#TaxTheRich, it’s a decent start

Posted by Bluebird | Mar 12, 2025

"As incredible as it may seem, just a handful of #billionaire #Mainers could fund the state for years out of their own pockets and still live out their lives as multimillionaires. So when socialists say tax the rich, we mean more than raising what billionaires pay by 1% or 2%, we mean raising their taxes by 25% or 50% or more to start with. We mean we should take back the wealth they have collected by exploiting all the people who have worked for them, all the land they have stolen, and all the resources they have grabbed all around the world. In the meantime, socialists often support smaller measures whenever we feel like they are a way to raise funds to help our class, raise consciousness, and build organization.

However, increasing taxes on the wealthy isn’t a permanent solution to the persisting problems of #capitalist society. It’s a good start, but it’s not enough.

[...]

"By all means tax [the wealthy] at a rate of 95%, 99%, 100%, 200%! Take back everything they have stolen from us. Truly solving the causes of social inequality cannot happen until the property of the capitalist class has been expropriated, but for the reasons explained above, simply taxing them at any rate will prove ineffective given enough time.

"Moreover, tax increases tend to antagonize capitalists. Sooner or later, as we are seeing very clearly now in Washington, they will transform their economic might into raw political power to claw back even the small social costs that generations of #SocialMovements and trade unions have imposed on them. During such times, as grim as our prospects may seem, it becomes clearer than ever that so long as the capitalists have all the power, even the most progressive public policy can only be temporary.

"How much longer will capitalist industry be allowed to #pollute the planet? How many more times does the economy have to crash? How many more wars will we be forced to fight on the behalf of these #RobberBarons? How many more lives will be ruined by #debts, mass #layoffs, denied insurance claims, and more? Why should we tolerate a system that exploits those whose labor keeps society functioning?"

Read more:
https://pineandroses.org/opinion/www-pineandroses-org/
#MaineDSA #Socialism #CapitalismMustDie

Charcoal Storage, Bassens Harbour, France. August 2006. Ref-1020
https://www.denisolivier.com/photography/charcoal-storage-bassens-harbour-france/en/1020
#fuel #chemical #product #rejection #factory #industrial #dangerous #machine #chemistry #slagheap #industry #pollution #pollute #coal #atmosphere

#CensoredNews: United Nations #COP16 #Biodiversity Conference in Colombia

October 22, 2024

"#CaseyCampHorinek, #Ponca, is at COP16 in Cali, Colombia today. "The Ponca Nation is on the ground here at COP16 in Colombia, trying to raise up the issue of #FalseSolutions to the climate conference, like #CarbonCredits and #BiodiversityCredits that are killing #nature.' She said #FossilFuels must be phased out.

"The #PoncaNation is among the nations of the world that have followed #Ecuador's lead and recognized the #RightsOfNature by law.
Casey Camp-Horinek, Ponca, spoke today on false solutions, including carbon credits which allow #corporations to continue and #pollute. 'Don't give them permission to murder.'"

Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/10/live-from-united-nations-cop16.html

To those who remain on #X ...

You are aiding and abetting a dangerous #ManBaby in his efforts to:

1. Promote #WhiteSupremacy
2. Promote #mysogeny
3. Undermine #legal institutions,
4. Breach the #OuterSpace #treaty
5. Increase #ClassInequality
6. Waste and #pollute scarce #NaturalResources, thereby further exacerbating the #ClimateCrisis,
7. Destroy #Democratic institutions, and
8. #Elect a #fascist #narcissist suffering from #dementia

You must be so proud of yourselves.
#uspol #TechBros

In #NYC and elsewhere, #ClimateProtesters say pace of change isn’t fast enough

By SETH BORENSTEIN
September 20, 2024

NEW YORK (AP) — "Six years after a teenage #GretaThunberg walked out of school in a solitary #Climate{rotest outside of the Swedish parliament, people around a warming globe marched in youth-led protest, saying their voices are being heard but not sufficiently acted upon.

"Emissions of heat-trapping gases and temperatures have been rising and #OilAndGas drilling has continued even as the protests that kicked off major weeklong climate events in New York City have become annual events. This year, they come days before the #UnitedNations convenes two special summits, one concentrating on #SeaLevelRise and the other on the future.

"The young people who organized these marches with #FridaysForFuture said there is frustration with inaction but also hope. People marched in #Berlin, #RioDeJaneiro, #NewDelhi and elsewhere, but the focus often is in New York City because of #ClimateWeekNYC. Diplomats, business leaders and activists are concentrating their discussions on the money end of fighting #ClimateChange — something not lost on protesters.

"'We hope that the government and the financial sector make polluters pay for the damage that they have imposed on our environment,' said #Uganda Fridays for Future founder #HildaFlaviaNakabuye, who was among a few hundred marching in New York Friday, a far cry from the tens of thousands that protested in a multi-group mega-rally in 2023.

"The New York protest wants to take aim at 'the pillars of #FossilFuels” — companies that #pollute, banks that fund them, and leaders who are failing on climate, said Helen Mancini, an organizer and a senior at the city’s Stuyvesant High School."

Read more:
https://apnews.com/article/climate-protests-change-united-nations-climate-week-3c944a1d05d5bb4415c6b811bddc48b9

Activists ask for help combatting violence against #Nicaragua’s #Indigenous communities

Maxwell Radwin
29 Jul 2024

"Increasing violence in northern Nicaragua this year has displaced rural families and led to calls for more drastic action from the international community, which activists say hasn’t done enough to hold the #Ortega government accountable for human rights abuses.

"For years, Indigenous communities on Nicaragua’s northern #Caribbean coast have suffered threats, kidnappings, torture and unlawful arrests while defending communal territory from #IllegalSettlements and #mining. This year appears to be as bad as ever, and residents say they are desperate for help.

"'Urgent measures must be taken to protect these communities,' said Gloria Monique de Mees, the OAS rapporteur on the rights of Afro-descendants and against racial discrimination. 'Failure to address the crisis will only embolden the Nicaraguan government to continue its repressive campaign.'

"Much of the violence is concentrated within the North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region (#RACCN), a jurisdiction communally governed and titled by Indigenous communities since the late 1980s. It’s home to #Miskitus, #Mayangnas, #Ulwa, #Ramas, #Creole and #Garífunas peoples, and contains mountain, #rainforest and coastal #ecosystems.

"The area has attracted non-Indigenous Nicaraguans, known locally as #colonos, looking to set up #farms, #logging operations and artisanal #mines. Massive #gold and #copper deposits have also created opportunities for multinational mining #corporations, with backing from the government.

"Indigenous communities say they’re worried about losing #AncestralLand as well as traditional farming, hunting and fishing practices as the forest is cleared and mines #pollute local streams and rivers."

Read more:
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/activists-ask-for-help-combatting-violence-against-nicaraguas-indigenous-communities/

From @DemocracyNow_Headlines_rss

January, 2024 - Diné Activist & Musician #KleeBenally Dies at 48; Wrote Book on #IndigenousAnarchy

"The Diné (Navajo) activist and musician Klee Benally has died at the age of 48 in Arizona. Benally, who was from Black Mesa, spent years organizing against uranium mining on Native land and to protect the sacred San Francisco Peaks in Flagstaff, Arizona. He was also the former lead singer of the Indigenous punk band Blackfire. Benally had just published a new book titled '#NoSpiritualSurrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred.' In the book, he writes, 'If history is written by the conquerors, it will be unwritten by those who refuse to be conquered.' Klee Benally spoke to Democracy Now! in 2014 when we did the show from Flagstaff, Arizona.

Klee Benally: “But many of our people don’t have running water; they don’t have electricity. Yet our lands have been exploited. We have coal-fired — three coal-fired power plants that #pollute our air. We have these abandoned #uranium mines and new mines that are threatening the region. We have #fracking, hydraulic fracking, that’s threatening our land, as well. But this isn’t just an issue for here. Wherever there’s an #EnvironmentalCrisis, there’s a #CulturalCrisis, because we are people of the Earth.'"

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/2/headlines/dine_activist_musician_klee_benally_dies_at_48_wrote_book_on_indigenous_anarchy

Full interview:
https://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/14/a_slow_genocide_of_the_people

@iangriffin that's nit a necessity, but what happens.when we allow #billionaires to #pollute the world.

People thought #IridiumFlares were annoying but those were just 66 Satellites and predictable af and #Iridium did solve that issue with #IridiumNext but #Starlink is just #LightPollution from hell!

C'mon! Let's all buy one of these things and #pollute the shit out of this #planet!

As diplomatic relations worsen with #China, #logistics firms are including 'break' clauses in #shipping contracts (from ship-building to service provision) so they can easily walk away should sanctions become wider in scope.

This might not be immediately catastrophic on global #supplychains, but given China's domination of #shipbuilding, a protracted period of (diplomatic) conflict might increase the reliance on older vessels (which #pollute more), while others ramp-up shipbuilding capacity