“[W]aste is integral to what Robert Reich, in his most recent book, calls “supercapitalism”. Unchecked supercapitalism produces waste as inevitably as it produces inequality, job insecurity, loss of community and so on. We are rapidly reaching the point, long promised by futurologists, where we throw away clothes after wearing them once, and we already dispose of many electrical goods as soon as they go wrong.”

“[I]t may be possible to mobilise enough pressure from below to force action by those at the top of the system in time, but we simply do not know if this will work. We do know that, first, a willingness to pose a revolutionary challenge to capitalism is often the best way to mobilise to win changes from the system and, second, that, were such a revolutionary challenge to succeed, it would certainly stave off climate disaster.”

“George Monbiot risks dismissing vital currents within the green movement when he reduces some radical climate justice politics as “anarchism”.
Movements advocating radical social change aren’t simply “anarchist” or rooted in “identity politics”: they are everywhere. Political organisation, particularly within a context of social peace, can be as much about judging boundaries and ruling out possibilities as it is about pushing the limits of debate about what is possible.”

“Now, the thing you have to realize about corporate taxes is that the statutory rate — the rate you pay after allowed deductions and all that — means very little. That’s because corporations have lots of potential deductions — and can hire the very best accountants to find them, and lawyers to justify them. So any time you see a table that compares the nasty 35% US rate with other countries, you know you’re being snowed.”

“If you want a glimpse of how the movement against climate change could crumble faster than a summer snowflake, read Ewa Jasiewicz’s article, published yesterday on the Guardian’s Comment is Free site. It is a fine example of the identity politics that plagued direct action movements during the 1990s, and from which the new generation of activists has so far been mercifully free.”