Just an update: due to exams coming up, I'll take a break this month.

"The researchers make “systematic use of web-scraping techniques to identify virtually all publicly available words and actions — concerning certain specific issues of public policy — by the one hundred wealthiest billionaires, over a ten-year period.”

They conclude that billionaires are extremely active in shaping political outcomes, but in a very particular way:

They try hard to influence public policy. They make large financial contributions to political parties, candidates, and policy-focused causes. They hold political fundraisers and bundle others’ contributions. They establish, join, or lead policy-advocacy organizations. But despite these billionaires’ prominence and their easy access to the media — which provides abundant opportunities to say just about anything they want to large audiences — they rarely talk openly about public policy.

The researchers call this approach to influencing politics — heavy on behind-the-scenes activity and light on public statements — “stealth politics.”"

"In short, billionaires are heavyweight political players, and as a group they are primarily committed to moving the country in a libertarian, free-market, pro-capitalist, pro-billionaire direction."

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/03/billionaires-political-influence-donations-conservatism

"TERFs and organized anti-trans groups are only one part of the global right-wing struggle against so-called “gender ideology”: roughly, the confluence of abortion rights, women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights, with trans people seeming to inspire particular fury.

That struggle is well-organized, well-funded and global. A 2021 report from the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (EPF) found that, between 2009 and 2018, Europe had received USD$707.2 million in “anti-gender funding.” (Again, this comprises initiatives against abortion and LGBTQ2S+ rights more broadly, as well as anti-trans funding; to the opponents of “gender ideology,” they’re all the same thing.) Outside of Europe itself, there were two countries pouring money into the campaign: the United States and Russia"

https://xtramagazine.com/power/far-right-feminist-fascist-220810

"What if a hoax caused a national scandal, dominating Britain’s news for weeks? What if this hoax was used to whip up hate against a minority community, even being used to justify repressive new laws that disproportionately targeted that community? And what if journalists revealed that the politicians who stirred up this hate knew it was a hoax all along? That would be a big deal, right?

Wrong.

It’s more than three months since The New York Times and Serial Productions released The Trojan Horse Affair podcast, a years-long investigation into the ‘Trojan Horse’ scandal that rocked British politics in 2014 and cast a shadow over the country’s Muslim communities. But in spite of the podcast’s explosive revelations, it’s been met with near silence by the British media."

https://novaramedia.com/2022/04/19/the-response-to-the-trojan-horse-affair-tells-us-all-we-need-to-know-about-islamophobia-in-britain/

while the conservative movement has pumped out loyal foot soldiers who understood that the cause was the main thing, liberals have gotten caught up in the hagiography of their leading functionaries, making everyone involved forget that they are part of a larger movement and not the ends in themselves.

A perfect example of this is the pathetic and embarrassing cult of Ruth Bader Ginsberg — the “Notorious RBG” T-shirts, the inane interest in the details of her workout regimen, the literal votive candles — part of that political tribe’s tendency to worship bureaucrats and officials as saviors, a process replicated in Comeyism (his trashing of Clinton’s electoral chances was quickly forgotten after he became a vocal Trump critic), Muellerism, and Faucism.

[...]Characteristically, the Democrats never really believed that a political movement could and would actually deliver on its promises. They could not conceive that tactical evasions and temporary compromises were actually just that: tactical evasions and temporary compromises, not the basis for an entire political party’s continued existence.

https://www.gawker.com/politics/the-scourge-of-sentimentality-politics

"Back in April, Stripe, Alphabet, Meta, Shopify, and other companies made a $925 million joint commitment to purchase captured carbon this decade. In 2020, Microsoft promised to remove more carbon dioxide than it emits by 2030. Microsoft will “serve as an expert partner by sharing lessons from its carbon removal auctions,” the World Economic Forum says of the new $500 million commitment Big Tech made in Davos.

Yet, despite the cascade of new climate pledges from Big Tech, the emissions of many companies continue to grow. Microsoft’s emissions, for example, rose from about 11.6 million metric tons of CO2 in the 2020 fiscal year to about 14 million metric tons in its 2021 fiscal year. As its business grew, so too did pollution from the use of Microsoft’s devices and cloud services. Salesforces’ planet-heating pollution has similarly grown along with its business in its 2022 fiscal year to the equivalent of over 1 million metric tons of CO2.

Largely through carbon offsets, both companies pay to cancel out enough of their emissions so that they can say they’re carbon neutral. But offset projects, like forest conservation and tree planting, don’t have a good track record of actually permanently removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
"The emissions of many companies continue to grow"

Plans to build up the carbon removal market include efforts to try to make it more reliable than traditional offsets. But, for now, the only guaranteed way to stave off the climate crisis is by preventing pollution in the first place. And Big Tech is still responsible for creating a lot of pollution; much of which could be avoided by moving more quickly to clean energy. That deserves as much attention, if not more, as it’s giving to CDR."

https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/25/23141166/big-tech-funding-wrong-climate-change-solution-davos-carbon-removal

"I also think Democrats would do well to embrace the 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights laid out by Harvey Kaye and Alan Minsky, available at Progressive Democrats of America. Kaye and Minsky argue that Democrats need a compelling story of how the party is going to serve the needs of ordinary people, and suggest that the party draws from the plans for an economic bill of rights floated by FDR and Martin Luther King, Jr. Such a proposal would guarantee:
- A useful job that pays a living wage.
- A voice in the workplace through a union and collective bargaining.
- Comprehensive quality health care.
- Complete cost-free public education and access to broadband internet.
- Decent, safe, affordable housing.
- A clean environment and a healthy planet.
- A meaningful endowment of resources at birth, and a secure retirement.
- Sound banking and financial services.
An equitable and economically fair justice system.
- Recreation and participation in civic and democratic life."

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/06/the-left-keeps-warning-you-that-centrist-democrats/