@1, Working hard for that clampdown

"Amazon made headlines for warning two workers that
'they could be fired if they continue to violate
Amazon’s 'external communications policy.''"

What Would Greta Do?

"One day in mid-2018, Greta Thunberg skipped school and went to sit outside the Swedish parliament with a homemade banner that read skolstrejk för klimatet or “school strike for climate.” --the Guardian

Amazon Employees have the Numbers.
Do they Realize how much POWER they have?
Perhaps not
Yet.

What Would Greta Do?
Skolstrejk för Klimatet.

Hop on
or
Fuck OFF
Bezos.

Put your Wealth
where you Live:
Planet Earth.

At least Greta wouldn't have abused an employee contract and a company's resources just to seek limelight on popular topics of the day.

Bezos for Bankruptcy in 2020!
I weep for Australia. Climate change and global warming ARE REAL, deniers!

@3 kristofarian: Agreed and seconded. Keep rocking the house.

THNKX, Auntie Gee!
Happy New Year!

@ Rainy -- Catastrophic Climate Change equals "popular topics of the day"?

You mean, like the engrossing convos they must be having in down in Australia? "Aye, Mate, whatchya think of this Bloody weather?" "Pretty Fawking Firey, if ya ask me, eh?" "How're the Crops?" "What crops?"

Yeah, but that's like Totally on the Opposite Side of the fawking Planet, for God's sake! So WHAT?! Please -- Adults are Talking here!

Yeah, we need to leave it up to the Adults.
They always Know just what to do.

So Amazon should just hire compliant, complacent people who don't question how things work, or speak up when they see something bad?

It's obvious why Our Dear Sargon and Raindrop aren't business tycoons.

@3 - Everyone accepts the legitimacy of capital’s authority today, even those who have none. The logical thing for half of the population (including Amazon workers) to do is to opt out of a system that doesn’t work for them at all and refuse to do what capital wants until the social contract is radically fairer than it is today, even if that means starving; but that is not what will happen, because even poor people in America identify with Bezos or Gates (or pick a more charismatic entrepreneur, like Dre or - fuck me - any Kardashian). To stop working would be to admit failure - to admit they are a failure - so they will keep working. A few outspoken Amazon employees who can get jobs elsewhere will speak out, get fired. Some will turn it into a second career in social-media “activism” (read: progressive influencer pablum). The dissent will be quieted, Amazon will continue producing rivers of trash so techies can get 1-hour shipping, and we will all continue stupidly marching towards global armageddon, while Cliff Mass scolds us that we can’t definitively say whether the flames licking our nostrils were caused by anthropogenic warming. “Actually, if you look in the historical record, you’ll see that planetary fires consuming the world’s forests are quite normal - they have happened before and will happen again. Here in the Northwest, our onshore flow gives them a briny smell and more temperate burn. I like to sit out on my porch and inhale deeply while watching the warm orange glow. So refreshing.”

@10 English major were you?

@9: They weren't whistleblowers. They wanted to embarrass their employer by saying it should "reduce its carbon footprint" which could be said about any business.

Don't conflate opportunism with virtue. You should have been around the block enough by now to have learned that lesson.

@8: Relax. The crisis will fizzle out.

Today is a good day to sell all your stranded fossil fuel assets, because you know you need to.

@14. Not setting your hair on fire until its absolutely necessary is hardly naïve.

@16 -- you know, that is EXACTLY what they said in Australia!
Just before they all fucking Died.*

Stay calm.

*not all of 'em
not yet

so -- ya still got Plenty enough time...

@17: Are you one of those who thinks getting hysterical in emergency situations is required so that others can take you seriously?

My dearest raindrop,

The Greenhouse Effect is real. However, the reason for transitioning away from carbon based fuel shouldn’t end with that, nor should that be the causus belli.

OPEC. It’s a dirty four letter word. And when I was very young, they fucked America raw. The gas prices went sky high and every gas station ran out, it was as if Saudi Arabia cut off our oxygen supply. Now, every piece of farm equipment in America runs on petroleum. Ever since Earl Butts ran the Dept of Ag under Nixon, the policy of every administration has been to keep food prices low at all costs. That’s just not possible if the price of the fuel you need to run the farm equipment goes up. The Strategic Oil Reserve is almost drained, and even when it was completely full, there still wasn’t enough to last us beyond a very short term.

Almost all Americans, and I’d say damn near everyone in the city of Seattle, relies on grocery stores for food. There’s just not a lot of berry picking for survival going on in Fremont, no real hunting wild game takes place on Capitol Hill- unless horny twinks stalking bears at the Cuff is what you had in mind. So, no cheap food at the grocery store means nobody has any ability to feed themselves.

Food riots happen a lot in Haiti. And after the shelves at Costco go empty, they’re gonna happen in Kirkland too.

That’s why we suck Saudi dick. Saudi Arabia says Saddam has to go, and we invade. Riyadh says the Iranian backed Houthi rebels that bombed the Aramco refinery have got to die, and we give the Kingdom all the planes and bombers to do the job. When Iran flexes it’s muscle in Iraq and brings the possibility of invading Saudi Arabia directly to its border, Riyadh says get to work, and we jump on it like obedient lapdogs. That’s why we killed the dude last night. Because it’s either we do whatever MBS says, or we replay the OPEC oil shock of the 1970’s. And if our masters in Riyadh think we’re getting too uppity, they can drag that oil crisis out until New York and LA turn into John Carpenter movies.

Now, if you don’t like being a Saudi slave, it’s time to get off the oil tit. Renewable energy means we get to decide our own foreign policy, it means we’re no longer a colony of the House of Saud. Want to make America independent again? Buy a fucking Prius,

@19: No need to be cramped in a Prius, when a hybrid Cadillac SUV is as politically correct.

It’s not about Political Correctness. It’s about Political Independence.

For a long while, the trope of “political correctness” played well. I think by now it has played out. The topic is the OPEC oil shock of the 1970’s, and the potential for its re-enactment. However, we do not need to reiterate the cliches of the 1970’s to capture the panic that event induced. If you would pretend at being a proponent of original thought, why sink to the level of mere recitation of an outdated meme?

Let’s have a substantive discussion of US foreign policy as it relates to petroleum. You have a brain and I want to engage with it. Give me something deeper than a two word cliche that you yourself didn’t originate and are merely parroting. I genuinely want to know your thoughts.

@21: We probably agree on several points, but there's nothing profound I can think of now except that Rachel Maddow's new book 'Blowout' would be a very good read.

22,

I haven’t read it, although I will look for it if you recommend it.

Even when we disagree, I find you to be a thoughtful and engaging mind, and I always enjoy reading your posts. Thank you for giving me something to think about all these years.

@23: Very much likewise!

The Bernie Bros need to come back down to Earth. Who's the one Democratic nominee that would lose to Trump in an historic landslide? Yup, it's our boy Bernie.

But truth be told, as a lifelong, dues paying Democrat, I don't see any winner among those left in the pack. Without Independents and some GOP crossovers in key states, the Dems are screwed. And I don't think any of the candidates have enough appeal to bring them into the fold.

Honestly, as bummed as this makes me, 2020 is Trump's to lose.

26,

You and 25 should hook up and create deformed babies together. I’m curious as to what kid f freak would result from two ancephalic parents.

Embarrass their employers?!?! Heavens to Betsy!!! Is there anything worse? They really should know their place, shouldn’t they, Raindrop dear?