A few years ago experts began to say that we had ten years to radically transform, what should we call it, ... the international economy? human civilization? humanity? so as to avoid ecological collapse and the implosion of technological civilization. And, so far, we haven't done that. We haven't begun to do that. Nightmarishly, as a collective, we haven't even begun to think about how to go about doing that. [After writing this post and putting in the pretty pictures I looked for a link to go with my "few years ago" statement. How time flies. That link is from 2007. Which coincides with how some experts say it's already too late.]
I've been thinking about blogging about Jason Kenney some more. Or Doug Ford. Because Lord knows that we Canadians have spent far too much time talking about everything Trump related and acting complacently about our own predicament because "At least we're not as bad as the USA." Then, a couple of days of reading about the broken promises of the contemptible Joe Biden, including last night's reporting that the senile imperialist bombed Syria, made me want to at least address the hideous reality that the US political system is entirely hopeless but so many US-Americans are still passionately invested in that stupid theatre.
But what would be the point? Yes. Things are bad. Our politicians are corrupt/scumbags/idiots/dotards/morons. Nothing new to see there. The USA's political-economic elites are world-threatening maniacs. Where do we look for rescue? Europe? A bunch of bickering neo-liberal automatons and boorish fascists? Russia? A fossil-fuels dependent authoritarian oligarchy? China? Anti-democratic, authoritarian technocracy? I suppose we could look to the many good examples in the Global South, not for rescue, but for inspiration. The achievements of Bolivarians in Venezuela at addressing education, housing, literacy and nutrition are undeniable. The achievements of pro-Indigenous people's parties in Bolivia and Ecuador are also praiseworthy.
We can look at certain policies from around the world, in Venezuela, Cuba, New Zealand, Bolivia, Sweden, Norway, Ecuador, and other places, for reality-based examples of the benefits of non, or anti-capitalist, majoritarian policies.
And then we should think about achieving them here, in Canada, A-N-D in the United States. Because the USA remains the world's most richest, powerful country, and anybody, anywhere else in the world, who can come up with intelligent strategies for defeating the insanely narcissistic oligarchs who are plundering it and deforming it, has a responsibility to speak up.
So that is what I decided to blog about today. If we accept that we had ten years to transform the human world a few years ago, and we've done effectively nothing since then, I think it imperative that we focus our minds on how we could conceivably transform the world within FIVE years. If you blog, spend half your time blogging about achieving this. If you read for research, research more about specific strategies for changing the world. All the time you spend critiquing capitalism and complaining on PHazeBock, take half of it to think about what seriously needs to be done to have the world on a sustainable projectory WITHIN five years.
Don't engage in meaningless generalities about "raising awareness" until a "critical mass" is reached, whereupon "something" will magically happen. Don't waste everyone's time with drivel about taking some obviously corrupt, corporatist tool and "pushing them left." Don't self-delude yourself about a revolutionary tidal wave that is just about to happen.
I have my own ideas and I'll write about them in my next post.
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