You can make a difference to the hurt being caused by climate chaos and the great extinction event, in your town or your city! How? Reuse, repurpose, and recycle this information.
This is the letter for week 73 of a weekly climate strike that went on for 4 years in front of San Francisco City Hall, beginning early March 2019. For more context, see this story. For an annotated table of contents to see topics for all the strike letters, see this story. Meanwhile…
STRIKE FOR THE PLANET
The Vichy Government didn’t save France; they collaborated in the death and destruction of their own citizens.
This week’s topic: Wreckers Lie.
What’s A Wrecker?
A wrecker is a person or group who deliberately cause disasters through lies and deceit, and then pick over the ruins they created for profit.1, 2, 3
Who Are The Wreckers?
The plastic industry, fossil fuel companies, the nuclear energy industry, the Republican party, the Koch brothers, the entire Trump administration, the construction industry, all of big agriculture, Howard Jarvis, the Chamber of Commerce, the Navy, the NRA, QAnon, a number of newly former SF city government employees, a few former SFUSD superintendents, Uber, Lyft, Juul, and on and on and on. The wreckers have gained power and are destroying everything around them as fast as possible.
What Lies Do Wreckers Tell To Further Their Activities?
The Wreckers’ lies are legion, from the pedophile cannibal rehash of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion that is QAnon4 to the newer lies of the titans of the “gig economy”5, but let’s focus for now on a few that directly destroy SF’s ability to survive environmental devastation.
- PLASTIC INDUSTRY LIES: Plastic isn’t recyclable and the plastic industry knew it all along.6, 7 The plastic industry intends to continue polluting at will.8 And they don’t care who or what they kill in the process.9, 10, 11
- OIL COMPANY LIES: Oil companies knew about global climate change.12, 13 Oil companies murder.14, 15, 16, 17 Oil companies lie.18, 19
- BIG AGRICULTURE LIES: Modern agriculture is the problem, not the solution.20, 21, 22, 23 Big ag controls the regulatory agencies that are supposed to be overseeing them.24 Big ag and chemical companies are the same thing.25 And then there are the Resnicks.26
- LARGE CORPORATION LIES: Large corporations habitually lie.27, 28 Like vampires, they are not natural humans and they do not die.29 They are not penalized in the same way and at the same scale as natural humans.30, 31 They have more rights than natural humans.32, 33 They have more rights than other living beings and systems.34 And they commit crimes at much higher levels and at larger scales than any individual criminal or criminal organization composed of natural humans.35, 36, 37, 38, 39
So How Does This Impact SF? What Are These Wreckers Wrecking?
The ability of the planet to support life.
Okay, So What Does SF Need To Do About This?
- Stop collaborating.
- Act in the interests of the people, not the corporations.
- Establish and enforce equal criminal treatment of corporations.
- Fight for SF, not for corporations or groups belonging to or are beholden to corporate interests.40, 41, 42, 43
If you need more details on how to do the above, please refer to the prior 72 strike letters.
You only need 25% of people to change a culture’s basic understanding of itself.44 With 66% of Americans worried about climate change45 and 85% of San Franciscans understanding that climate change is happening46, we already have the number to act.
So ACT!
You have, at most, 16 weeks left to act if we’re going to survive.47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54 In a little over a year, we have lost 10 years time, at least. The Guardian countdown gives us 49 days left to save the earth.55 There is NO time to stall and deny; you must act now.
FOOTNOTES
1. “wrecker: One who lures a vessel to destruction, as by a display of lights on a rocky coastline, in order to plunder it.” The Free Dictionary. Accessed 15 September 2020. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/wrecker.
2. “wrecker: a person who plunders wrecks, especially after exhibiting false signals in order to cause shipwrecks”. Dictionary. com. Accessed 15 September 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uBnBag11IE.
3. “wrecker: A person on the shore who tries to bring about a shipwreck in order to plunder or profit from the wreckage”. Lexico. Accessed 15 September 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uBnBag11IE.
4. Gregory Stanton. “QAnon is a Nazi Cult, Rebranded”. 9 September 2020. https://www.justsecurity.org/72339/qanon-is-a-nazi-cult-rebranded/.
5. Whizy Kim. “Uber & Lyft Legal Battle Exposes The Big Lie About Gig Work”. 20 August 2020. Work & Money. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/08/9978933/uber-lyft-california-rideshare-shut-down-news.
6. Laura Sullivan. “How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled”. NPR. 11 September 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled.
7. Patrice Taddonio. “Plastics Industry Insiders Reveal the Truth About Recycling”. Frontline. 31 March 2020. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/plastics-industry-insiders-reveal-the-truth-about-recycling/.
8. Sharon Lerner. “Waste Only: How the Plastics Industry Is Fighting to Keep Polluting the World”. The Intercept. 20 July 2019. https://theintercept.com/2019/07/20/plastics-industry-plastic-recycling/.
9. Deb Hirt. “Birding Today — Plastics are deadly to birds, fish and us”. Muskogee Phoenix. 17 August 2020. https://www.muskogeephoenix.com/news/birding-today-plastics-are-deadly-to-birds-fish-and-us/article_48d354bf-6957-531e-aaff-cd6a3eaa2147.html.
10. Fiona Harvey. “Plastic pollution in Atlantic at least 10 times worse than thought”. The Guardian. 18 August 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/18/atlantic-ocean-plastic-more-than-10-times-previous-estimates.
11. Devin Loria. “Most Plastic Products Contain Potentially Toxic Chemicals, Study Reveals”. Consumer Reports. 2 October 2019. https://www.consumerreports.org/toxic-chemicals-substances/most-plastic-products-contain-potentially-toxic-chemicals/.
12. Shannon Hall. “Exxon Knew about Climate Change almost 40 years ago”. Scientific American. 26 October 2015. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/.
13. India Rakusen, Bill McKibben, and John Stewart. “What oil companies kenw: the great climate cover-up”. The Guardian. 18 June 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/audio/2019/jun/19/what-oil-companies-knew-the-great-climate-cover-up-podcast.
14. Fegalo Nsuke. “Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Murder”. Igbo Journal Review. 1 February 2020. https://www.igbojournalreview.com/2020/02/ken-saro-wiwas-murder.html.
15. Deborah Sontag and Brent McDonald. “In North Dakota, a Tale of Oil, Corruption and Death”. The New York Times. 28 December 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/29/us/in-north-dakota-where-oil-corruption-and-bodies-surface.html.
16. Levon Sevunts. “Canadian oil company stops operations in Peru after deadly Indigenous protests”. Radio Canada International. 10 August 2020. https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2020/08/10/canadian-oil-company-stops-operations-in-peru-after-deadly-indigenous-protests/.
17. Reuters. “Deadly riots spread in Kazakhstan oil region”. Al Jazeera. 18 December 2011. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2011/12/2011121815956458304.html.
18. Emily Pontecorvo. “What oil executives say when they think no one’s listening”. Grist. 15 September 2020. https://grist.org/climate/what-oil-executives-say-about-climate-change-when-they-think-no-ones-listening-secret-recording/.
19. Antonia Juhasz. “Bit Oil’s Big Lies About Alternative Energy”. Rolling Stone. 25 June 2013. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/big-oils-big-lies-about-alternative-energy-198957/.
20. David R. Montgomery. “3 Big Myths about Modern Agriculture”. Scientific American. 5 April 2017. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/3-big-myths-about-modern-agriculture1/.
21. Mark Buchanan. “Big Agriculture Is Breeding a Worldwide Health Crisis”. Bloomberg. 3 May 2019. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-03/big-agriculture-is-breeding-a-worldwide-health-crisis.
22. Nancy Fink Huehnergarth. “Big Agriculture Bullies And Lobbies To Keep Americans In The Dark”. Forbes. 5 May 2016. https://www.forbes.com/sites/nancyhuehnergarth/2016/05/05/big-ag-bullies-and-lobbies-to-keep-americans-in-the-dark/#31a1d73f502c.
23. Erica Hellerstein and Ken Fine. “A million tons of feces and an unbearable stench: life near industrial pig farms”. The Guardian. 20 September 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/20/north-carolina-hog-industry-pig-farms.
24. Joe Wertz. “Here’s How Big Farms Got a Big Government Pass on Air Pollution”. Mother Jones. 16 September 2020. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/09/heres-how-big-farms-got-a-big-government-pass-on-air-pollution/.
25. James M. MacDonald. “Mergers of “Big 6” Seed and Ag Chem Companies — Who Owns What Now”. AgFax. 19 February 2019. https://agfax.com/2019/02/19/mergers-of-the-big-6-seed-and-ag-chem-companies-a-review/.
26. Dan Bacher. “Meet the Resnicks, the Koch Brothers of California Water”. San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center. 28 September 2014. https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/09/28/18762178.php.
27. Richard Porton. “The documentary “The New Corporation,” premiering at TIFF, examines how corporations cosplay as “socially responsible” when they are anything but.” The Daily Beast. 15 September 2020. https://www.thedailybeast.com/exposing-corporations-shameless-socially-responsible-rebrands?ref=home .
28. Adam Winkler. “‘Corporations Are People’ Is Built on an Incredible 19th-Century Lie”. The Atlantic. 5 March 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/corporations-people-adam-winkler/554852/.
29. Nina Totenberg. “When Did Companies Become People? Excavating The Legal Evolution”. NPR. 28 July 2014. https://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-become-people-excavating-the-legal-evolution.
30. Russell Mokhiber. “20 Things You Should Know About Corporate Crime”. The Harvard Law Record. 24 March 2015. http://hlrecord.org/20-things-you-should-know-about-corporate-crime/.
31. James W. Harlow. “Corporate Criminal Liability For Homicide: A Statutory Framework”. Duke Law Journal. 2011. https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1510&context=dlj.
32. Adam Winkler. “Corporations Are People, And They Have More Rights Than You”. Huffpost. 30 August 2014. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/corporations-are-people-a_b_5543833.
33. Gideon Lichfield. “If American corporations are people, why aren’t they taxed like people?” Quartz. 22 May 2013. https://qz.com/87204/if-apple-and-other-american-corporations-are-people-why-arent-they-taxed-like-people/.
34. Chip Colwell. “What if nature, like corporations, had the rights of a person?” 12 October 2016. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/12/nature-corporations-people-zuni-environment-mount-taylor.
35. Admin. “Ten Top Corporate Criminals of 2018”. Global Exchange. 23 November 2018. https://globalexchange.org/2018/11/23/ten-top-corporate-criminals-of-2018/.
36. Evan V. Symon. “The 5 Shadiest Crimes Ever Pulled Off by Famous Corporations”. Cracked. 21 March 2013. https://www.cracked.com/article_20274_the-5-shadiest-crimes-ever-pulled-off-by-famous-corporations.html. Because you’ve gotta laugh at this if you don’t want to be crying all the time.
37. Andrew Park. “The endless cycle of corporate crime and why it’s so hard to stop”. Duke Law. 13 January 2017. https://law.duke.edu/news/endless-cycle-corporate-crime-and-why-its-so-hard-stop/.
38. Frank E. Hagan. “Corporate Crime”. Britannica. Accessed 16 September 2020. https://www.britannica.com/topic/corporate-crime.
39. Judge H. Lee Sarokin. “Corporations Don’t Commit Crimes — People Commit Crimes”. Huffpost. 25 September 2013. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/corporations-dont-commit_b_3661127.
40. Julian Mark. “Light discipline for police misconduct is the norm in San Francisco”. Mission Local. 15 September 2020. https://missionlocal.org/2020/09/light-discpline-for-police-misconduct-is-the-norm-in-san-francisco/.
41. Madison Alvarado. “Developers look to flip former board-and-care into luxury housing”. Mission Local. 23 July 2020. https://missionlocal.org/2020/07/real-estate-developers-look-to-flip-former-board-and-care-into-luxury-housing-amidst-homeless-crisis/.
42. Marissa Lang. “Companies avoid $34M in city taxes thanks to ‘Twitter tax break’”. SFGate. 19 October 2015. https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Companies-avoid-34M-in-city-taxes-thanks-to-6578396.php.
43. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai. “”Lennar seeks license to kill”. San Francisco Bay View. 27 November 2007. https://sfbayview.com/2007/11/lennar-seeks-license-to-kill/.
44. Katherine Wei. “How Many People Do You Need to Change the Culture?” Sierra. 7 June 2018. https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/how-change-peoples-minds-25-percent-tipping-point.
45. Rebecca Klar. “Survey finds 66 percent worried about climate change even amid coronavirus”. The Hill. 19 May 2020. https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/498465-survey-finds-66-percent-worried-about-climate-change-even-amid.
46. Drew Costley. “Study: SF has highest percentage of people who think global warming is happening”. SFGate. 12 August 2018. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-climate-change-belief-Yale-UCSB-13149115.php.
47. Matt McGrath. “Climate change: 12 years to save the planet? Make that 18 months”. BBC News. 24 July 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48964736.
48. Heather Smith. “Climate Change: Even Worse Than We Thought”. Sierra. 8 October 2018. https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/climate-change-even-worse-we-thought-ipcc-report.
49. Michael Grose and Julie Arblaster. “Just how hot will it get this century? It’s worse than we thought”. Phys Org. 18 May 2020. https://phys.org/news/2020-05-hot-century-worse-thought.html.
50. Amelia Urry. “The scientist who first warned of climate change says it’s much worse than we thought”. Grist. 22 March 2016. https://grist.org/science/the-scientist-who-first-warned-of-climate-change-says-its-much-worse-than-we-thought/.
51. Rafi Letzter. “Today’s Climate Change Is Worse Than Anything Earth Has Experienced in the Past 2,000 Years”. Live Science. 25 July 2019. https://www.livescience.com/66027-climate-change-different.html.
52. John D. Sutter. “Vanishing”. CNN. Accessed 30 June 2020. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2016/12/specials/vanishing/.
53. Peter Castagno. “Biodiversity Loss Worst in Human History — 1 Million Animal Species Risk Extinction”. Citizen Truth. 6 May 2019. https://citizentruth.org/biodiversity-loss-worst-in-human-history-1-million-animal-species-risk-extinction/.
54. Kristen Callihan. “Earth’s Currently Ongoing Sixth Mass Extinction Is Worse Than We Thought”. OutwardOn. 7 August 2017. https://www.outwardon.com/article/earths-currently-ongoing-sixth-mass-extinction-event-is-worse-than-we-thought/.
55. “Climate countdown”. The Guardian. Accessed most recently 29 July 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/series/climate-countdown.