The other night, I gave up. It was frigging cold, so I flipped a switch and the gas central heating came on. Within 15 minutes, the house was comfortably warm enough.
I started rhapsodizing about the wonderfully easy life I live. I don't have to chop or haul wood for heating or cooking, I turn knobs. I don't have to walk 3 miles with a bucket to haul water, I turn on a faucet. I have plenty to eat without sowing or reaping. Someone else does that for me, and, conveniently packages it for me. I can wear 3 or 4 layers of clothes without growing, spinning or sewing. Someone else does it for me.
All my needs are provided for me by others. Pretty sweet.
Then today, Amy Goodman on Democracy Now had a story about the US government Export-Import Bank giving $3 billion dollars to Exxon to finance a project to extract New Guinea's natural gas.
That can't go well for the natives. It never does. And New Guinea is home to some of the last hunter gatherer tribes on our planet.
How many houses could have been supplied with geothermal for that $3 billion that US taxpayers are giving to Exxon? Why does Exxon, the most profitable company in the US, need funding from us?
This is one more travesty to add to the list.
1 comment:
The Ex/Im bank is also helping solar projects as is shown on their home page:
http://www.exim.gov/
Of course, to get these Ex/Im credit lines filled up with commodities to pay Ex/Im back, workers have to be exploited for wages and Nature has to kick in its fair share of wealth.
The controllers of the social wealth we produce (the capitalists, landlords and their State) do what they want because we give up control over that wealth when we sell ourselves into wage-slavery. We can change that relation of power; but only if we present our rulers with an organised, class power of our own.
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