All the mentions of celebrities losing their megamansions really grind my gears. I mean, yes, I'm sure it is upsetting for them. But of all the people in the world who are going to be crippled in one way or the other for possibly the rest of their lives after this fire, Paris effing Hilton is not one of them and I do not give a single flying function about it.
Alice and Bob, baristas from down the street who rented their house and couldn't afford contents insurance - yeah, I care about them. The celebrities can tootle off to their other luxury villa in the Bahamas for a couple of months while a Designer who goes by a mononym waves a fairy wand and creates a newer, even more conspicuously gross monstrosity for all the poors to envy.
Anyway - hope things work out OK for you and yours, and all the other 150,000 normal people who may have lost everything.
It's such a tricky thing; I feel for anyone who's lost stuff / in danger - but the media's tendency to focus just on them certainly warps perceptions. As you say - it grinds the gears alright!
It's a balancing act between having empathy for a fellow human being's loss and recognizing they're in a better position to recover than 99% of other people in the same situation.
But I also don't begrudge anyone their feelings. I certainly didn't shed any tears when I heard Mel Gibson lost his home.
In some cases I think it helps those outside to the event understand it better. We saw that happen in early COVID when it was Tom Hanks, rather than random individuals you'd never know. I understand the annoyance at those with multiple residences and vapid personalities, but then there are people like Eugene Levy and Billy Crystal who have lived in those homes for years and are a solid part of their local community. Even worse are those homeowners who found themselves deflected onto the state insurer of last resort, which apparently has a max payout per property regardless of the actual property value. Some of those Malibu homeowners that have been there for years (celebrity or not) aren't going to be fully covered and are likely to be forced to sell to someone new with money, exacerbating what had already been happening there.
What a superb short film. Humanity has achieved the most when working as a collective. I have spent a lot of time in recent years thinking about the individualistic, selfish habits that have been sold as normal. In NZ, my parents' generation had access to govt mortgages, they got a small monthly allowance for each child from the govt and free education. They chose to pull up the ladder and tell us we should be able to do it on our own "just like them". Many happily supporting current govt policy to punish beneficiaries, all the while getting superannuation benefit from the govt. Time for collectivism to make a comeback, either through govt policy or the revolution.
Totally agree Victoria...they most certainly pulled up the ladder and God forbid anyone dare introduce means testing to pensions or capital gains taxes...
I wrote this in the chat, but the stress and the bad air started to get me to so yesterday I packed up my cats and some belongings and went to stay with my sister up north.
I'm a bit embarrassed that this has had such an emotional impact on me. I've been through wildfires before. I'm very lucky: I don't live in an evacuation zone, I haven't lost my house or any of my possessions. The most I've had to deal with is some smoke. But I've had trouble sleeping, and all the constant stress and anxiety had started to effect my ability to function.
I don't know what I'm going to do after the next couple days. I don't expect my apartment to be in any actual danger, but the thought of going back right now fills me with dread. I just have to keep reminding myself how lucky I am, even when it doesn't feel like it.
Nothing embarrassing about it. You're surrounded by a city on fire. The air is thick. Choppers are in the sky. Sirens are going by. Social media is full and people we know and don't know losing homes.
I get it. You're all good. And I am glad you and the cats are physically safe.
🫂 It's called "empathy" mate 💜 Taking on board the distress of others 👀 One solution that works for me is to DO SOMETHING - big or small, personal (volunteer at a centre packing goods, handing out supplies, unloading donations) , impersonal (donate $$), The act of DOING SOMETHING channels empathy into action - even if it isn't related to the fires 👍🫂
Don’t be embarrassed by your feelings. You have every right to feel emotional. This is your home and your community. Hell, I’m emotional about it and I live far away in Wisconsin. The world is really heavy right now. I’m glad you are safe and that your home is outside of the evacuation zone. Take care of yourself. 🖤
Your response is understandable, it can be exhausting. There’s no way to relax when you know so many are suffering.
I lived through the years of Christchurch earthquakes, the mosque shootings and remember how bad I felt for the Australians during their major bushfires. Doing some, even a small amount of volunteer work, can help with built up anxious energy.
Oh man- survivor's guilt is REAL. The only thing you can really do is help folks who need the help- and eventually, years down the line, the whole thing feels like a ghost story when you talk about it.
It isn't embarrassing at all. I remember feeling the same thing in 2019/20 here in Aus. I was a few hours away from the epicentre of the fires but the sense of dread and anxiety was real. Constantly checking our fires app, looking at images of people being evacuated, making sure I had a bag packed and a plan for my pets all whilst having to pretend that this is all fine and normal when none of it is.
I totally get it Joe, like someone else here I was in Christchurch during the earthquakes and Mosque shootings, ongoing disaster and uncertainty and all the things that get in the way of life being "normal" are bloody hard to live with. Getting away is a very sane response imho. Cat cuddles and small pleasures help.
First - David please stay safe over there. The images coming through on the news are horrific and trying to weed through the misinformation and disinformation purposely being spread is quite an undertaking. Malevolent forces are compounding the situation - if you are physically safe, try to look after your mental wellbeing as well.
Second - "We have lived through forty-plus years of a culture built on abject greed. We’ve constructed a national ego that has rewarded this individual greed, all at the expense of the collective." Giorgio's words should serve as a warning for those of us down here in Aotearoa. The coalition government is attempting to entrench neoliberal ideology prioritising individual property rights into our laws and regulations. And it's not just present legislation that would be impacted, future regulations would have to prioritise individual property rights over the collective as well. It's a sneaky little bill and we have so little time to comment or present our objections. If you have a few free moments (for those of us not currently impacted by the horrendous fires in LA) please take the time to submit your objections to this attempt enshrine American greed into Aotearoa. There are a number of really good resource floating around substack on this bill - consultation closes 13 January at midnight.
🤬🤬🤬 This "consultation" closes 2moro night - 13th Jan - as Ryan Ward said even if you just say "1) I am opposed to the Bill -2) I recommend Parliament reject the bill and do not consider future versions ", and as Dr Bex says - "the best Submission is the one you make..." 👍
Can I recommend a quick rrad of Prof Jane Kelsey's submission to get an idea of the salient points? She's been soaking in exactly this since the 80s, and has written so brilliantly on the previous 3 (or 4?) times this idea has been rejected by the House - and why this one might just succeed 😞 Her sub and more, here: https://blog.mikeriversdale.co.nz/2025/01/regulatory-standards-bill-submission.html
Came to say the same. Her submission (available on Melanie Nelson's substack) is such a great summary of this shitty neoliberal bill. Even the fact is being hosted by the Ministry for Regulation rather than the usual parliamentary services submission site is foul. The questions are focused on getting people to agree with the Bill. Better off emailing a submission. Even if people don't have time, just say "I support the submission of Jane Kelsey and recommend this Bill is rejected."
Yes, very negative of them. My last recommendation was that they dont do submission and consultations through holiday periods.
But remember, the RSB is only at the consultation stage. It will pass the fist reading in parliament as part of the cocs agreement, then after we get the proper public submission stage. Im guessing that will be in Easter break or next Christmas holiday going by their dirty tactics!
A message to all the folks who want to help... please just give money. Unless somewhere is specifically asking for goods or volunteers, and you have checked that they still need them, just give money. If you haven't got money to give, that's OK. Look for requests for specific needs and give what you can there. Including your time.
It's currently the 14th anniversary of the massive floods Brisbane and surrounds suffered and what we went through then is fresh in my mind. I have seen too many kind donations of goods go to waste because they were not what was actually needed. I have seen too many kind donations of goods become a bigger problem than help because of volume, inappropriateness, lack of storage, contamination, nobody to distribute them etc.
With money, people can buy what they need. Or organisations can pay to get what people need to them. It won't spoil or become a problem to store. It will be needed for a long time to come too.
To anyone affected or at risk, please stay safe and know that people do care and want to help.
This piece is yet another reminder that nothing is sacred under capitalism.
Capitalism’s narrative tells us that housing isn’t special - we don’t deserve somewhere safe to live, we earn it. And if someone can leverage their power in ways that makes housing impossible to access, then “that’s just survival off the fittest, bro.”
I think of that climate disaster saying circulating at the moment about it being something we see getting closer through other people’s cameras, until it’s us taking the photo, and feel like it applies to so many more crises - housing, food security, healthcare, the justice system…
The real question is, can we get enough people together, calling bullshit on this system before it’s too late? Or are we just too soaked in this imaginary to believe that there are some things we shouldn’t have to compete for?
I’m from Australia and I can still remember being a little kid coming home from school in 1983, and looking up at the Ash Wednesday fires tearing through the Adelaide hills. Seeing the pics coming from LA, I know the exact feel of those winds, the smell of the smoke and the utter terror of who and how much could be lost. Sending all the virtual hugs and support to you David, and everyone impacted by these awful fires.
The main thing making so incredibly angry at this, is the utter bullshit being spewed around DEI being responsible for this. I’m almost speechless that such shit is being thrown around to get us all to fight amongst ourselves, while the worst emitters, oil companies and billionaires sit back and watch their wealth keep growing. Just disgusting.
Powerful short doco. I don’t know if you saw it but the placed a map the size of the fires over Auckland and boom, south of the CBD gone. That certainly bought it home. Like others sick of stories of mansions gone. Tell us about the real people. Keep safe
That was an incredible short film. I got teary watching Luigi being transported by all those officials in his orange jumpsuit and handcuffs. He looked so lost. It's truly such a big reminder of our collective humanness and it could have been any one of us making that call to action when in such distress. All of this is just awful 😞💔.
I don't even know how to respond about the fires. This is all incredibly overwhelming and I don't even live in America. Sending lots of love and strength to anyone here affected. Please stay safe ❤️ xoxo
Dam that is hard to watch and read. Amazing doco as well. America you are fucked. For years I sat watching while eating popcorn,like everyone else. Now the popcorn has all run out. I am using that as a metaphor for capitalism and individualism and all the other isms. Nothing is working anymore. It is all broken. Stay safe everyone 🫶
Loved the short. I don’t have any provocative thoughts on this one. There’s no reasonable or credible explanation for terrorism. Everything about greed and power running this country and others is true. Full stop. No qualifiers.
I find it freeing in a way. Trump is so much less dangerous when you realize he can’t and won’t change anything. But that’s not good news. He’s not even relevant except that he will do nothing to stop and likely assist the power agenda. But only in a small way.
Reasonable political ideas are treated like crazy. And people buy into that. The only hope we have is to lay down the political ideals. They should be afraid of us. We the people used to mean something. All of these things are exactly what the founders were against. They tried really hard to make change possible knowing there were things they couldn’t foresee. But here we are fighting over smoke and mirrors. 2 sides of the same coin in most cases. Prop up the rich.
A huge amount of people don’t even understand how the fires are caused by climate change. And there’s not much movement to do anything about it. Only as much as the corporations allow. We’ll see some of that regress while senators and Congress get mysteriously richer.
I don’t have a hopeful ending here. If you aren’t doing well financially you don’t have time to do anything. Most of those that can won’t out of fear. That’s probably where I fall.
"Trump is so much less dangerous when you realize he can’t and won’t change anything."
I think it would be dangerously naive to believe that he won't. This time, all the shadow powers that want the changes are much better organised because they've spent the last four years planning and preparing. They know how to get their people in, and more importantly, to get the people who might otherwise obstruct them out. They know how to manipulate the big idiot, and they've made sure he knows he won't face any consequences for breaking the law.
I hope you're right, and he's still an ineffectual grifter. But I don't think it is safe to assume so for Trump 2.0.
Agreed. Unfortunately, he’s incredibly dangerous for so many reasons—among them that he normalizes this bullshit & (if Reagan & both Bushes are any indication) pretty much guarantees that whoever/whatever comes after him will be a more extreme version of everything he stands for. Also it’s his second term, so all the guardrails are gone.
I guess what I was trying to say is that he’s simply a cog in the machine that’s been running. You could swap in hundreds if not thousands of others. He’s a placeholder. Nothing about him is special. He’s the generic evil. He’s bland compared to Vance. Men with power thinking they can do anything and have sex with whomever they want isn’t a new or secret idea. He’s just not pretending to be anything else. The whole thing is scary not him in particular anymore, at least to me. Focusing on the politician du jour is a waste in my eyes.
What’s scary is that people are willing to parkour over everything that Trump is and vote for him anyway. That’s terrifying. We’re that beat down. If you break it down, he won because of the amount of people who didn’t vote. And considering that people who are suffering in their daily lives got no relief under any politician, I can hardly blame them. Of those who voted, more people thought they had to get rid of the current administration. They wanted a change they didn’t get. That’s not high minded theory that we pretend voting is. It’s nothing like that. My life sucked, I’ll try the other side. And then way more people who said my life sucked all the years. Voting made no difference. That truly broke me.
It's so devastating. Coming from Louisiana where we have had some extensive, irreparable damage from hurricanes makes me feel so many things. I can't even imagine how terrifying it's been for everyone. Hurricanes at least have a start and end time...these fires are such an unknown. It's awful. :(
What I am learning is that the US certainly has its fair share of chaos - between hurricanes, fires and earthquakes it's almost like, "God, what next?!"
And fortunately we have the religious zealots who make sure to explain to us what we did to cause God's wrath to be unleashed on an area. On the positive side, most of their voices have been sidelined and generally ignored.
Watching the video and watching the poor people surveying the wreckage of their homes, you feel even worse for them knowing the battle they are about to have with their insurance companies and the building consent process! It’s going to go on for years and it’s going to be exhausting.
Glad that you’re ok David. This webworm piece and the doco are what we need to hear more of. I finished reading Enjoyment Left & Right by Todd McGowan this afternoon. It offers a path forward if we’re brave enough to go there.
Thanks, Diane. I love Giorgio's work and hosting two of his shorts here on Webworm has been a total pleasure. If pleasure is the right word! (This was the other one, "MAGA Fever": https://www.webworm.co/p/netflixcoldfeet).
All the mentions of celebrities losing their megamansions really grind my gears. I mean, yes, I'm sure it is upsetting for them. But of all the people in the world who are going to be crippled in one way or the other for possibly the rest of their lives after this fire, Paris effing Hilton is not one of them and I do not give a single flying function about it.
Alice and Bob, baristas from down the street who rented their house and couldn't afford contents insurance - yeah, I care about them. The celebrities can tootle off to their other luxury villa in the Bahamas for a couple of months while a Designer who goes by a mononym waves a fairy wand and creates a newer, even more conspicuously gross monstrosity for all the poors to envy.
Anyway - hope things work out OK for you and yours, and all the other 150,000 normal people who may have lost everything.
It's such a tricky thing; I feel for anyone who's lost stuff / in danger - but the media's tendency to focus just on them certainly warps perceptions. As you say - it grinds the gears alright!
It's a balancing act between having empathy for a fellow human being's loss and recognizing they're in a better position to recover than 99% of other people in the same situation.
But I also don't begrudge anyone their feelings. I certainly didn't shed any tears when I heard Mel Gibson lost his home.
In some cases I think it helps those outside to the event understand it better. We saw that happen in early COVID when it was Tom Hanks, rather than random individuals you'd never know. I understand the annoyance at those with multiple residences and vapid personalities, but then there are people like Eugene Levy and Billy Crystal who have lived in those homes for years and are a solid part of their local community. Even worse are those homeowners who found themselves deflected onto the state insurer of last resort, which apparently has a max payout per property regardless of the actual property value. Some of those Malibu homeowners that have been there for years (celebrity or not) aren't going to be fully covered and are likely to be forced to sell to someone new with money, exacerbating what had already been happening there.
💯 I refuse to click on those headlines about celebrities losing "things" 💪
What a superb short film. Humanity has achieved the most when working as a collective. I have spent a lot of time in recent years thinking about the individualistic, selfish habits that have been sold as normal. In NZ, my parents' generation had access to govt mortgages, they got a small monthly allowance for each child from the govt and free education. They chose to pull up the ladder and tell us we should be able to do it on our own "just like them". Many happily supporting current govt policy to punish beneficiaries, all the while getting superannuation benefit from the govt. Time for collectivism to make a comeback, either through govt policy or the revolution.
His stuff is so great.
This is the last one I hosted, in case you missed it: https://www.webworm.co/p/netflixcoldfeet
Bring on the revolution
Totally agree Victoria...they most certainly pulled up the ladder and God forbid anyone dare introduce means testing to pensions or capital gains taxes...
I wrote this in the chat, but the stress and the bad air started to get me to so yesterday I packed up my cats and some belongings and went to stay with my sister up north.
I'm a bit embarrassed that this has had such an emotional impact on me. I've been through wildfires before. I'm very lucky: I don't live in an evacuation zone, I haven't lost my house or any of my possessions. The most I've had to deal with is some smoke. But I've had trouble sleeping, and all the constant stress and anxiety had started to effect my ability to function.
I don't know what I'm going to do after the next couple days. I don't expect my apartment to be in any actual danger, but the thought of going back right now fills me with dread. I just have to keep reminding myself how lucky I am, even when it doesn't feel like it.
Nothing embarrassing about it. You're surrounded by a city on fire. The air is thick. Choppers are in the sky. Sirens are going by. Social media is full and people we know and don't know losing homes.
I get it. You're all good. And I am glad you and the cats are physically safe.
🫂 It's called "empathy" mate 💜 Taking on board the distress of others 👀 One solution that works for me is to DO SOMETHING - big or small, personal (volunteer at a centre packing goods, handing out supplies, unloading donations) , impersonal (donate $$), The act of DOING SOMETHING channels empathy into action - even if it isn't related to the fires 👍🫂
Having an emotional impact even though it’s stressful is a good sign imo - it means you care about the world and what happens in it. ❤️
Don’t be embarrassed by your feelings. You have every right to feel emotional. This is your home and your community. Hell, I’m emotional about it and I live far away in Wisconsin. The world is really heavy right now. I’m glad you are safe and that your home is outside of the evacuation zone. Take care of yourself. 🖤
Your response is understandable, it can be exhausting. There’s no way to relax when you know so many are suffering.
I lived through the years of Christchurch earthquakes, the mosque shootings and remember how bad I felt for the Australians during their major bushfires. Doing some, even a small amount of volunteer work, can help with built up anxious energy.
Oh man- survivor's guilt is REAL. The only thing you can really do is help folks who need the help- and eventually, years down the line, the whole thing feels like a ghost story when you talk about it.
It isn't embarrassing at all. I remember feeling the same thing in 2019/20 here in Aus. I was a few hours away from the epicentre of the fires but the sense of dread and anxiety was real. Constantly checking our fires app, looking at images of people being evacuated, making sure I had a bag packed and a plan for my pets all whilst having to pretend that this is all fine and normal when none of it is.
I totally get it Joe, like someone else here I was in Christchurch during the earthquakes and Mosque shootings, ongoing disaster and uncertainty and all the things that get in the way of life being "normal" are bloody hard to live with. Getting away is a very sane response imho. Cat cuddles and small pleasures help.
First - David please stay safe over there. The images coming through on the news are horrific and trying to weed through the misinformation and disinformation purposely being spread is quite an undertaking. Malevolent forces are compounding the situation - if you are physically safe, try to look after your mental wellbeing as well.
Second - "We have lived through forty-plus years of a culture built on abject greed. We’ve constructed a national ego that has rewarded this individual greed, all at the expense of the collective." Giorgio's words should serve as a warning for those of us down here in Aotearoa. The coalition government is attempting to entrench neoliberal ideology prioritising individual property rights into our laws and regulations. And it's not just present legislation that would be impacted, future regulations would have to prioritise individual property rights over the collective as well. It's a sneaky little bill and we have so little time to comment or present our objections. If you have a few free moments (for those of us not currently impacted by the horrendous fires in LA) please take the time to submit your objections to this attempt enshrine American greed into Aotearoa. There are a number of really good resource floating around substack on this bill - consultation closes 13 January at midnight.
https://e-tangata.co.nz/comment-and-analysis/the-dangerous-bill-flying-under-the-radar/
https://consultation.regulation.govt.nz/rsb/have-your-say-on-regulatory-standards-bill/
🤬🤬🤬 This "consultation" closes 2moro night - 13th Jan - as Ryan Ward said even if you just say "1) I am opposed to the Bill -2) I recommend Parliament reject the bill and do not consider future versions ", and as Dr Bex says - "the best Submission is the one you make..." 👍
Can I recommend a quick rrad of Prof Jane Kelsey's submission to get an idea of the salient points? She's been soaking in exactly this since the 80s, and has written so brilliantly on the previous 3 (or 4?) times this idea has been rejected by the House - and why this one might just succeed 😞 Her sub and more, here: https://blog.mikeriversdale.co.nz/2025/01/regulatory-standards-bill-submission.html
Came to say the same. Her submission (available on Melanie Nelson's substack) is such a great summary of this shitty neoliberal bill. Even the fact is being hosted by the Ministry for Regulation rather than the usual parliamentary services submission site is foul. The questions are focused on getting people to agree with the Bill. Better off emailing a submission. Even if people don't have time, just say "I support the submission of Jane Kelsey and recommend this Bill is rejected."
I've just done this thanks to your comment. Cheers :)
I think it closes at 1pm Tues 13th.
Thanks for the reminder. I just paused reading the comments here and did mine
Same! Makes me furious that submissions deadlines for so many of these heinous bills are being snuck in when most of NZ is still on holiday
Yes, very negative of them. My last recommendation was that they dont do submission and consultations through holiday periods.
But remember, the RSB is only at the consultation stage. It will pass the fist reading in parliament as part of the cocs agreement, then after we get the proper public submission stage. Im guessing that will be in Easter break or next Christmas holiday going by their dirty tactics!
Me too!
A message to all the folks who want to help... please just give money. Unless somewhere is specifically asking for goods or volunteers, and you have checked that they still need them, just give money. If you haven't got money to give, that's OK. Look for requests for specific needs and give what you can there. Including your time.
It's currently the 14th anniversary of the massive floods Brisbane and surrounds suffered and what we went through then is fresh in my mind. I have seen too many kind donations of goods go to waste because they were not what was actually needed. I have seen too many kind donations of goods become a bigger problem than help because of volume, inappropriateness, lack of storage, contamination, nobody to distribute them etc.
With money, people can buy what they need. Or organisations can pay to get what people need to them. It won't spoil or become a problem to store. It will be needed for a long time to come too.
To anyone affected or at risk, please stay safe and know that people do care and want to help.
Fair.
Also, this is list is really good when it comes to specific places and what:
a) help is needed
b) items are needed
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KMk34XY5dsvVJjAoD2mQUVHYU_Ib6COz6jcGH5uJWDY/htmlview?gid=439359427#gid=439359427
Really good advice 👌🏼
Glad you’re ok man.
This piece is yet another reminder that nothing is sacred under capitalism.
Capitalism’s narrative tells us that housing isn’t special - we don’t deserve somewhere safe to live, we earn it. And if someone can leverage their power in ways that makes housing impossible to access, then “that’s just survival off the fittest, bro.”
I think of that climate disaster saying circulating at the moment about it being something we see getting closer through other people’s cameras, until it’s us taking the photo, and feel like it applies to so many more crises - housing, food security, healthcare, the justice system…
The real question is, can we get enough people together, calling bullshit on this system before it’s too late? Or are we just too soaked in this imaginary to believe that there are some things we shouldn’t have to compete for?
I am pretty cynical on this present day, so lean toward the latter - but hope very much to be proven wrong.
I’m from Australia and I can still remember being a little kid coming home from school in 1983, and looking up at the Ash Wednesday fires tearing through the Adelaide hills. Seeing the pics coming from LA, I know the exact feel of those winds, the smell of the smoke and the utter terror of who and how much could be lost. Sending all the virtual hugs and support to you David, and everyone impacted by these awful fires.
The main thing making so incredibly angry at this, is the utter bullshit being spewed around DEI being responsible for this. I’m almost speechless that such shit is being thrown around to get us all to fight amongst ourselves, while the worst emitters, oil companies and billionaires sit back and watch their wealth keep growing. Just disgusting.
Powerful short doco. I don’t know if you saw it but the placed a map the size of the fires over Auckland and boom, south of the CBD gone. That certainly bought it home. Like others sick of stories of mansions gone. Tell us about the real people. Keep safe
That was an incredible short film. I got teary watching Luigi being transported by all those officials in his orange jumpsuit and handcuffs. He looked so lost. It's truly such a big reminder of our collective humanness and it could have been any one of us making that call to action when in such distress. All of this is just awful 😞💔.
I don't even know how to respond about the fires. This is all incredibly overwhelming and I don't even live in America. Sending lots of love and strength to anyone here affected. Please stay safe ❤️ xoxo
Dam that is hard to watch and read. Amazing doco as well. America you are fucked. For years I sat watching while eating popcorn,like everyone else. Now the popcorn has all run out. I am using that as a metaphor for capitalism and individualism and all the other isms. Nothing is working anymore. It is all broken. Stay safe everyone 🫶
Loved the short. I don’t have any provocative thoughts on this one. There’s no reasonable or credible explanation for terrorism. Everything about greed and power running this country and others is true. Full stop. No qualifiers.
I find it freeing in a way. Trump is so much less dangerous when you realize he can’t and won’t change anything. But that’s not good news. He’s not even relevant except that he will do nothing to stop and likely assist the power agenda. But only in a small way.
Reasonable political ideas are treated like crazy. And people buy into that. The only hope we have is to lay down the political ideals. They should be afraid of us. We the people used to mean something. All of these things are exactly what the founders were against. They tried really hard to make change possible knowing there were things they couldn’t foresee. But here we are fighting over smoke and mirrors. 2 sides of the same coin in most cases. Prop up the rich.
A huge amount of people don’t even understand how the fires are caused by climate change. And there’s not much movement to do anything about it. Only as much as the corporations allow. We’ll see some of that regress while senators and Congress get mysteriously richer.
I don’t have a hopeful ending here. If you aren’t doing well financially you don’t have time to do anything. Most of those that can won’t out of fear. That’s probably where I fall.
"Trump is so much less dangerous when you realize he can’t and won’t change anything."
I think it would be dangerously naive to believe that he won't. This time, all the shadow powers that want the changes are much better organised because they've spent the last four years planning and preparing. They know how to get their people in, and more importantly, to get the people who might otherwise obstruct them out. They know how to manipulate the big idiot, and they've made sure he knows he won't face any consequences for breaking the law.
I hope you're right, and he's still an ineffectual grifter. But I don't think it is safe to assume so for Trump 2.0.
Agreed. Unfortunately, he’s incredibly dangerous for so many reasons—among them that he normalizes this bullshit & (if Reagan & both Bushes are any indication) pretty much guarantees that whoever/whatever comes after him will be a more extreme version of everything he stands for. Also it’s his second term, so all the guardrails are gone.
I guess what I was trying to say is that he’s simply a cog in the machine that’s been running. You could swap in hundreds if not thousands of others. He’s a placeholder. Nothing about him is special. He’s the generic evil. He’s bland compared to Vance. Men with power thinking they can do anything and have sex with whomever they want isn’t a new or secret idea. He’s just not pretending to be anything else. The whole thing is scary not him in particular anymore, at least to me. Focusing on the politician du jour is a waste in my eyes.
What’s scary is that people are willing to parkour over everything that Trump is and vote for him anyway. That’s terrifying. We’re that beat down. If you break it down, he won because of the amount of people who didn’t vote. And considering that people who are suffering in their daily lives got no relief under any politician, I can hardly blame them. Of those who voted, more people thought they had to get rid of the current administration. They wanted a change they didn’t get. That’s not high minded theory that we pretend voting is. It’s nothing like that. My life sucked, I’ll try the other side. And then way more people who said my life sucked all the years. Voting made no difference. That truly broke me.
Please be safe and thank you for sharing all of this.
It's so devastating. Coming from Louisiana where we have had some extensive, irreparable damage from hurricanes makes me feel so many things. I can't even imagine how terrifying it's been for everyone. Hurricanes at least have a start and end time...these fires are such an unknown. It's awful. :(
What I am learning is that the US certainly has its fair share of chaos - between hurricanes, fires and earthquakes it's almost like, "God, what next?!"
And fortunately we have the religious zealots who make sure to explain to us what we did to cause God's wrath to be unleashed on an area. On the positive side, most of their voices have been sidelined and generally ignored.
For sure! Are there any particular natural disasters that occur in NZ? Do you get the full array?
Watching the video and watching the poor people surveying the wreckage of their homes, you feel even worse for them knowing the battle they are about to have with their insurance companies and the building consent process! It’s going to go on for years and it’s going to be exhausting.
And so many insurers here have dropped fire cover. Just awful.
Glad that you’re ok David. This webworm piece and the doco are what we need to hear more of. I finished reading Enjoyment Left & Right by Todd McGowan this afternoon. It offers a path forward if we’re brave enough to go there.
Thanks, Diane. I love Giorgio's work and hosting two of his shorts here on Webworm has been a total pleasure. If pleasure is the right word! (This was the other one, "MAGA Fever": https://www.webworm.co/p/netflixcoldfeet).
Firstly, I’m glad you’re safe David ❤️
Secondly, what an incredible short film. So powerful and emotive 😔
His stuff is amazing. This is his earlier short I hosted in case you missed it: https://www.webworm.co/p/netflixcoldfeet
I did not miss it! Loved it also x