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All my life I knew this was coming. Literally everything's broken. The centre no longer holds. It's why the best I could ever do was fake it along with everybody else, sometimes to spectacular degrees. We all are together now. Hiding behind/kicking in the same door as one. THREAD
One of my earliest thoughts was as a child crossing the streets of #Kelowna with my Gramma. Waited for a walk signal but with just a few steps it was flashing 'don't walk' in bright angry orange. I'd been coached on the rules. They'd sounded simple enough. This was confounding /1
For me, as an infant, the 'walk' vs 'don't walk' dichotomy got exploded the very first time I hit the streets. What other easy sounding Truths will be exploded just as easily? Blew my young mind. It's still blown /2
When we returned to that intersection my young mind vowed to determine if, at full speed, even on my tricycle, could I *possilbly* make it across the road during the 'walk' vs 'don't walk' phases? I watched. I measured. There could be no doubt. It was impossible. Huh. Okay. /3
I asked Gramma about it. She said "I know. It doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?" She shook her head in a way I would grow only too familiar with throughout my whole life, in regards to literally everything we humans do. And here we all are. /4
I learned to read as quickly as I could. I grew impatient of waiting on The Parents for 'story time'. On my own schedule I could consume the right content at a rate of my choosing. My young mind deemed this the critical path. /5
Before I was 10 I had a working knowledge of what slavery had been about. That racism and things like inequality between men & women could still be a thing confounded me. It confounds me to this day. That which has always been broken & backwards remains broken & backwards /6
By 15 I'd heard & agreed with Pierre Trudeau who'd said 'there's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation' and was utterly mystified that anybody would care what consenting adults do with one another in privacy. I've never in my life had to 'evolve' on gay marriage /7
I'd also narrowly avoided getting sexually assaulted and presumably buggered at a religious camp I'd been misguidedly sent to. I was immensely lucky to emerge from all that scarred only with an ever-growing distrust of religion & a healthy cynicism about my fellow humans /8
By the time I was 20 I'd read more books than most people will read in their whole lives. My analysis was (and remains) that we were living in a broken, backwards & dishonest world. I wouldn't discover Yeats until years later but perhaps it's he who described it best /9
A dichotomy emerged for me around that time, one I still obsessively track to this day; that Beauty may still manifest in this broken and backwards world, that Greatness can and does still emerge from the most surprising of places, indeed often from where it's most broken /10
By 20 I'd wholly rejected the life-plan laid out by well meaning high school teachers: work through a series of jobs to pay for a series of vehicles & living spaces. Find a partner to help pay for the *really* big ticket items. Move to the burbs. Have kids. Grow old. Die. /11
INTERLUDE #1: "I don't mind stealing bread from the mouths of decadence." https://open.spotify.com/track/0W7AbEauB7cP4pidLclApe?si=7F8T1fz5RAiX8PIFEwhucQ
Given my assessment that everything was either backwards or broken, it didn't seem all that pressing for me to take any of it seriously. Didn't jump into University right away. With high school done I'd performed my obligations to the status quo. I grew my hair & had some fun /12
Series of low entry jobs cover basic costs. Reading during break time makes you an odd duck but a funny one. Brain ticking away at the central dichotomy. Questions/thoughts about the Big Picture distract from the daily grind & slow-ticking clock. Learn about Life for a while /13
Low entry yet low commitment jobs ran their course. Folks say "you should go to University or something." Why not? And you can laugh but #GoodWillHunting struck a chord. Identified with a guy having larger thoughts while working demolition. Time to rub elbows with thinkers /14
Far & away toughest thing about post-2ndary education is securing funds in a way that jives w/ feeding yourself, hitting rent & occasionally getting drunk/laid now & again. I oscillated between the humanities & literature, physical Science being the sleeper hit of the bunch /15
Psychology seemed a fit until I realized I didn't really want to get into analyzing the minds of others any more than I already was /16
Sociology fills in the background of everything I'd ever learned about humans in groups. Most of us are not necessarily slow but certainly easily tricked into cheerfully accepting whatever the local King, Chieftain or Billionaire wants us to. Maybe it's always been this way /17
#PhysicalAnthro taught me of mankind's ascent via #NaturalSelection and #Evolution, principles that once learned cannot be unlearned by honest minds. I'm of the mind it's as much a #UniversalTruth as the #PythagoreanTheorem. Come at me, nerds. /18
Deep dive on Homer's #Illiad. Fave part is #Achilles with his #ToBeOrNotToBe musings. Step up & swing for the fences or build yourself a #NukeProofOrgyBunker to wait out the Apocalypse. Or keep do nothing at all. Maybe that's where we all are now. I choose swinging for fences /19
Like the idea that #TheGods are jealous of #WeMortals, that mortality makes us interesting. Finite Time (like finite $) spurs unpredictable action. Great adventure. True heroism/villainy. What's not to love for Gods bored to tears? #ImmortalityIsADrag /20
Uni was almost perfectly balanced between how things works vs what the writers/thinkers were saying about it. Discovered poetry by accident. Read epic stories with mind-blowingly crafted sentences. Techno music & weed on the beach. You can have a day as fine but no finer /21
Somewhere in all that 911 happened. Pretty sure I was getting laid when the first plane hit. We all got the same call:
"Turn on the tv."
"What channel?"
"ANY. Channel."
"Oh."
Turned on the tv in time for the second tower. Whole world knew Change was upon us, like it or not /22
"Turn on the tv."
"What channel?"
"ANY. Channel."
"Oh."
Turned on the tv in time for the second tower. Whole world knew Change was upon us, like it or not /22
Interlude #2: Next episode by Dr Dre featuring Snoop Dogg. '2001' is a perfect album from start to finish. https://open.spotify.com/track/4LwU4Vp6od3Sb08CsP99GC?si=fu1GUGKEQ06qlveYQfLMHQ
Pre-911 I'd not gotten into History or Geopolitics much. I didn't feel like Nations & how they ran themselves would hold many surprises. Expect folks creating a broken/backwards system to themselves be broken/backwards. #911 reminded humans how quickly this stuff can matter /23
End of the day on 911 I felt like I all I knew for sure was America was about to smoke somebody, maybe a whole bunch of somebodies & that it would be nice to know who actually did it & why. What else can you do? You wait for the President to speak. Yeah. *That* guy. /24
Knew little of George #Dubya Bush before that day. Waiting. Hadn't heard even once from The Most Trusted Name In News on what would make a number of people from half a world away take on this enormous effort that ends in their own fiery deaths. Entirely absent in the coverage /26
It wasn't because I had an ounce of sympathy for the terrorists of #911 whatsoever, it was just a missing part of the story. Mystified me why nobody was asking or talking about it. Don't need to study Journalism to've run into the Five Ws that constitute a news story /27
And what'd ol' Georgie get up there & do? Told America to hit the malls. Spend money. Consume. I'm not kidding. Check the transcript. When he finally got to #TheBigWhy Georgie laid out the stinker that 911 happened because they "hate our Freedom." Lame. What did it even mean? /18
You didn't have to know anything about #TheMiddleEast, American #ForeignPolicy or #GeopoliticalMacroEconomics to know George Bush had laid out a Big Stinker on the world stage about why America was attacked. #TheBigWhy, it turned out, took some reading. Learning. Time. Effort /19
It mattered because I knew that if our number 1 trading partner decided to go the War we Canadians would one day be asked to go with them. Sure enough we were in #Afghanistan in a blink of an eye with little in the way of national debate. To #NationBuild, whatever that was /20
#BushCo made a weak case to the world. America was going into Iraq no matter what & no matter why. Stephen Harper said it would be shameful for Canada not to join the #IraqWar. All of Canada debated. To his everlasting credit, PM Chretien said no /21 https://www.ctvnews.ca/iraq-war-a-mistake-harper-admits-1.330207
I found it shocking there was a debate at all. Right-minded critical thinkers saw the #IraqWar push as transparent lies sloppily delivered. Shifting reasons inre #TheBigWhy. If you yourself fell for it I won't be even remotely surprised to learn you're a climate denier today /22
We marched together. More of us than'd ever marched before. War happened anyways but it told right-minded critical thinkers all over the world we weren't alone. We couldn't be sure before the march. It was a big irrefutable thing an abysmal media couldn't screw up /23
MUSICAL INTERLUDE #3: "For What It's Worth" by #BuffaloSpringfield. https://open.spotify.com/track/1qRA5BS78u3gME0loMl9AA?si=1gFCuyAaTmeWkBXdVTeGTg
Finished Uni but not before an #Astro101 course taught me #Keplers2nd, triggering #GrandUnification ideas about the Universe at large (and of course the infinitely small) which I pursued on my own. The more you learn, the more you learn we don't know /24 #GravityIsMagnetism
Perhaps a thread for another day. /25
Over those years every single excuse to invade a foreign country were revealed as utterly bogus, just as the smart folk amongst us knew from the jump. Surely it'd now be impossible for #Bush to get reelected having demonstrably lied to get #America into war? Right? NO?!? No. /26
Bush's reelection wasn't called until late that night. They declared him winner & I climbed as high as I safely could up a building I had access to in the centre of the downtown, turned to where I thought America might be & shouted at the top of my lungs: "YOU FUCKING FOOLS!" /27
Walked thru the city in a daze the next day, everybody else living Life as usual. Not for the first time wondered how many're like them & how many're like me; horrified by just how badly broken the most powerful country on earth was. Just what'd that mean for the rest of us? /28
The reelection emboldened #America's vilest bozos to consider other spots in the #MiddleEast worth invading & a horrifying realization became clear to me: the safety of the entire planet rested on the decisions of a voting majority of easily tricked & distracted Americans /29
I credit George Bush with helping me find my voice. If the future of civilization hinged on the American voting public, I'd have to begin engaging them. As one of them. I adopted the alias 'SenseChange' & joined a blog site called #WritingUp. And I never truly stopped /30
The blogger #SenseChange sought out like minds, called out corrupt regimes, became the defacto leader of the mildly-prolific-in-a-small-pond #GonzoWarriors, faked his own death & ripped off the good Dr Hunter S. Thompson wherever and whenever he could. /31 http://sensingchange.blogspot.com/2006/09/sensechange-must-die.html
#WritingUp died one day so #SenseChange became #iSenseChange & moved over to the #DailyKos, a fast growing blog site for the American Left. Never claiming to be American but never stating otherwise. Watched & waited for signs of an awakening America /32 https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2008/3/17/478826/-Rock-Stars-Root-Causes-and-the-Matter-of-a-Missing-Television
Got deadly predicting American politics heading into Election 2008. Knew neither "frontrunner" Hillary nor Giuliani'd be eventual nominees for their parties but predicted an utterly broke McCain would & called Biden for VP three months before Obama did /33 https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2007/12/8/419387/-The-Republican-Candidates-are-the-Most-Unelectable-Gang-of-Freaks-in-American-History
Late summer of 2009 I read a magazine article (remember magazines?) about that "other" new platform some folks were talking about. It was time to finally check out this Twitter thing. The blogger iSenseChange became @iSenseChange but the mission remained the same /34
MUSICAL INTERLUDE #4: #SoGentlyWeGo by #IMotherEarth. Play it just so, so, so loud https://open.spotify.com/track/4JVVfuSEJLPzmLiWlw8oo5?si=vRngwp05S5e-U-n0YTZVlg
I first tried Twitter the weekend they buried #MichaelJackson & I know that because I was astonished at the wall-to-wall coverage #CNN was willing to put in on the dropping of a dead man down a hole. Like him or not, who cares? "Here comes Latoya..." Really?!? /35
#MichaelJackson's the first music I really *loved* growing up but I identified pretty early there was something weird about the guy in the fake military costume who always hung around little kids. His music is a source of conflict within me to this day /36 https://open.spotify.com/track/2kulOHR2XY6YDZCWXb38hn?si=ePuI3ecWQRmcAfhftLOfUA
Always thought this song was as close as #MichaelJackson'd ever come to a mea culpa for the weird things I never had a shred of doubt he was doing with those kids. But I *love* this song. I'd love to listen to it right now. And I hate it. See? Conflict /37 https://open.spotify.com/track/2u2udGmop1z67EPpr91km7?si=kwabJ_PJTo61lcOJm8FfFg
Regardless, @cnn runs a full weekend of wall-to-wall coverage of a *funeral*? Why was this interesting & to whom? Were some folks making popcorn for this? Were there parties? Disgusted I fired up the laptop to try this Twitter thing and the first of it I ever saw was #cnnfail /38
Not understanding hashtags but seeing #cnnfail trending addicted me to Twitter instantly. For life. How could anything speak clearer to everything I thought was broken & backwards in that particular moment than that? Than *you*? The little hashtag thingy was click-able. Woah. /39
#cnnfail was trending because something else was *indeed* going on that weekend more important than the excruciatingly slow eventual lowering of a dead dude down a hole. Other trending hashtags were all about #Iran & folks fighting in the bloody streets. A #GreenRevolution /40
A world opened up to me. People from LITERALLY ALL OVER THE PLANET watching the streets of #Tehran. Caring about something bigger than themselves. Cheering. Vilifying. Changing profile pictures to trick the murderous government forces. Finally. MY people. You, beautiful *you* /41
Where @cnn had only ever presented Iranians as murderous nuke-wielding maniacs, *you* were posting pics of folks who didn't look all that different than friends of mine, wearing the same #CalvinKlein jeans we wear, fighting for their very lives vs well-armed jack-booted thugs /42
It was impossible to follow America's Iraq debacle as I had & not come away with a horrific understanding of how broken/backwards America's media was & how big a role it was playing (& still plays) in the backwardness/brokenness of America herself. Twitter was something else /43
Day I joined this website was the day good ol' Andy Cooper was forced to cover #Iran because #cnnfail was trending on that increasingly popular Twitter thinger. Enough of *you* felt exactly like me & Andy apologized for the network & started covering the #GreenRevolution /44
It's de rigueur to trash Twitter as a festering cesspool of negativity & conflict. At worse it's exactly that. What it also is, as far as I can tell, is the first ever global coalition of folks like me that have always known everything was bullshit. And I fuckin' loves you /45
MUSICAL INTERLUDE #5: If you've only heard this track at the beginning of a Bond movie I want you to blast it. Listen to it like it's a brand new thing https://open.spotify.com/track/2gTRWaatQIg05HmJqAcB7p?si=tF9AUG3mS4GVuxV1VuW12w
We trash them (for FB for damned good reason) but Twitter and Facebook changed the game forever. A nation & its media wants to paint Iranians to me as baby-eating monsters to prepare us for the next adventure? Tell it to to #Neda [discretion advised] /46
In #GoldsGym on an exercise bike with a tv built into it (yes, that's ridiculous) when I saw via Twitter the light die from Iranian protester #Neda's eyes. It's a really weird place for a big strong dude to cry in. Twitter made Neda's murder a story #TheNews now had to carry /47
Twitter changed the game. Who now waits for the nightly news to find out the latest on, well, pretty much anything? How can a heavily produced tv show *with commercials* possibly compete with finding out exactly what's happening *as it's happening*? Can't /48 #OldWorldVsNewWorld
Folks say "yeah, you get all your news from [CNN/FOX/NBC/Whatnot]!" I just shake my head.
@iSensechange gets his American political news from a curated Twitter list of 502 sources.
The Gent?
#GlobalClimate - 2346 sources
#cdnpoli - 708 sources
#abpoli/ #yyc - 396 sources
/49
@iSensechange gets his American political news from a curated Twitter list of 502 sources.
The Gent?
#GlobalClimate - 2346 sources
#cdnpoli - 708 sources
#abpoli/ #yyc - 396 sources
/49
Yes there's evil little golems trying to manipulate it but Twitter blows right past that corporate filter that makes so much of our near totally compromised media so utterly useless. No dark smokey room dictates the stuff I pay attention to here. I do. *You* do. #NewWorld 
/50
/50
Always knew every critical system we rely on is backwards/broken. Twitter manifested itself to me as an unstoppable force for the kind of #Change I'd been waiting for/sensing my whole life. We don't think about it but It's not really refutable /51
The despicable pro- #Slavery #ConfederateFlag *still* flying from government buildings was one of those intractable things about American life right up until #TakeDownTheFlag began trending and a movement was born (or perhaps the reverse) & down that despicable thing came /52
Participants themselves describe #OccupyWallstreet a failure but what could be further from the Truth? It shifted the #OvertonWindow forever. Created critical vocabulary amongst us inre the 1% vs the 99% to describe the enormous inequality we'd ALL lived our whole lives thru /53
The blood-drenched filthy rich #NRA'd worked tirelessly for decades to make more and more powerful weapons available to any that wanted them. They were invincible. And then they got taken down forever by the eminently brave #NeverAgain high school kids /54 https://twitter.com/TheGentYYC/status/1080181958519320576
The misogyny that ruled human existence throughout history finally got the beating it richly deserved via #NeverAgain. Is everything better? No. Is it at least a bit harder to be a misogynist asshole or sexual predator/creepazoid? Yes. Finally /55 https://twitter.com/iSenseChange/status/949394018856824832
As for the greatest challenge in all of human history, ask anybody that knows anything about #Climate how much #GretaThunberg shifted the window this year. Then ask Greta how important social media's role was. It's not refutable. Traditional media'd've ignored it to death /56
[Musical Interlude #6(?)] #TheGhetto by #DonnyHathaway. Loud. Hand drums. Yeah. https://open.spotify.com/track/1yeIxOEFmpQ3qlOb2R3g2m?si=5c5ExG-GS3mwFEinwxFObA
For those of us always tuned into how backward/broken everything is, #GlobalWarming was not a surprising thing. None of us would have predicted it was the #Climate per se but we all knew something, somewhere had to give. Could just as easily been (or still be) superviruses /57
Just think, even if we didn't global systemic change to fight the #ClimateCrisis we'd still need the exact same approach to address the utterly toxic ocean-sealife system over the same timeframe or we suffer an entirely different set of human induced cataclysms. AND SO ON. /58
Live beyond the #IraqWar debacle & you notice interesting similarities between the kinds of folks easily suckered by #GeorgeBush & the folks so *MAD* about #AlGore & his #InconvenientTruth. Similarities meaning THEY WERE THE EXACT SAME PEOPLE. And they all VOTE THE SAME /59
Not saying everybody on #TheRight is stupid. Some are just reckless/greedy. There's no 3rd choice. From #IraqWar to denying/ignoring the #ClimateCrisis to #DonaldTrump, same people endanger human civilization as we know it by making same abysmal choices OVER AND OVER AGAIN /60
#InDefenseOfAlGore knowing what we know now, any right-thinking honest person'd have to admit he got it PRECISELY CORRECT & if you'd opposed him & you've even a shred of honour you'd have to admit your mistake & take up the #ClimateCrisis fight in earnest. So how we doing? /61
#InDefenseOfAlGore literally the same people that became #Obama birthers or ignored Trump's great many moral & intellectual failures because of #ButHerEmails will TO THIS DAY make AN ENTIRELY UNTRUE CLAIM with bedrock certainty that Al Gore said he "invented" the internet /62
#InDefenseOfAlGore check the transcript. #AlGore said 'created' not 'invented.' Before you ask 'what's the difference', ask yourself: Can you go out & 'invent' a snowman? Of course not. Can you create one? Of course you can. There's a difference /63 https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/internet-of-lies/
#InDefenseOfAlGore who never said he 'invented' but rather 'took the initiative in creating' the internet, turns out that'a TRUE. Internet was created in America. By the US government. Of which, then American Senator #AlGore, allocated funding for the Internet's *CREATION* /64
#InDefenseOfAlGore every time you go online you can ABSOLUTELY thank #AlGore for it. He's a manifestly GREAT man. Saw not only #TheInternet coming but also the #ClimateCrisis. The very same folks that got/get everything else wrong vilified him & continue to do so to this day /65
3 inter-related realizations coalesced:
1) #Climate's the ultimate expression of humankind's broken/backwardness
2) The Greedy'll continue to use the Sleeping/Slow/Stupid to maintain their position
3) We're all able to talk with one another now. This is new & our only chance /66
1) #Climate's the ultimate expression of humankind's broken/backwardness
2) The Greedy'll continue to use the Sleeping/Slow/Stupid to maintain their position
3) We're all able to talk with one another now. This is new & our only chance /66
Musical Interlude #7: 60s rock ANTHEM #PurpleHaze by #JimiHendrix. Play it LOUD https://open.spotify.com/track/0wJoRiX5K5BxlqZTolB2LD?si=VSdHOtbpQCWJJD1eFOb2KQ
This puts us at 2010 or so, apropos given we're fast approaching #NewYears2020. I don't want to think about how much time I wasted this decade debating denialist bozos coming from dishonest places. If only I'd known then what I know now /67 https://twitter.com/TheGentYYC/status/1145736419156979712
America elected Obama to fix all the stuff George Dubya Bush had broken (please see #Iraq/global economic meltdown) & from 2010 on kept hamstringing him by electing/re-electing steadily worse, reckless, racist & just plain evil opposition in Congress /68 https://twitter.com/TheGentYYC/status/1117526888845430784
The Great Sin of #Obama was getting healthcare to the American people. Like everywhere else in this world #America is divided into smart people, those paying *very* little attention, the easily tricked/stupid & the outright greedy/sociopathic. #Climate's a vastly tougher lift /69
We can all say whatever we want about the #ParisAgreement now but American President Obama signing that country to it in Dec of 2015 was a gamechanger, as was the #WorldEconomicForum in Jan of 2016 calling the transition a "trillion dollar opportunity" /70 http://reports.weforum.org/toward-the-circular-economy-accelerating-the-scale-up-across-global-supply-chains/1-the-benefits-of-a-circular-economy/
No small thing: world economists'd gathered at #Davos to discuss this new climate framework that'd been near globally accepted & asked about the dollars/cents of it. Came back with "trillion dollar *opportunity*." Nations took note. So'd some of the world's biggest investors /71
In Canada we'd finally shaken off control of our government from the worst of Canada's #ClimateVillains, same guy who'd got the #IraqWar choice so wrong: #StephenHarper whose best solution for the #ClimateCrisis was to ignore it & muzzle the scientists /72 https://twitter.com/TheGentYYC/status/1126163656218046464
In his place we chose #JustinTrudeau with whom I've had my differences but from a #ClimateLens he pushed every province in this great nation to have a #ClimatePlan & said a #CarbonTax was coming like it or not, a tectonic shift in #Canada for which he gets little credit /73
Trudeau takes a lot of hits from #TheLeft for buying a pipeline but progressives in #Alberta took the same devil's deal he did when we supported an #NDP kicking and screaming for it just as loud as the #Conservatives. A pipeline for a bonafide #AlbertaCarbonTax & #ClimatePlan /74
#Alberta's best premiere since #Lougheed (70s/80s) was the #NDP's #RachelNotley who did more to move this province towards exactly the #JustTransition we so desperately need. Her #CarbonTax was bearing bonafide & irrefutable climate results. IN ALBERTA /75 https://twitter.com/TheGentYYC/status/1086043756359372800
For a little while a lifelong cynic, especially when it comes to moving this backwards/broken civilization of ours towards #Climate adaptation/mitigation, can probably be forgiven for thinking "maybe we might just win this thing after all." The real battle was only beginning /76
Musical Interlude #8: #TheEnd by #TheDoors https://open.spotify.com/track/4KGMuqdT1XEzzOJDJFXu7T?si=olTj3n-VR-adl77neZ5sAg
Before we'd ever heard of a #GreenNewDeal some of us talked about how fighting the #ClimateCrisis, rather than "costing us an arm & a leg" or "bankrupting" us, would function as an ENORMOUS stimulus program & that Canada was better suited than most to lead the world on this /77
Takes no special magic to make predictions like that, just a working knowledge of history & how stimulus works. Worth noting even the staunchest Conservatives find their way to stimulus when it's their precious favourite industries that are in jeopardy /78 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/harper-lays-out-stimulus-spending-in-progress-report-1.785129
Also took no special magic to predict that it was just a matter of time before we climate-conscious (so, you know, the *smart* people) could appeal to our fellow human's pocketbooks instead of just doing the right thing because its the right thing. Turns out this is critical /79
China's enormous investment in renewables, from solar to wind to electric buses to you-name-it brought down forever the global costs of these solutions, proving we, the climate-conscious, the manifestly *smarter* humans, correct. AGAIN /80 https://twitter.com/TheGentYYC/status/1136071150163726336
Global movement addressing the #ClimateCrisis was coalescing but the devil's hands weren't idle either. #StatusQuoDefenders had a good run with stalling tactics & fact-free denialist games for a long time but were starting to lose & they knew it. Augmentation was required /81
Climate had the facts, the science, the world's smartest people on its side & an ever-growing coalition of humans wizening up to the real world catastrophes happening before their very eyes. A reckless/amoral 1% & its servants reverted back to what's always worked in the past /82
If you can't appeal to what's smart in people, appeal to what's dumb: Fear & Hatred made a big comeback in the latter half of this decade, harnessed by new wielders of #Fascism, all backed entirely, nation-by-nation, ~100% of the time by that nation's 1% & its servants /83
Eventually, only way you can beat science, facts & reality is with Fascism & Bozo-ery. Villainize intellligence. Degrade expertise. Encourage the easily manipulated to explore their darker side. It's smart but only because it works. They got good at it /84 https://twitter.com/TheGentYYC/status/1165662004847112192
Stoke division. Feed Hatred & Racial Animus. Create a citizenry more angry with each other than anything else. Divide. Conquer. Tyrants working with multinational businesses to STEAL ELECTION AFTER ELECTION all over the world. Can't beat 'em? Cheat 'em. It's where we're at /85
Social-network fuelled #Climate/ #SocialJustice wins were piling up. The 1% & its servants took that ground back. Facebook was only too happy to offer up it's membership to political falsehoods from the highest bidder. Twitter proved impotent vs very simple algorithms/bots /86
And let's face it, this stuff works like a charm. Most of us humans are either stupid, not paying attention or easily distracted/manipulated. Most. But not all. Some of us have been nailing this stuff all along /87 https://twitter.com/iSenseChange/status/781666953136115712
Musical Interlude #8: Ravel's #Bolero https://open.spotify.com/track/3KtsRijwp8KunCRYlOdWEi?si=xU6knms3RgO7wR4C7VlJTQ
2010s are at a close. Final die is cast: will humankind rise to the occasion, fight and win the greatest challenge in all of human history or will we be manipulated & controlled until all that's left is smouldering ash & #Anarchy? Nothing less is at stake & the #2020s seal it /88
We KNOW we have just 10 years left. The 1% & its servants'll try to trick you about what that means, make folks using latest/best science out to be #ClimateAlarmists, a new easily repeatable catch-phrase designed to yet again gum up #ClimateProgress /89 https://twitter.com/TheGentYYC/status/1069825774792826880
If ALL the #ClimateDisasters we've so far experienced were due to around 1 degree of GLOBAL warming, how bad will they get at 1.5? Many experts think we can't stop at 1.5 at this phase but we can/MUST stop 2 degrees from happening. The #2020s decide it /90 https://twitter.com/TheGentYYC/status/1069826120285974528
At 1 degree-ish of GLOBAL warming: entire continent of Australia's on fire. Has been for some time. Just months before that: California & entire West Coast. An amoral 1% & it's servants'll absolutely crash us through 2 degrees & beyond if we let them /91 https://twitter.com/TheGentYYC/status/1212064023925051397
Used to joke about building #NukeProofOrgyBunkers to wait out the Apocalypse during the Bush years. 1% & their servants're now doing exactly that in case they happen to be wrong about this #ClimateCrisis thing after all. That's some balls right there /92 https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/ultra-rich-paying-millions-for-luxury-bunkers-to-ride-out-the-apocalypse-in-style-its-a-lot-of-fun-building-these/#.Xg0E5vWSCmc.twitter
The 1% and their servants are about getting every single drop they can out of the status quo before it all goes up in flames and then they fly away to safety. They can't even fathom caring about people they don't see or've never met. Capitalism groomed them into #Sociopathy /93
