Politics

What To Do About TikTok

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It seems to me that the discussion of TikTok is distorted by the kind of xenophobic paranoia that frequently gets in the way. It’s not that there isn’t a problem, it’s that the real problem is not solved by a fixation on nasty foreigners.

There are two frequently discussed problems (that often get confused with each other):

  1. We’re giving a whole lot of information to TikTok that could be used by the Chinese government for nefarious purposes.
  2. The Chinese government could use their state-sanctioned control of TikTok to propagandize to TikTok’s base of customers.

The first point is pretty close to nonsense. Monumental amounts of information on the American population are already being collected, organized, and merchandized by companies who do this for a living. The last time I looked at this issue, more than ten years ago, you could already match what TikTok knows. Today it’s far worse. We need legal controls on information gathering. The fixation on TikTok for this issue is a distraction.

The second point is a more serious issue, as we’ve had more than enough experience with the coercive effects of social media. The problem, however, is that the dangers from TikTok are not an awful lot different than the dangers from good old American social media. There’s nothing that stops the Chinese government from putting propaganda on TikTok, but we’ve already had the Russians (and the Koch people) doing the same thing on Facebook. Unless we put up legal barriers to deliberate manipulation, social media are for sale to the highest bidder. Banning TikTok is just plain not the issue. (To my mind, any network operator that selects content for unsolicited distribution to users should be legally responsible for that content.)

You can even say flatly that the reason there is such bipartisan agreement on banning TikTok is that it is a handy way to make it seem that you’re doing something about a serious problem–without upsetting the real perpetrators much at all.

We’re Wrong About Divisions

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The most important division in American society is not between Republicans and Democrats.  It’s within the Democratic Party itself.

As an indication of what I’m talking about, I think about an episode of the program Peaky Blinders.  In that episode the hero Thomas Shelby’s sister’s boyfriend is a communist, and the hero has to figure out how to keep him alive.  When the subject comes up with the police, the answer is “Normally we don’t have to worry about those people.  They’re so busy killing each other that they’re just not a problem.”

The Republicans can say amen to that for our tamer version of the left:

  • We’re still living down “defund the police”
  • We’ve had an endless supply of articles about how privileged, racist whites just have to get used to taking a well-deserved hit, including for education.
  • Virtually any statement made about “neo-liberals” is a whitewashing of Republican failures so that chosen Democrats can be blamed instead. One hopes George W. Bush is duly grateful.
  • We had a chance to pass a Biden agenda, but the Democratic Party spent so much time posturing and pretending that Manchin and Sinema didn’t exist that when they finally got around to voting it was too late–inflation was THE issue and it was easy for Manchin to hide. The left wing of the party is gleefully blaming Biden, without any alternative policy or blame for Republicans.
  • Democrats are actually fighting over whether Biden will be the nominee in 2024—when the real issue is the 2022 midterm election.  The only result of this fight is weaking the remaining days of the Biden administration and undermining the Democrats’ message for 2022.

With friends like this who needs enemies.  As in the Peaky Blinders quote, they hate each other so much that it trumps any desire to do anything good for anybody. It’s hard even to count the self-inflicted wounds.

Just think about it.  That Democrats can do anything good at all—given this nonsense—means that they could perhaps do something really big if they could get organized and stop the knife stabbing. If they stopped providing amunition to Republicans, they might just be able bridge the other divisions we hear so much about.

RIP USA

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Clarence and Ginni Thomas are running the country now.

This was a genuine coup engineered by the Koch organization–creator and manager of the Federalist Society, the source for all our conservative Supreme Court justices. Read Dark Money. Check Wikipedia for recent Federalist manager Leonard Leo. This takeover was always the target.

There are a few others to call out for their contributions. Anthony Kennedy who knowingly capitulated to exactly this. Mitch McConnell of course. And Ruth Bader Ginsburg who couldn’t put aside her ego for the good of the country when Obama asked.

Finally and most fundamentally the founding fathers who made a disastrous mistake: the undemocratic organization charged with enforcing the Constitution has the unchallengeable power to make of the Constitution anything that it wants. That’s what this rogue Court is doing.

As Thomas indicated, they’re just getting started. The Koch project is to return the US to a nineteenth century level of government subservience to business: minimal taxes on corporations and rich people, no services, no personal rights, no regulation, no unions, no checks on business behavior - paradise. If we haven’t lost Medicare and Social Security yet it’s because that’s inconvenient for the next election. After a few more years of voting restritions they won’t have to care. We’ll have a country where the welfare of the population is simply out of the equation.

Unless Biden can do something about the Court–hardly a likely prospect–the United States of America as we knew it is no more.

Guns are Money

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After the latest outrage of gun violence in Texas, the newspapers are full of articles about guns. However when people talk about Republicans and the gun lobby they tend to get things backwards. The gun lobby sounds like a rather limited thing, maybe financed by the manufacturers. It’s sort of odd the power they exercise over the Republican Party.

Not so odd. The reason guns are untouchable in this country is that guns are a potent identity issue used by the Kochs and the Mercers and the Thiels and the mainline Republicans to put money in their pockets. It’s core Republican money driving the gun lobby, not the other way around. That’s why there’s so much of it. The only legislative achievement of the Trump years was the monumental tax cut for the rich. Bought by guns.

Thirty years ago we didn’t have this problem with hysteria around gun ownership. It was recognized that there was a need for gun control, and there was no notion of evil liberals just looking for a chance to take away all your guns. The sense of grievance around guns was deliberately created as a means to a financial end with the active assistance Murdoch and Fox News. Why is the Supreme Court also supporting this stuff? Well all of the so-called conservatives on the Court come from the Federalist Society—which was created and managed by the Koch Organization (an indisputable fact).

Guns are money. That’s the only real story. It will continue as long as we let them get away with it. (As for what to do about it, there’s an old piece here that’s still relevant.)

The One Million Covid Victims Have a Message

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At least half of these deaths were due to deliberate misinformation from political interests calling the whole pandemic a left-wing plot.  For month after month the most popular story in the Wall Street Journal was the latest reason why there was really nothing going on:  it was just like normal flu; it was worst in New York because it was only in disgusting cities full of disgusting people.

Everyone in the country suffered, including very many who bought into the party line because they thought the propagandists were on their side.  Since vaccines were coming, deaths delayed could be deaths avoided. What’s worse, almost of half the people who died were unvaccinated when they could have been, convinced by the arguments of people like the Fox hosts-who were actually vaccinated for themselves.

This Covid story is unfortunately typical of what’s happening in this country.  The “populists” are the Kochs and the Mercers and the Thiels—people with the money to fill newspapers with issues they don’t care about (abortion, guns) so they can ride them all the way to the bank.  The only major piece of legislation passed in the Trump years was the monumental tax cut for the rich.  As with Covid, the supporters drawn in with identity issues are the ones who will suffer—in jobs, healthcare, education, climate, you name it.

Taking this one step further, it is worth noting that the damage with Covid was not from action but from inaction.  Most of the endless discussions of our fractured political system are missing the point.  The country is ungovernable because they want it that way.  If government can’t act, the powers that be are running things.  As Steve Bannon put it, all we need to do is create chaos. 

This story isn’t complicated, just lost in the cacophony of bought media.

What Matters for Climate Change

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Last year this blog had an overview of the major factors involved in fighting climate change.  Most of that is still current, but it has also become clear that there is a lot of confusion—even in the climate movement—about consequences.  So this piece is not about the basics; it’s about the reality of what it takes to combat climate change.

To start with, Here is a list (off the top of my head) of widely-believed nonsense.  There is probably something to annoy everyone.  You can see if I’ve made a case for it by the end.

– Conservation is a primary issue

– It’s important to get solar cells on rooftops everywhere

– Recycling is important

– Local initiatives are important

– State initiatives are important

– The main game is getting our house in order

– We don’t need to do anything, since technologists will solve it by themselves

– We’re ready for electric cars to take over the transportation sector

– Current solar and wind are ready to take over everything

– Winning is simple, we just have to stop the oil companies and start deploying the good stuff.

– For climate change employment, we need local communities to decide what they really need

– The private sector is doing it all by itself

– Carbon pricing is optional

– Carbon pricing is all it takes

– We need to get a better deal than the Paris Agreement

– We’re in control of our own destiny

– We all need to change our lifestyles

– Fighting climate change will tank the economy

– Economic dislocation means taking care of miners

– Since poor people get hurt worse, climate action is a matter of charity—for social justice

– Same thing for racial justice

– Same thing for regional justice

– Internationally, this is a matter of everyone taking care of their own

– With China and India, the important thing is to stand tough to get what we want

– We have to insist that any new technology developed here gets manufactured here

 

Let’s start this off with item #1—conservation.  From within the US it’s easy to believe the fight against climate change is all about conservation.  After all, we’re up against a hard limit on tolerable levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so we’ve just got to cut down on burning in all ways.  And we’ve got to learn to behave differently in the future.

However that logic breaks down quickly.  What about all the people in China and India?  Our conservation is a blip compared with them, but we share the same atmosphere.  Do they just have to get used to the idea that cars and air conditioning aren’t for them?  They should accept permanent sacrifice for the good of mankind?  Even in the US, no amount of conservation will move people to electric cars or eliminate the CO2 production from heavy industry.

So even for the near-term we have to recognize that the fight against climate change is not primarily about conservation but about alternative energy sources.  Worldwide, we need to evolve energy sources, so that there will be enough to take care of people everywhere.  As noted in the prior piece, there is in fact no reason to fear we will ultimately lack for power.  This isn’t about learning to live with energy scarcity—it’s about creating a future for all people, all countries, and all life styles.

For that reason we need to focus on the transition to alternative sources of power.  There are two quite different types of problems to be solved:

– Generating and distributing power

The first thing to recognize is that (despite some obfuscation from the oil companies) the future is electric.  That’s the common currency for the energy to be used everywhere, in factories, in homes, in cars.  It’s what all the renewables produce today, and what will be produced by all future candidate technologies.  Electricity is easily transmitted over long distances, and can be stored for later use (although there is much still to be done for high-volume, in-network storage).

So this work includes the electrical network, the sources of energy, and the means to store it.  Since everything will move to the electrical grid, its capacity will need to grow significantly and fast.  This is a huge project, but this is ultimately just a matter of national will.  That makes it the easier part.

– Adapting applications to use it

For that you need to work through the major sectors of energy usage.  Here is the chart for the United States.

consumption-by-source-and-sector

This is a larger and more complex undertaking, requiring careful planning for each sector.  Carbon pricing is one of the few actions that can be done across the board.   As we noted previously, assuming the atmosphere is free amounts to an annual subsidy of $1 T to the US fossil fuel industry.  Even low-level initial pricing (as with CCL) sends a message for corporate planning.  However, it is naïve to believe that carbon pricing will just take care of all sectors in time to avert disaster.  Note also, for priorities, that the residential and commercial sector is the smallest by far.

We also have to think about this problem not just for the US but for the rest of the world as well.  The US Energy Information Agency has released a document that helps in thinking about that task.  (A short summary of conclusions is available here.)  It has projections of energy use throughout the world going out to 2050.  With that it includes variants of the US energy use chart (just given) for other countries.  A significant fact is that many developing countries have a proportionally much larger industrial segment than we do, as high as 70%.

The report shows some influence of climate concerns, particularly in the US and China, but overall it describes the dimensions of a disaster.  The following chart taken from the report shows a continuing growth of CO2 emissions for the entire period.   While the report itself doesn’t explicitly call out the bottom line, the numbers from the report imply that the world will hit a point of no return already by 2035—with a CO2 concentration of 482 ppm and a temperature rise of 1.6 degrees C.

eia1

In the EIA scenarios, the world does a pretty good job of migrating electric grids to renewables (or to some extent gas)—but a terrible job of moving applications to electricity.  In developed countries this translates to business as usual, but in the developing world it’s much worse.  India, for example, is seen as growing exponentially with much of the increase powered by coal.  This isn’t just a question of forcing them to meet our standards.  Heavy industry is a particular problem everywhere.

So the application area is a big job with many industry-specific issues.  The world desperately needs focused research efforts with results that can be applied large-scale worldwide.  This can’t be a matter of everyone guarding discoveries for national advantage.  Cooperative international arrangements will be key to meaningful progress.

 

Even at this high level there are a number of conclusions to be drawn:

– There is no do-nothing alternative.

Technology will deliver a viable future, but we’ll have to work to get there.  There’s no silver bullet that makes it all go away.

– Technology development is important and has to be figured into any planning, but technology concerns are not the barrier to success.

It is perfectly possible to put together a plan to get the US where it needs to be by 2030.  That’s not saying all technology problems have been solved (after all electric cars are still much too expensive), but we can see a path to success.  We shouldn’t trivialize the effort and sophistication required, but based on where we are, and given financing, it appears that the technical side can get done.  The next point is less clear.

– Changes are huge and have to be dealt-with politically.

This isn’t just a matter of coal-miners losing their jobs.  Electric cars alone will have pervasive consequences.  We have to understand that worries about change are rational, so an important part of domestic climate policy has to be an assurance everyone will be made whole.  Otherwise we will continue to face the push back seen most recently in the Australian election.

In the US there is every reason for the less advantaged to distrust the political powers that be.  In the developing world it’s even worse—you’re talking about giving up on the benefits of development for some unknown duration.  The situation is necessarily difficult.   It’s only going to work if wealthy people and wealthy countries realize it’s in their own interest to come up with the goods.  No one will escape the consequences otherwise.

– The international side is unavoidable.

There is only one atmosphere.   Every country in the world has to cooperate, or we all lose.  When the US opts out, everyone loses faith in the future—as was evident in the recent Madrid meeting.  We have to restore international unity in order to make progress.  And that will only come when every country sees a just role for itself individually.  As for the terms of the Paris Agreement—it is only a first step and actually better for rich countries than will ultimately be workable.

We cannot go into this with the attitude that the objective is to come out a winner at the expense of everyone else.  If everyone doesn’t win, we all lose.

– This is not a matter for incrementalism.

We’re not going to get there with well-meaning people insulating their houses or businesses putting solar cells on the roof.

It’s worth putting some numbers on this.  With current technology, the power output of a solar cell is 20 watts per square foot.  From that you can calculate how many solar cells would be needed to meet current US electrical demand.  The answer is about 2500 square miles, assuming they’re all in brilliantly-lit, weather-free Arizona.  (And there are serious problems in managing that one too.)  All of it gets an order of magnitude worse if we decide to go piecemeal in random, less promising locations–and that’s just for today’s electrical grid, not where we have to get to.

That’s not to say that Arizona is necessarily the solution.  The point is that there has to be a rational national policy that will actually get the job done.

 

Greta Thunberg is right—there is no substitute for major political action.  Anything less is delusion, regardless of who says it.  The 2020 election is the single, deciding climate issue today.

Perhaps we need the right metaphor.  The fight against climate change is a war.  We’re all in it together—losing is losing for everyone.  The countries of the world are allies in the sense that each of them is necessary for success.  National economies will be affected, but through national climate efforts with no shortage of jobs.

Right now we’re like the US in mid 1941.  We can see and understand the enemy, but we’re not convinced we really have to be involved.  That situation only got resolved when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and it was clear there was no other choice.  You can make a case we were lucky that it wasn’t too late.  Without the Nazi’s disdain for “Jewish physics”, they might even have gotten the bomb.

For climate, if we act today we have the elements of victory.   We also have ample evidence it’s a near thing.  A climate Pearl Harbor may well be too late—and beyond anything we want to live to see.

A Story that Ought to be Told

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It’s natural enough that different factions of the Democratic Party see things differently.  But we’ve got to stop letting the Republican Party off the hook.

  1. Bill Clinton may have let China into the WTO, but he was not around to see or act on China’s behavior. Essentially 100% of job losses occurred under Bush, either directly or as a result of the 2008 crash.  Obama had no opportunity to do anything:  his first two years were spent avoiding a depression, and after that the Republican Congress shut down government.
  2. That Republican Congress has never received its deserved public exposure. Its stated objective was non-cooperation with Obama on all issues,.  They understood perfectly what stimulus is good for, and they made sure it didn’t happen—with the proven-bogus “balanced-budget amendment”.   The Republican Party deliberately kept the country poor for the 2016 election
  3. On meat and potatoes issues Trump is not a rebel, he’s a Republican. His primary effect on the economy was through the tax cuts. Those were properly the Koch organization tax cuts—delivered as ordered to the primary donors to the Republican Party.

It’s not wrong to say that both parties share blame for the growth of inequality and such—but not in equal measure.  The position of the “Trump base” would have been quite different if Obama had not been denied all opportunity to act.  A Clinton Presidency would have worked on education, healthcare, and climate change instead of the Koch tax cuts.

Clinton was reluctant to criticize the Republican Congress, because she thought ordinary Republicans might support her (Comey fixed that!).  We seem to be making a similar mistake by excusing Republicans in the guise of “everybody did it until now”.   We’re letting Trump be the hero who brought it all to the fore.

On issues Trump is a Republican.  Republicans produced the 2008 crash, the Iraq war, the drastically increased inequality, and the current polarization of society.  Democrats fix things.  Trump has made it harder, but we can get it done.

The Epiphany of the Right

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It’s often difficult to understand the logic behind the right’s continued embrace of Trump’s lies and corruption.  In thinking about it, it seems that there is something even more fundamental than identity behind it.  You might call it the epiphany of the right.

This already existed in rather pure form with the Tea Party.  Tea Party participants had the enthusiasm of true believers, and they were pretty clear about their new beliefs.  When interviewers asked people on Medicare and Social Security why they were ready to deny government benefits to everyone else, the answers came down to a simple idea: “I don’t have to care!”.  In Strangers in their own Land, the author asked a Tea Party defender of personal responsibility how a poor child in a drastically underfunded school system was supposed to succeed, and she got the same response. “I don’t have to care”.

That “I don’t have to care” has become the epiphany of the right.  It’s the all-purpose answer.   It not only absolves the believer of moral responsibility, it gets you off the hook for anything you’d rather not think about—say climate change or the actual operation of world economy.  All that nagging about equality, facts, or expertise is optional!

It’s the perfect elixir for the Trump world.  Responsibilities or standards of behavior are gone.  You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.  Whatever you don’t like can be dealt with by any means, however brutal.  Democracy is just something else to nag about.

As with one’s personal life, this kind of behavior feels liberating and great until it isn’t.  Reality wins in the end.  But until then—there’s nothing anyone else can tell you!  I don’t have to care.