tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post4286150023342413860..comments2024-03-22T05:20:44.167-07:00Comments on The Disaffected Lib: What Side Are You On?The Mound of Soundhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-52116088595196462832018-10-20T10:47:08.054-07:002018-10-20T10:47:08.054-07:00Mound, according to Google Translate the post by U...Mound, according to Google Translate the post by Unknown reads: "If you are looking for an accounting program or a compatible sales program With laws and regulations in Saudi Arabia you will find the solution with MUST Saudi Arabia" The links go to a commercial web page. It looks like spam to me. <br />Tobynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-69490624122911204232018-10-20T09:31:50.690-07:002018-10-20T09:31:50.690-07:00RS is right, Danneau. At this point we may be play...<br />RS is right, Danneau. At this point we may be playing for scraps. There is still a chance to seize the "best-case (remaining) scenario." However, if you work that through from the late 60s to today, you'll see a dynamic where the amount of effort and sacrifice to secure the best-case option steadily increases as the prize steadily declines.<br /><br />Many, many times on this blog have I lamented how mankind stood by, at first unwittingly but then knowingly, as our best options slipped through our fingers to be foreclosed by the growing severity of our predicament. We watched this unfold. We've known as far back as the 80s what was underway and yet here we are, 30 or 40 years later, still talking about seizing the 2020 iteration of "best-case scenario" and talking about it with a plainly nihilistic apathy.<br /><br />A number of times I've written of my undergrad studies into Latin American affairs. One aspect of life in South America is the plight of the Andean mountain people. Theirs is a precarious life. Flash floods and mudslides simply erase entire villages. Buses used to convey goods to market run off the most treacherous roads on Earth. The people, however, still cling to their traditional way of life with a psychological device sometimes called "Andean fatalism." I suppose it embodies a bit of "don't worry, be happy."The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-3164548579887456802018-10-20T09:19:57.305-07:002018-10-20T09:19:57.305-07:00Well, Deacon, that's a pretty succinct roadmap...<br />Well, Deacon, that's a pretty succinct roadmap to dystopia. That's one of the great problems in confronting these crises, their bloody enormity. How do we get our minds around that? It's almost masochistic. You begin to think about it but then comes the instinctive urge to recoil from it. Dr. Strangelove.The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-91155810881211129652018-10-20T09:16:18.127-07:002018-10-20T09:16:18.127-07:00Sal, the problem we face is time. There's not ...<br />Sal, the problem we face is time. There's not nearly enough to overthrow our nihilistic mob and replace them. Revolutions are messy, dragged out affairs usually triggering aftershock or follow-on revolutions (think Menshevik and Bolshevik). Even if there was enough public unrest there's no time to go through that uncertain process. <br /><br />What we need, at this point, is to reclaim popular control of our political party apparatus. A housecleaning rather than a revolt. We have to get the electorate to turn on them. Perhaps that can be done at the ballot box although that's a very iffy prospect now with just three electoral cycles between us and 2030.The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-74430333981360972162018-10-20T09:10:40.432-07:002018-10-20T09:10:40.432-07:00Mac, anthropologist, Jared Diamond, delves into yo...<br />Mac, anthropologist, Jared Diamond, delves into your quandry in his book, "Collapse: Why Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail." The title itself is a giveaway. There is ample history of societies that chose a destructive path in exchange for near-term ease and comfort. Present generations can choose to sacrifice future generations and do it knowingly. They may resort to denial mechanisms, i.e. "the gods will save those people" just as we frequently fall back on "they'll think of something by then" but they're still just denial mechanisms. It's magical thinking. We know the way we're headed could well doom our descendants so we'll make up a belief-based notion to erase our guilt.<br /><br />This is particularly tempting when a slow-moving calamity such as climate change is involved. Many people of my vintage discounted it, saying, "I'll be dead by then." <br /><br />For the smartest, most capable and educated species in the universe we can get back to primitive-man thinking awfully quick when that suits our needs.The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-67799375518273963952018-10-20T08:13:21.796-07:002018-10-20T08:13:21.796-07:00Pretty much the same sentiment from a writer for w...Pretty much the same sentiment from a writer for whom I have great respect:<br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/14/climate-change-taking-action-rebecca-solnitDanneauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16129916194006552602noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-29764708547649409852018-10-20T07:22:54.865-07:002018-10-20T07:22:54.865-07:00Humans are hard wired to detect immediate threats....Humans are hard wired to detect immediate threats. Have been since home was the African forests. Once AGW is an immediate threat our fight or flight mechanisms will kick in and we will run around in circles killing each other for the last scraps of food and the last drops of water.Deacon Jesterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13509149236511255564noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-12652372527357288772018-10-20T05:27:39.281-07:002018-10-20T05:27:39.281-07:00Can somebody, anybody then explain to me why, if ...Can somebody, anybody then explain to me why, if this info re climate change is so dire, so toxic to future generations’ (many of whom we already know, such as our grandchildren that we so love) ability to just survive, are people not only not worried about governments that are luke-warm re remedies to be taken (Trudeau) but are more and more often electing governments who are actually opposed! to doing pretty much anything?? Where is the failing? Who, what is responsible for the likes of Trump, Ford, MO, soon to be Higgs, Kenny, etc.,etc? We can opine all we want about how dire things are but the general political will to do even anything about it seems now to be lessening as even more warnings are sounded.<br />Those of us who actually give credence to what is being predicted re climate need to better understand what ‘forces’ are sending humanity on a suicide mission and how these ‘forces’ can be effectively countered. Until then, we are doomed. MacAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-75236101958091486432018-10-20T03:36:21.429-07:002018-10-20T03:36:21.429-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12424835034681026758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-54438390226129641842018-10-19T20:19:59.031-07:002018-10-19T20:19:59.031-07:00https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71n3PtdQWF4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71n3PtdQWF4Deacon Jesterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13509149236511255564noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-50303718687202017512018-10-19T16:49:53.553-07:002018-10-19T16:49:53.553-07:00.. well said.. truly we face a horrendous conundru..... well said.. truly we face a horrendous conundrum, Mound..<br />I keep looking at the current crop of failed leaders, Trudeau, Scheer, Singh.. and zero sign any of them, their caucuses, enablers, parties etc have any intention of meeting your criteria or requirements. The Green Party.. well I just see them as getting little or no traction due to being so maginalized in terms of elected representatives.<br /><br />Instead we are fed a steady diet of horseshit salad about Jobs Jobs Jobs, Pipelines, the Almighty Economy, petroleum, lumber and military arms manufacture & exports. There are all sorts of smokescreens blown at the citizenry (this nothing new) all sorts of red herrings, distractions and outright fictions and scandal. <br /><br />I maintain that federal and provincial governance in Canada must undergo drastic reconstruction. a complete teardown and rebuild to meet the today, the near future and the distant future. The battle & horseshit media rages along unchecked in regard to pipelines, resource extraction, pollution, climate change.. As a child I recall when Canadians were asked to stop throwing kleenex out car windows.. and so my generation stopped doing that and emptying car ashtrays out the windows as well, or double bubble wrappers. Same with drinking and driving.. society reacted & changed attitudes. <br /><br />So what gives now? Canadian taxpayers now subsidize foreign owned polluters.. (oh the Jobs Jobs Jobs) .. kleenex out the window ? ? ? What the f'F F F ? ? Could Andrew Scheer or Justin Trudeau please walk around the tar sands tailings ponds please ? ? They will NEVER be remediated. The methane will pour out of more and more wellheads... Where is the same government level of love, for alternative energy, or moderation, or domestic, regional industry or agriculture or fisheries ? It aint going to happen without astonishing leadership by exemplars.. who simply sweep away the captured deadwood of existing political parties and start building realitythe salamanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06853337802990122289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-75164619737797511172018-10-19T11:59:58.590-07:002018-10-19T11:59:58.590-07:00
Owen, I think some of us are under an obligation ...<br />Owen, I think some of us are under an obligation not to wait until a consensus emerges. By then it may be too late. Instead of sitting on our hands we have to try to advance change in whatever ways we can, individually and collectively.The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-35050302829609099382018-10-19T11:58:10.956-07:002018-10-19T11:58:10.956-07:00Toby, we have to make our opposition felt by Liber...<br />Toby, we have to make our opposition felt by Liberals and Conservatives alike. If not, they'll continue to give us a comforting pat on the head and simply ignore us as they invariably do between elections. 12 years. That's just three electoral cycles in Canada. No time to waste. I don't want to wait for the orchestra to strike up "Nearer My God to Thee."The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-83128579408329259452018-10-19T11:54:47.979-07:002018-10-19T11:54:47.979-07:00I've just signed up for an online course at Fu...<br />I've just signed up for an online course at FutureLearn on change and activism. I want to do whatever I can to influence some meaningful change before the next election. I know that can sound a bit Quixotic but I can't just keep writing about this. We don't have the luxury of that sort of time.The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-4388706956789636732018-10-19T11:41:22.867-07:002018-10-19T11:41:22.867-07:00What is encouraging to me is that people around me...What is encouraging to me is that people around me (family, neighbours, friends) are beginning to talk about global warming. For years I have been pushed off as some sore of conspiracy theorist for talking about it but not now. Maybe two summers in a row with fires all around and smoke blocking out the sun had something to do it. Whatever, they are beginning to understand that something is wrong. If this translates on a large scale our politicians will have to wake up. Like you, I hold no hope for the Liberals and Conservatives or even most of the NDP. <br /><br />Tobynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-79330081614689041032018-10-19T11:40:33.237-07:002018-10-19T11:40:33.237-07:00There are times in history when everything is on t...There are times in history when everything is on the line, Mound. This is one of those times. I wish I could say that the threat of our own extinction will be enough to make us act. But. . .Owen Grayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06464860078574618579noreply@blogger.com