I’m going to go unbuild walls

In an Earth Matters report for Daily Kos Meteor Blades wrote:

There’s no point in going into details about the latest lunacy coming out the mouths of Republicans, and sadly, some Democrats on these committees. It’s the same-old, same old, but sometimes adorned in new tropes. It doesn’t matter whether the purveyors are beholden to the fossil fuel forces or just numbskulls. Their words—and votes—are intent on creating the last thing we need when it comes to addressing climate change: delay. Many Democrats on these committees do a good job of challenging them and putting forth good or at least okay proposals for climate-related policies and programs. Not that there aren’t many more that ought to be forthcoming, but that’s a topic for another day. For now, I’d just like to see committee Democrats call it out every time one of delayers opens their yap with the usual scientifically or economically illiterate bulls--- about climate change. I mean that literally. I want them to interrupt and say, “Bulls---.” Not once or twice. Every time. Surely, surely, I can’t really being suggesting this, right? The horror. The unpoliticalness. The disrespect. The pettiness. Look, either we have an existential crisis on our hands or we don’t. If we don’t, then politeness and decorum with these honorable members of the nation’s most powerful legislature can rule the day and we can conceal honesty with euphemisms. But if the climate crisis is existential, then we don’t have time for bulls--- and shouldn’t be calling bulls--- something else. Delay is prime bulls---. Obviously, policy and programs are what matter. But since Republicans have us gridlocked on that score, at least tell like it is.

Steven Guilbeault, who I think is in Quebec, tweeted a cartoon by Bruce MacKinnon. It shows one plane dumping retardant on a wildfire while another plane flies above towing a banner with the words, “Stop the carbon tax.” Q-BAS tweeted a 20 year old cartoon by Dan Piraro. It shows a TV weatherman saying:

Our extended forecast includes global warming & the catastrophic end of the human race. But for the weekend, it’s looking like sunny skies, mild temperatures, & a general apathy toward environmental concerns. Back to you, Jim.

Brian McNoldy, a researcher at the University of Miami who studies hurricanes, climatology, and sea level rise, tweeted a chart of global temperatures since 1981 plotted by month. The plot for 2022 is close to the top. Since April 1 the plot for 2023 is noticeably above all the others. He added:

I know there are a million people sharing temperature anomaly charts and maps lately, but there's a good reason for that. This is totally bonkers and people who look at this stuff routinely can't believe their eyes. Something very weird is happening.

Leah McElrath replied: “Possible cascading system failures.” Ten days ago Mark Sumner of Kos wrote about the rise of AR-15 sales. He was prompted to write when Nikki Haley, candidate for president, spouted some blather that the answer to rising gun deaths is more guns. That’s the only answer she and fellow Republicans can give. It is so predictable that news outlets ignore it. The AR-15 went for sale in 1964 as a sport gun, and a bad one at that. In the 1980s it was rebranded as a combat weapon for the home, at the time Reagan combined disdain for government with racism, meaning “every man for himself.” After Columbine in 1999 the NRA chose to d rum up hate and fear to sell guns. The biggest jump in sales was when America elected a black president.

By then, racism, fear, and guns had become the three-legged stool on which both the NRA and the Republican Party perched. They can’t back down to a more reasonable position because they don’t have a more reasonable position. Only more racism, more hate, and more guns were allowed. ... Haley’s answer to mass shootings is to stamp out the last remaining areas that are like America was before mass shootings—when no one in any state carried guns unchallenged through the streets of the city and when even police knew they didn’t need weapons of war. No matter what Haley says, no gun has ever allowed anyone to protect themselves. No gun is capable of protecting anyone. Guns kill people. That’s all they do and all they can do. Republicans can’t admit that. They remain propped up on that three-legged stool and they need guns as much as they need racism and hate.

In a pundit roundup Chitown Kev of Kos quoted Noah Robertson and Patrik Jonsson of the Christian Science Monitor:

Amid its chaos, Alexander City was the 18th-most violent small town in America in 2018, according to FBI statistics. Nearly every year, Alabama has one of the top three homicide rates in the country. The South is and almost always has been America’s most violent region. That violence appears in seemingly random murders and brawls, like Mr. Shaw’s. It appears in regionwide organized crime. It shows up in the rural South and the urban South, the mid-South and the Deep South. Perhaps most importantly, it shows up across time. Over 400 years, experts say, the South has reinvented itself more than any other region in America, from slavery to the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement. It’s gone from a lawless Colonial frontier to the country’s fastest-growing region. And yet, despite its constant change, the South has always stayed violent.

As I understand it a violent society is one that is very strongly into maintaining the social hierarchy. David Horsey of the Seattle Times tweeted a cartoon of a graduating class cheering at the end of the ceremony:

We made it through without getting shot!

Whyzguy tweeted a quote from American author Ursula K. LeGuin. Here is part of the quote, though the whole thing is worthwhile:

It’s always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe hierarchy and settle in. Don’t make changes, don’t risk disapproval, don’t upset your syndics. It’s always easiest to let yourself be governed. ... Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I’m going to go fulfill my proper function in the social organism. I’m going to go unbuild walls.