Okay, Michael… Again I deeply appreciate your commitment to this conversation and I’m finally ready to properly respond. And my apologies for my harshness here and there in my previous words. I really meant it when I said, nothing personal!

I’m copying and pasting tidbits of your text, interspersed with my new responses…. My words all begin with an indented paragraph….

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Or perhaps you think my stance even indicates my suddenly liking the debits and thinking the Democrats are our tribunes, or something.

No, I certainly didn’t believe when I wrote to you that you have become fond of the Dems, and your reply confirms this 1000%. No surprise there.

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So what is our actual difference that causes me to say I hope that people in swing states who hate Trump will vote for Harris precisely to stop Trump? And that we will then organize and demonstrate to force Harris toward better outcomes.

Because honestly, I’ve heard that claim, that perspective, decade after decade, and I’ve seen pretty much no shift in the direction of making the Dems less corporate, more accountable to The People, more ecologically smart, etc etc. So you can claim that we will just need to continue to “organize and demonstrate to force Harris to do [whatever], but I’m not seeing ANY progression of this goal. Over decades. So why do you think/assume that doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results is a thing still worth pursuing?

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Do you actually want, on Nov 6, Trump to have been elected? Or do you feel it just doesn’t matter since the difference is, at any rate, too minor?

Those are the right questions. Thank you. I have become someone, in the last decade, who recognizes in a way that I never had previously, that the ecosystems that we humans require for our very survival, are pretty much all at the edge of full collapse. That the Earth literally cannot sustain any more attacks on her pure water, air, soil, oceans, forests, wetlands, etc etc etc. That virtually the entire conventional environmental “movement” — if you can even still call it that — is now in partnership arrangements with logging corporations, car corporations etc etc and thus have become mostly irrelevant. That the climate crisis seems to have become virtually the ONLY environmental issue anyone is paying attention to, while entire Earth ecosystems are collapsing and NOT because of climate shifts.

That the Dems say lots of pretty things about environmental protection, while they continue the plunder with the new green scam name of “ the renewable energy future”, that is carving up what’s left of the natural world just as quickly as the fossil fuel economy has for many decades. While the Repubs say mostly ugly things about environmental protection. In other words, no real difference. That I now care more about stopping ANY further destruction of the bare bones remnants of Earth’s natural systems than I do about protecting human society IF we humans can’t figure out how to live TRULY sustainably and SOON. Industrial civilization is a death cult. There are virtually NO pro-environment orgs or elected officials, at any scale of our society, who are prioritizing the defense of what’s left of Mother Nature.

So yes, the Democrats are interchangeable with the Republicans, on the issue of protecting what’s left of the natural world. And given that we humans have already flown off the ecological cliff at high speed, and it’s already too late to reign back in our toxic effluents spewing in all directions, that I find myself thinking similar thoughts to so many of the Bernie and tRump supporters, who truly want to blow up this whole obscene system we’re forced to live in (but clearly not for the same reason as mine), and try something entirely different. The two corporate parties are not reformable. Industrial civilization is not reformable. And there’s no indication that our social movements have what it takes to even BEGIN to dismantle corporate capitalism before it finishes vacuuming up the last remnants of our air, water, minerals, forests, topsoil, sand, lithium, fish, etc etc etc.

So yes, it’s time to do whatever we can to pull this whole clusterfuck down, by any means necessary, as quickly as humanly possible, short of purposefully hurting or killing humans or other creatures in the process. I’ve gotten quite active with DeepGreenResistance.org these past few years. They’re about the only organizing that makes much sense to me anymore. Kamala? tRump? Their differences aren’t that significant to me, for the reasons stated above.

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… and also over the prospects of movement-building leading to successes in the two cases, going forward with one or the other administration.

What prospects? Based on what evidence from social movements working to ameliorate harms of our political systems going back decades? Can you point to significant gains? Beyond mere reforms?

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I don’t have time to go through every one of your examples, not least because I don’t want to even try to defend the Democratic Party and that is how you pose it all. Of course, “the Democratic Party is corrupt to its core.” Can it be “saved as a legitimate institution?” That is an interesting and vague question but in any event, however that question might be meant, it has little bearing that I can see on the coming election. (Wait, I take that back, Sawant thinks that in the current election Greens can help defeat Harris, which may in turn destroy the Democratic Party, which she thinks would be a great victory, so I guess for her your question is germane.)

I do actually agree with Sawant. Both corporate parties need to be dismantled as quickly as possible, before they and their corporate sponsors finish killing all life on Earth. Left populists and Right populists have a lot in common, and I dream of these two political trends finding sufficient common ground and enough political power in the next few years to force a fundamental redesign of how governing works in this country. We don’t have much time. And these diverse populist movement also pay almost no attention to the collapse of the natural world.

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I don’t see turning the democratic party into something truly worthy on my agenda though I would have much preferred if West had run as a Democrat like Bernie did, to try to reach more broadly.

West would still have been entirely banned from all presidential debates. The Dem primaries would still have not happened at all. So almost no one would have known he was running, regardless. So why your preference? What difference would it have made?

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And I very much support serious progressives and leftists winning office as long as they can keep their views intact, and, say as left as Bernie has kept his, while running for office and while serving if they win.

There’s barely anyone in federal office who has fully maintained this during their time in office. Not AOC, not Bernie, not Jayapal. A bare few perhaps. They have close to zero impact. The Congressional Progressive Caucus can’t even seem to remember how to use their numbers to achieve ANYTHING. Zero backbone. So again, evidence please that your desire is based in reality.

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Families, schools, hospitals, factories, churches, and on and on. All flawed, or, if you prefer, corrupt, albeit also with good aspects. Will they all undergo major transformations in a transition to a society of the sort I seek? Yes.

I wish I could believe that. But we don’t have that kind of time anymore for these massive changes to occur in terms of the imminent demise of a livable planet for humans and all of the other creatures which industrial civilization barely even recognizes as relevant. Anyone who seriously studies the current health of the Earth’s natural systems knows the reality. Humans have at most a few decades left before full-scale collapse. And we’re going to take most of the natural world’s creatures with us as we collapse, as the ecological health of the planet at that point will be very much in question. The fact that the Left can barely acknowledge this fact is terrifying to me. And it’s the primary cause for why I no longer believe there is sufficient time left for us to do the kinds of radical organizing/mobilizing that you continue to endorse. UNLESS it’s focused primarily on defending what’s left of the natural world!

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE what you’ve done for the world, over many decades. I just don’t think we have the time we need to make these huge societal changes. Hell, we can’t even get eco-groovy’s in my famous eco-groovy city of Portland OR to stop buying single-use coffee cups every day. Or to stop driving their cars, gas or electric. Or to stop buying most of their food in single-use instant-toxic-waste plastic containers. The natural world is dying. And we industrial civilization humans can barely respond at all. Even here in Portland! I think a massive number of us KNOW it’s happening. But we avoid thinking about this reality. We choose to remain numb. We mostly feeling hopeless and powerless. None of which is helpful.

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Bernie and the squad are not fools, and I suspect they know even better than we know just how corrupt the Democratic Party is. And I support their efforts. Their choice is not one I made, but I admit, looking back to when it would have been relevant, I sometimes wonder if I should have.

Me personally? I’m really glad you did NOT. You’ve had way more impact doing what you did! And my entire social movement focused life was significantly made more effective by what I’ve learned from you and Z Mag and South End etc etc. And some of your institutions will even survive your departure, which in itself is an impressive feat, as I’m sure you are aware. So again, thank you!!

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And yes, I agree “the Dems stole the 2016 primary from Bernie, breaking laws in the process. They stole the 2020 primary from Bernie again. The Party has no commitment to practicing internal democracy.” Of course. But I knew that and so did you many many years earlier. We didn’t learn something new but we simply saw something we anticipated. Nonetheless what Bernie did in running was incredibly valuable.

I agree, to a point. But at the point that the Dem machine stole the nomination from Bernie, if he truly had been committed to structural social change, he would have led millions of we voters OUT of the Party at that moment, to form something new and actually pro-worker, pro-environment, pro-justice. But he cared more about his cushy spot as an Independent caucusing with the Dems, and having his own committee chairmanship, then he did about building something new. THAT was the moment to leap. He failed all of us miserably. Honestly, I will never forgive him for that. To have worked that hard to build a progressive movement, and then to just throw it all away, when the Dems corruptly stopped his imminent win.

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And had he managed to win we wouldn’t now be living in a participatory society,

“Had he managed to win”?! The Dem machine would not have ALLOWED him to win! Surely you know that.

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Has “the fundamentally corrupt Democrat Party show[n] little commitment to most if not ALL of these issues…. [we care about]”? Yes, of course. That is their job. It doesn’t surprise or come as news to me, and I admit to being amazed when long time leftists act as though they are saying something new, saying this. They said it before, did they not believe it earlier?

Agreed.

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It is not unexpected, and to point it out is worthwhile when done for people who don’t know, but it doesn’t demonstrate or even suggest that Harris and the Dems in office wouldn’t be a much better situation for efforts to address the many issues we all face, then for Trump and the Republicans to be in office.

But you see, Michael, the Dems would NOT be a “much better solution” on the one issue that really matters most — shrinking our economy as rapidly as possible, shrinking our consumption as rapidly as possible, shrinking our manufacturing as rapidly as possible, protecting ALL remaining mature forests, ending ALL industrial harvesting of seafood, of trees, of minerals etc etc — in order to at least TRY to avert the utter collapse of the world’s remaining ecosystems that are already barely hanging on for dear life. We industrial humans have utterly forgotten that our very lives are entirely dependent on a living world that provides us with breathable air, drinkable water, uncontaminated soil, etc. (I think YOU tend to forget this.) Those natural gifts are almost gone. And yet, EVERY major political party in this world continues to support endless economic growth. We’re too late. It’s almost over.

So I prioritize, these days, working with DeepGreenResistance.org, as creatively as we can imagine. Michael: read Bright Green Lies, if you don’t believe my claims about the massive hoax of a so-called green energy future. Read Deep Green Resistance, to learn more about how and why virtually all of our social movements now promote mostly irrelevant campaigns. Read EndGame, to learn more about the crisis of industrial civilization and why we MUST dismantle it ASAP. (And/or just read Mumford and Illich again.) Tragically, you won’t find any of these deep truths in the environmental news. Yes, there are endless stories about environmental crises. But there’s no conceptual glue tying these stories together. No truly honest “What Must Urgently Be Done” in any of these sources.

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In the Trump case, we would have to fight against incredible rollback and fascistic impositions. In the Harris case, we can and I assume would fight for positive (albeit not yet fundamental) changes, though and could do so in ways that lead towards those desired fundamental changes.

WHAT “fundamental changes”? Certainly not the ones I have laid out here.

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If you think that somehow Trump winning next Tuesday would literally be better for reproductive rights, not vastly worse, better for foreign policy not substantially and perhaps vastly worse, better for racial justice and not vastly worse, better for ecological sanity and even planetary survival and not vastly worse, better for wealth and income injustice and for public influence over government outcomes and not vastly worse, and so on, okay, that would be a component of an argument. But I doubt you do. And at any rate, I don’t.

Reproductive rights? Yes, a clear difference. Though as I stated previously, Dems have controlled both the presidency and both houses of Congress multiple times since Roe v Wade, and each time they’ve failed to legislate to protect women’s reproductive rights. So do they ACTUALLY care about this issue? Or is it just another political game to them?

Foreign policy? Insignificant difference. tRump might even be better, getting us into fewer new wars, invasions, occupations. But he’s so unpredictable, who the hell knows! (Though we may be about to find out!)

Racial justice? Yes, a clear difference.

Ecological sanity and planetary survival? No relevant difference at all (as explained above).

Wealth and income injustice? Yes, a slight difference pro-Kamala. But we both know that at their heart, both Party’s primary constituencies are large corporations, not voters.

Public influence over government outcomes? Not sure.

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If Netanyahu is tried, Biden should be sitting next to him at the trial.

Yes of course. And Kamala. And Blinken. And and and…Bummer that Kissinger was never sent to prison! Or executed, like he did to so many others.

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Is genocide in some sense the “Crime of crimes”? Yes. But is the suicide march toward climate and ecological catastrophe just a side bar? It may be killing even more people now, and it will certainly kill vastly more people if it goes unchecked?

You just did what virtually every so-called pro-environment person does in this country. (And what I always used to do.) You only remembered to show concern for the “more people” who will be killed. But this Earth is inhabited by millions of other species, all of whom have their own inherent RIGHT to exist, flourish, evolve. And who will also be killed. The Earth is not here for we humans. Though we almost all act as if that IS the reality. The massive die-offs of insects, birds, the food base of the marine creatures, dominant predator species, etc etc, have to become our highest priority if WE OURSELVES want a future as humanity on this planet. But all we can see is how these crises are affecting we humans. It’s both tragic and obscene, in my opinion. And radical activists appear to be as oblivious to this truth as anyone, it seems.

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Without going through every issue, I think our disagreements are twofold. First, would a Trump administration on its own, which is to say acting simply in light of its own preferred agenda, not pursue horribly worse outcomes overall than a Harris administration would, on its own, pursuing its preferred agenda? Maybe you think it would. I think not. To me it isn’t even a remotely close call.

As I’ve noted above, my framing of “the problem” is quite different than yours. So this question becomes rather irrelevant to me.

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But perhaps more interesting for the long run is that that is where you and others at least seem to stop. The left can or can’t have a say by voting. We agree. But once the voting is completed, it seems that many people think a new administration consults its own list of desires and acts on those, period. I think, in contrast, that an administration can be constrained, even coerced, by social activism and movements. So for me, not only does the vastly worse internal inclination of a Trump Administration versus that of a Harris Administration matter, so too do the prospects of either Administration being restrained or coerced by social movements and activism.

Again, my concern, my framing, is at a vastly different scale here than yours, so this is again not that relevant to me anymore.

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Why do you have to like the lesser evil, or their personal commitments, or even their platform, or whatever, to vote for them where it might make a difference in beating the greater evil? Why can’t you get behind greatly reducing the damage that the election will make likely?

Because as I’ve stated already, “greatly reducing the damage” by voting for Kamala is simply not true, IF what I’m claiming about the collapse of our very life support systems is actually true. Which it is. The science is there. So IF we humans wish to survive into any relevant future — which we certainly CLAIM that we do, but we ACT like we don’t — THE PRIMARY WORK that we MUST focus on for at least the next few decades is to try our damnedest to save ALL of what’s left of the natural world. And given that we’re barely even paying attention to this at all, I think one would have to conclude that we’re toast. And so is the rest of the living world. That in the not too distant future, our stunningly complex living planet’s extraordinary ecosystems will all be rapidly dying. (Frankly, they already are.) And thus, what then is the point of focusing on Dems vs Repubs?! It’s just another game, to keep we social movement focused people busy in all the wrong places.

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[Paul:] You write, “You haven’t been ABLE to? What the hell does THAT mean? You can’t be bothered to? You literally can’t find any of these folks to ask? Or do you mean you really don’t WANT to have these difficult conversations with Stein, West, and their millions of supporters? Please clarify.”

I apologize for my error. I shouldn’t have written “ask.” I should have written that I have not been able to “engage” with them about it. Of course you could have understood it that way, rather than running with it as you did. I wish the Green had many, many millions of supporters. I don’t even remotely see that. And, in any event, what my words meant is I have tried to reach West and Stein, not just now, but in past similar situations and have never heard back anything from either. I have also written publicly about their choices, and not seen any rebuttals from either. The situation was quite different with Howie Hawkins when he ran as a Green. I did get queries to him answered and we then did have a public exchange about the issues. Not so with West or Stein. I have also tried to contact Sawant a number of times in the past, but in that case I was inviting her on the podcast to give her space, not to disagree with her. No replies. But that was before her recent stance. I wrote about her recent stance too, but got no reply. It is not incumbent on them to reply, of course, but I would be happy to have those conversations.

Thank you a bunch for that clarification. Now it totally makes sense. And shame on all of these folks for not being open to a real dialogue with you, be it public or private. That’s everyone’s loss.

And thank YOU Michael for engaging me on this difficult topic. I’ll remain engaged here with you as long as you desire to continue the conversation.

Paul Cienfuegos
Portland, Oregon

Oh Geez!
All of my indented paragraphs were disappeared here when it uploaded! So you may have to struggle a bit to figure out which parts were yours and which were my responses. After each set of dashes, I copied a tidbit of your text, and then responded to it.
So sorry!
Paul C