I’m old enough to remember people losing their shit at China over the 2008 Beijing Olympics drowning in a toxic cloud. The international outcry was such that the state spent a decade cleaning all that shit up (which produced its own wave of “Has Chinese Eco-fascism Gone Woke?!” screamer articles in turn).
But their rate of pollution has been falling steadily for the last two decades, in no small part because the state wasn’t fighting an uphill battle against corporate slobs in white doctor’s coats trying to tell everyone that smog wasn’t happening/was good aktuly.
Meanwhile, US expenditures on lobbying, denialism, and greenwashing stretch into the billions of dollars annually. And its not hard to understand why, when the ROI is $7T/year on the international stage.
ROI is continued existence for some. It’s a similar reason to why the leadership of the west is so against communism and socialism: because the best path forward doesn’t include them.
the leadership of the west is so against communism and socialism
That’s far more just a historical boogieman. Nixon spent half his career insisting every institution from Harvard to Hollywood was infested with Communists, then made the high point of his career a photo-op with The Great Helmsman himself. To say “the leadership is against communism” you really need to blinker yourself to decades of amicable international cooperation.
Its only when local communities begin to express a bit of self-determination that western leadership remembers “Communism” is a dirty word.
I’m old enough to remember people losing their shit at China over the 2008 Beijing Olympics drowning in a toxic cloud. The international outcry was such that the state spent a decade cleaning all that shit up (which produced its own wave of “Has Chinese Eco-fascism Gone Woke?!” screamer articles in turn).
But their rate of pollution has been falling steadily for the last two decades, in no small part because the state wasn’t fighting an uphill battle against corporate slobs in white doctor’s coats trying to tell everyone that smog wasn’t happening/was good aktuly.
Meanwhile, US expenditures on lobbying, denialism, and greenwashing stretch into the billions of dollars annually. And its not hard to understand why, when the ROI is $7T/year on the international stage.
ROI is continued existence for some. It’s a similar reason to why the leadership of the west is so against communism and socialism: because the best path forward doesn’t include them.
“Makers” versus the “Takers”
That’s far more just a historical boogieman. Nixon spent half his career insisting every institution from Harvard to Hollywood was infested with Communists, then made the high point of his career a photo-op with The Great Helmsman himself. To say “the leadership is against communism” you really need to blinker yourself to decades of amicable international cooperation.
Its only when local communities begin to express a bit of self-determination that western leadership remembers “Communism” is a dirty word.