[lbo-talk] Output Falling in Oil-Rich Mexico, and Politics Get the Blame

James Heartfield Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk
Wed Mar 14 02:21:40 PDT 2007


Yoshie


> We won't run out of oil, but we can very well run out of time to
> prevent the worst climate disasters if Hansen is correct. That is
> especially the case since there is no Left to speak of in the USA, the
> US working class are mostly politically inactive

Discourse analysis of the above would suggest that <climate disaster> has replaced <economic catastrophe> in the eschatology of the left, so that now we must take to action to save the planet, rather than to save humanity.

All of which raises the question of whether <climate disaster> is a real object, or a projection of the ideological need for a motivating principle.

Quite apart from what the science says, the sociology says that political movements need to believe in some kind of impending disaster, a Heideggerian being-towards-death, to undergird their imperatives.



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