acts of civil disobedience directed against persons in position of authority for the purpose of calling them out for an inauthentic use of their official powers.
Public discourse needs to expose this linguistic chicanery.
Thank you, Tim, for your well said words of wisdom. Your comments remind me of when cognitive linguist and philosopher George Lakoff in his 2004 book, Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values & Frame the Debate, said they use words like "tax relief" as if government taxation was a "burden" rather than a privileged collective "cost" of living in our global north wealthy country with all the common wealth public benefits provided. Almost 20 years later, I've come to appreciate why they use such triggering and gas-lighting language, which seems to be because they can not speak openly about the stories they tell themselves, including such "growthism" (https://youtu.be/VQfV23a5ZNQ) delusions as: it's natural to have a world of winners and losers (like food webs found in healthy ecosystems) except they're referring to a natural economic system that violently exploits humans and nature.
This unhealthy ideology began quite literally in the middle ages with the crowns and merchant elites solving of their "labor problem" by taking of land from commoners, and culminated into Francis Bacon's and René Descartes' racist enlightenment doctrine and "dualism" philosophy (vs. animism). Once perfected across Europe, this oppressive behavior grew into colonization throughout the rest of the world. Which became capitalism in the global north's wealth nations. After legal slavery was abolished and civil rights movement won, it morphed again as global free-market economics which continues to this day to exploit indigenous communities of almost free labor and cheap nature. But they can't talk about their plan in open daylight because most people disagree.
And the symptoms of those few unhealthy ruling class elite minds and the toxic public discourse they perpetuate (and we tend to take the bait and reciprocate) is nothing less than social and ecological break down, thanks to the fact that economic GDP growth is coupled with fossil fuel energy use, which is coupled with atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions, which is coupled with climate heating, which is coupled with disruption to our planet's (Gaian) critical life support systems. According to top scientists who presented last week at the Davos World Economic Forum (https://youtu.be/jTRvkDXPb-o) we are approaching critical climate tipping points this decade, thus risking mass human extinction this century, unless we significantly reduce emissions (aka mitigate) now, as well as work on adaptation.
Therefore, time for talk is over for those who are willing to put their bodies on the machine of "growthism" (aka capitalism+productionism+extractivism, etc.). We are in a climate emergency and are running out of time. If you or anyone reading this would consider supporting nonviolent civil resistance by joining the Declare Emergency campaign's next wave of actions in Washington DC this April, then we have a healthier plan. This is about us. This is an all hands on deck moment for the future of humanity for the next 10,000 generations.
"time for talk is over". I feel better about saying it is time to change what we talk about, and how we talk about it.
People who self-select from among the general population of everyday people living our everyday lives as caring enough to participate as 21st Century Global Citizens can join together to talk about choosing a new beginning within a new 21st Century Global Commons of Fiduciary Money.
This is the tens of trillions of society's shared set-asides aggregated into social superfunds for retirement (pensions) and civil society (endowments).
We are all allowing ourselves to talk about this global commons exclusively within the slippery-slope language of Neoliberalism.
Our first act of authentic self-determination can be to stop talking like that.
That is the first act of nonviolent civil resistance we all can and must participate in: resisting the slippery-slope of Neoliberal linqusitic solipsism.
Thanks for your thoughtful suggestions to change our talk, and reframe the debate. Though we need healthier public discourse and more “muscular love” of life affirming values and behaviors, as Krista Tippett says in her conversations with her guests on the OnBeing Podcast, one of the most courageous and values-aligning things I’ve done (for my children) is get arrested and serve a jail sentence in Rockville Maryland for disrupting business as usual traffic to direct public attention to the climate emergency. My first but not last.
I’m looking forward to the sustainable investing webinar tomorrow, thanks for reminding me. But do you think money in a bank will be worth anything in perhaps 10 years (+/- 5 years) when the climate scientists’ proverbial 1.5C heating and associated tipping points are breached and society’s unraveling continues to accelerate here in the US and across other wealthy global north nations?
In my opinion we are better off financing the revolution to actually mitigate (reduce emissions) as well as face hard truths, denials, and blind spots on what our adaption options are. I’m not trying to be nihilistic and avoid “the end”, rather believe in the revolution as a healthier new beginning based on our better stories. In other words, don’t we need both intentional and more meaningful words and appropriate action. We have 2 years left to get on this new path. What are we waiting for? And would you be interested in learning more about the Declare Emergency campaign and nonviolent civil resistance?
I saw Bob Massie on Tom Dodge's program yesterday (you got a shout out as a good friend) That made me smile. He spoke of much of what you wrote. How the global economy was built on (mostly) white, male European powers, carving up the world in colonialist ventures, and stealing extract resources from native peoples. Honestly, I couldn't have put it better myself.
Thank you for your ongoing governing of the carbon pollution reduction debate with empathy for and responsibility to human beings. These core values, of course, are fundamental to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights vision of the ideal world as strong, diverse communities of nurturing parent families caring for each other in their local civil society organizations, ethical businesses and government task forces.
I hope you and your followers will consider reading Dr. George Lakoff's recent Substack entitled "Cut the Not" at https://framelab.substack.com/p/cut-the-not-why-banishing-one-word. Lakoff would recommend reframing your article's title to something like - Protest is a civil and human right." The reason is because when you negate a frame, i.e., terrorism, you strengthen the frame AND link it to whatever you are saying is not terrorism. Lakoff would suggest a Truth Sandwich.
For a complimentary copy of the Illustrated Universal Declaration of Human Rights visit https://empathysurplus.com. In it recipients will find the moral reasons of why free expression in peaceable assemblies are human rights. If our common world vision is strong, diverse communities of nurturing parent families caring for each other, the governing bodies of those communities must protect all family members when they cry out for help. That's laid out in the Preamble of the UDHR. In addition, according to Articles 1, 2, 29, and 30, all of the human rights afforded to these inhabitants at birth of these communities are protected by commitments from each of us to governing with empathy for and responsibility to others. We're obliged to protect and empower human rights from terrorists.
This is a big push in the supermajority gerrymandered Ohio General Assembly. Thank you for highlighting that peaceful protest is a fundamental right, and nowhere near being a terrorist activity.
Corporate greed in our country and the world is a very real problem.
ALEC has its toxic tentacles in Ohio government and state governments throughout the country.
Making protest assembly a terrorist activity is something all citizens should be speaking out against in their respective state governments.
On a not directly related issue, Mr. McKibben, a conservative friend mentioned recently that car batteries for electric cars are being made with slave labor in The Congo. Is there any truth to that? Do you know? Or is it a pro fossil fuel what-aboutism? Thank you!
Thanks for your voice on this.
This is a primary weapon of Neoliberalism: the co-opting of words with emotional resonance in everyday speech by encoding those words with special meaning that is not actually emotionally resonant with the common use of that word.
Terrorism is random acts of violence against a population for the express purpose of creating widespread terror of random attacks as a strategy for forcing a political resolution to a conflict between populations.
In this sense, we are all victims of terrorism, because any one of us could be caught up in some future act of violence.
None of us are at risk of being harmed in organized acts of civil disobedience directed against persons in position of authority for the purpose of calling them out for an inauthentic use of their official powers.
Public discourse needs to expose this linguistic chicanery.
Thank you, Tim, for your well said words of wisdom. Your comments remind me of when cognitive linguist and philosopher George Lakoff in his 2004 book, Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values & Frame the Debate, said they use words like "tax relief" as if government taxation was a "burden" rather than a privileged collective "cost" of living in our global north wealthy country with all the common wealth public benefits provided. Almost 20 years later, I've come to appreciate why they use such triggering and gas-lighting language, which seems to be because they can not speak openly about the stories they tell themselves, including such "growthism" (https://youtu.be/VQfV23a5ZNQ) delusions as: it's natural to have a world of winners and losers (like food webs found in healthy ecosystems) except they're referring to a natural economic system that violently exploits humans and nature.
This unhealthy ideology began quite literally in the middle ages with the crowns and merchant elites solving of their "labor problem" by taking of land from commoners, and culminated into Francis Bacon's and René Descartes' racist enlightenment doctrine and "dualism" philosophy (vs. animism). Once perfected across Europe, this oppressive behavior grew into colonization throughout the rest of the world. Which became capitalism in the global north's wealth nations. After legal slavery was abolished and civil rights movement won, it morphed again as global free-market economics which continues to this day to exploit indigenous communities of almost free labor and cheap nature. But they can't talk about their plan in open daylight because most people disagree.
And the symptoms of those few unhealthy ruling class elite minds and the toxic public discourse they perpetuate (and we tend to take the bait and reciprocate) is nothing less than social and ecological break down, thanks to the fact that economic GDP growth is coupled with fossil fuel energy use, which is coupled with atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions, which is coupled with climate heating, which is coupled with disruption to our planet's (Gaian) critical life support systems. According to top scientists who presented last week at the Davos World Economic Forum (https://youtu.be/jTRvkDXPb-o) we are approaching critical climate tipping points this decade, thus risking mass human extinction this century, unless we significantly reduce emissions (aka mitigate) now, as well as work on adaptation.
Therefore, time for talk is over for those who are willing to put their bodies on the machine of "growthism" (aka capitalism+productionism+extractivism, etc.). We are in a climate emergency and are running out of time. If you or anyone reading this would consider supporting nonviolent civil resistance by joining the Declare Emergency campaign's next wave of actions in Washington DC this April, then we have a healthier plan. This is about us. This is an all hands on deck moment for the future of humanity for the next 10,000 generations.
"This is about us." Yes.
"time for talk is over". I feel better about saying it is time to change what we talk about, and how we talk about it.
People who self-select from among the general population of everyday people living our everyday lives as caring enough to participate as 21st Century Global Citizens can join together to talk about choosing a new beginning within a new 21st Century Global Commons of Fiduciary Money.
This is the tens of trillions of society's shared set-asides aggregated into social superfunds for retirement (pensions) and civil society (endowments).
We are all allowing ourselves to talk about this global commons exclusively within the slippery-slope language of Neoliberalism.
Our first act of authentic self-determination can be to stop talking like that.
That is the first act of nonviolent civil resistance we all can and must participate in: resisting the slippery-slope of Neoliberal linqusitic solipsism.
Thanks for your thoughtful suggestions to change our talk, and reframe the debate. Though we need healthier public discourse and more “muscular love” of life affirming values and behaviors, as Krista Tippett says in her conversations with her guests on the OnBeing Podcast, one of the most courageous and values-aligning things I’ve done (for my children) is get arrested and serve a jail sentence in Rockville Maryland for disrupting business as usual traffic to direct public attention to the climate emergency. My first but not last.
I’m looking forward to the sustainable investing webinar tomorrow, thanks for reminding me. But do you think money in a bank will be worth anything in perhaps 10 years (+/- 5 years) when the climate scientists’ proverbial 1.5C heating and associated tipping points are breached and society’s unraveling continues to accelerate here in the US and across other wealthy global north nations?
In my opinion we are better off financing the revolution to actually mitigate (reduce emissions) as well as face hard truths, denials, and blind spots on what our adaption options are. I’m not trying to be nihilistic and avoid “the end”, rather believe in the revolution as a healthier new beginning based on our better stories. In other words, don’t we need both intentional and more meaningful words and appropriate action. We have 2 years left to get on this new path. What are we waiting for? And would you be interested in learning more about the Declare Emergency campaign and nonviolent civil resistance?
I saw Bob Massie on Tom Dodge's program yesterday (you got a shout out as a good friend) That made me smile. He spoke of much of what you wrote. How the global economy was built on (mostly) white, male European powers, carving up the world in colonialist ventures, and stealing extract resources from native peoples. Honestly, I couldn't have put it better myself.
Thank you for your ongoing governing of the carbon pollution reduction debate with empathy for and responsibility to human beings. These core values, of course, are fundamental to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights vision of the ideal world as strong, diverse communities of nurturing parent families caring for each other in their local civil society organizations, ethical businesses and government task forces.
I hope you and your followers will consider reading Dr. George Lakoff's recent Substack entitled "Cut the Not" at https://framelab.substack.com/p/cut-the-not-why-banishing-one-word. Lakoff would recommend reframing your article's title to something like - Protest is a civil and human right." The reason is because when you negate a frame, i.e., terrorism, you strengthen the frame AND link it to whatever you are saying is not terrorism. Lakoff would suggest a Truth Sandwich.
For a complimentary copy of the Illustrated Universal Declaration of Human Rights visit https://empathysurplus.com. In it recipients will find the moral reasons of why free expression in peaceable assemblies are human rights. If our common world vision is strong, diverse communities of nurturing parent families caring for each other, the governing bodies of those communities must protect all family members when they cry out for help. That's laid out in the Preamble of the UDHR. In addition, according to Articles 1, 2, 29, and 30, all of the human rights afforded to these inhabitants at birth of these communities are protected by commitments from each of us to governing with empathy for and responsibility to others. We're obliged to protect and empower human rights from terrorists.
Thank you for speaking truth to power in your wonderful way! Hope more people listen before it's too late.