Danny and Derek welcome back Spencer Ackerman, publisher of Forever Wars, to discuss his new piece in The Nation, “US Foreign Policy Has an Extinction Agenda”. The group gets into the article’s bleak analysis of where US foreign policy is headed in the era of climate collapse, which includes American declarations of world cooperation despite pursuing a cold war with China and arming Ukraine, fear-mongering around inevitable upticks in migration to the global north, whether the international left has a chance of affecting policy around climate change, and more.
Fascinating conversation. I agree that we’ve reached the limit of politics. It’s time to start putting revolutionary action in place, and organizing around that
That also includes solutions in smaller administrative units. What's the quote to the effect that "when the crisis comes make sure your solutions are lying around" (or are chosen, that's the challenge ofc)?
Edit: quote is by friend of the pod Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (1962). "There is enormous inertia—a tyranny of the status quo—in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable."
One thing to keep in mind about climate change is there's no moment where it's 'happened' and that's that we face the worst possible outcome, it can always get worse and it can always stop heading that way if we choose to take action. The 2nd best option to building leftist power quickly is building it slowly, yeah that means that Florida may gain some company in the 'states that no longer exists' by the time we turn things around but that isn't actually the end of the world, even if it is the end of a 'world' in the way that the world of the 19th century ended.
The latter half or third of these interviews is just Danny saying there’s no hope, which is a given at this point. It’s just that it doesn’t add much to the conversation for how much time he devotes to it in each interview.
Sabotaging or obstructing the machine is also communicative action.
***
Which politics does Danny mean when saying "problem with / limits of politics"? The one practiced in the confines of the established political system in the US by more or less established politicians on the federal, state level? There's other politics.
Fascinating conversation. I agree that we’ve reached the limit of politics. It’s time to start putting revolutionary action in place, and organizing around that
That also includes solutions in smaller administrative units. What's the quote to the effect that "when the crisis comes make sure your solutions are lying around" (or are chosen, that's the challenge ofc)?
Edit: quote is by friend of the pod Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (1962). "There is enormous inertia—a tyranny of the status quo—in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable."
Preface (1982 edition), p. ix
Is Derek a dad??
We cannot disclose hosts' personal information. I told a listener Danny's mother's maiden name and now he's on the No Fly List.
If so, he should go on https://patrickwyman.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-pursuit-of-dadliness
One thing to keep in mind about climate change is there's no moment where it's 'happened' and that's that we face the worst possible outcome, it can always get worse and it can always stop heading that way if we choose to take action. The 2nd best option to building leftist power quickly is building it slowly, yeah that means that Florida may gain some company in the 'states that no longer exists' by the time we turn things around but that isn't actually the end of the world, even if it is the end of a 'world' in the way that the world of the 19th century ended.
The latter half or third of these interviews is just Danny saying there’s no hope, which is a given at this point. It’s just that it doesn’t add much to the conversation for how much time he devotes to it in each interview.
Sabotaging or obstructing the machine is also communicative action.
***
Which politics does Danny mean when saying "problem with / limits of politics"? The one practiced in the confines of the established political system in the US by more or less established politicians on the federal, state level? There's other politics.