On a Tuesday morning in January, college student Aurora Gray stepped up to the podium in a windowless room in Atlanta, around the corner from the state capitol building. In front of her sat a five-member panel of elected officials that oversees how and where nearly every Georgia resident gets their power.

“The generation of energy… using fossil fuels has become an existential threat to our safety due to the undisputed impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on our planet,” Gray told the commission. “We must act now, as later is way too late.”

More than a dozen other students sat behind her, awaiting their allotted three minutes in front of the Georgia Public Service Commission, or PSC. One after another, they called on the commission to reject a request from Georgia Power, the state’s largest utility, to add new natural gas capacity to the grid. Instead, they repeated at the podium, the company needs to expand renewable energy and take other steps to combat climate change.

“You can help get Georgia Power to take the right actions in the essential timeframe,” said high school senior Evelyn Ford, the last of the students to speak across two days. “Actually, you’re the only five people in Georgia who can.”

i was ALAB

Assigned lame at birth

Can we please get some last minute action on the key issues, secured before we get to the vote? Biden still hasn’t officially declared a climate emergency, which we are unarguably in. Even fossil fuel companies aren’t even denying it anymore!! Could we actually get what we need out a democrat: real immigration action and asylum for all parties affected by US intervention and our role in climate destruction, sweeping student loan debt forgiven, meaningful action towards decarb, codify new civil rights for abortion and LGBTQ+ and halt weapons and money to israel by forcing him to declare a national emergency? I mean maybe I’m just a hopeless romantic but is there not some precedent for dealing with how dire this situation is? Like it shouldn’t really be something we need to elect someone to make sure gets fixed. We have the powers, we should be able to just get it done. Why are so many people fear mongering us into making a choice against our consent for a president and admin that has barely done anything he said they would instead of just fucking saving the world from donald trump like they claim they are tryin to do? And I mean come, how did hitler lose his power?? Yall keep comparing trump to Hitler but are trying to politely make it so he can’t “take over the world and destroy democracy”? Like this is pathetic yall. WHAT ARE WE EVEN DOING IF ITS THIS BAD?? WE ARE REALLY LETTING THIS BE UP TO A FUCKING TWO PARTY VOTE?? WHO HONESTLY THINKS THAT THIS ANXIETY WE ARE ALL FEELING IS 1) WARRANTED AND 2) NECESSARY ON ANY LEVEL?

we know whats wrong and we have historical precendents and more options than this sad state of affairs we are boxing ourselves into. we just don’t have the collective hutzpah to rise up and demand an end to this bullshit. you can see it in the faces of people at protests for palestine though. something about watching a genocide unfold while being governed by the guy who we’re told won’t let democracy die. do the people in palestine have democracy? what’s left of ours when you are painted a political enemy of the state because you are calling on your president to do more for a stateless people and we taut ourselves as leaders of the free world? remember #notmypresident? is biden my president? because while i did vote for him last time, i don’t think he is the president i thought he was. what can you do when you have buyers remorse? would you buy the same product again? then if you find the store doesn’t even have what you want, why go there at all? voting has its place. i just don’t think the issues we are facing should be up to a vote on whether we resolve them or not.

It has become commonplace to emphasize the extent to which the US political world is polarized. Politicians and partisans of each party don’t simply have differing solutions to the country’s problems — they often seem to live in separate and fundamentally incompatible versions of reality. But on one thing, nearly everyone can agree: Donald Trump is still the center of the country’s political universe.

Trump is cruising to victory in the Republican presidential primary despite barely campaigning and remaining the subject of numerous major criminal and civil trials. GOP voters strongly preferred him over Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who essentially ran on Trump’s program, but with fewer personal scandals and a severe charisma deficit. DeSantis dropped out in January, as did Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor whose more strongly anti-Trump campaign barely registered.

Last week, Trump won 60 percent of the vote to defeat Nikki Haley, his only remaining opponent, in her home state of South Carolina. He went on to beat her with 68 percent of the vote in Michigan a few days later. Whatever Haley’s motives for remaining in the race through Super Tuesday (March 5, when fifteen states will hold primary elections), there is next to zero hope that anyone besides Trump will be the Republican presidential nominee. The Supreme Court’s decision today to reverse Colorado’s move to exclude the former president from the ballot just delivered the Trump campaign even more good news.

Even Joe Biden appears to be letting Donald Trump set the agenda for political discussion in the presidential election. Despite four years of incumbency, the president has largely focused his reelection campaign on Trump — in particular the threats he poses to democracy and abortion rights, as well as the many instances of legal jeopardy in which Trump is entangled.

this is hella old but apparently still relevant

yup the US seriously is not a civil country. i would know, i live here.

thats what the law is becoming. a way to enforce the will of the corporate state.

It also seems you didn’t/can’t read the article in your first link

What the one about the “horrors” of socialism? If there are any horrors of socialism, its that it allowed capitalism to exist. Everything the US condemns “socialist and communist” countries of is usually just a projection of its own bullshit.

You’re very good at ranting and criticizing democrats while ignoring 80% of what I respond with.

I’m not sure which parts i didn’t respond to, can you clarify? otherwise stop moving the goalposts

WOW, really? Well let’s just “both sides!!” it and discourage Biden voters so we can get Danald Tramp elected anyway

I encourage people to vote for whoever they want. If they can vote uncommitted on a primary to show they dont support him thats amazing and will not risk the election to trump as y’all like to keep screaming

100,000 people in michigan is just a bunch of kids whining and pouting on the internet? good try at badjacketing though.

and its not stopping. in washington the UFCW 3000 are endorsing uncommitted in the primary. so working class union members are whiny pouty children? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/washington-s-largest-labor-union-endorses-uncommitted-primary-vote-in-rebuke-to-biden/ar-BB1jaQPE I’ll save you a click:

The union’s executive board reached the endorsement decision on Wednesday night.

“Currently, many voters, and UFCW 3000 executive board, feel that the best path to have the best nominee, and to defeat Trump, is to vote ‘uncommitted,’” the union said in a statement. “The hope is that this will strengthen the Democratic party’s ultimate nominee to defeat Trump in the General Election in November.”

“We need a nominee who can run and beat Trump to protect workers across this country and around the world,” the statement continued.

With over 50,000 members, the union is a force to be reckoned with as Biden seeks to win over voters in the primary contest.

The president is facing an uphill battle as he seeks to mobilize the broad coalition of Americans who delivered his 2020 White House win. His continued supply of weapons and diplomatic cover for Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza is one of the major sticking points for young voters and voters of color.

Just this week, more than 100,000 Michigan primary voters cast their ballots “uncommitted” in solidarity with Gazans under siege after a three-week campaign. Biden won the swing state by just over 150,000 votes in 2020.

“We stand in solidarity with our partners in Michigan who sent a clear message in their primary that Biden must do more to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Biden must push for a lasting ceasefire and ending US funding toward this reckless war,” the Washington union said.

If you understood basic economics you would see that this is a tactical approach to getting our elected leaders to do what needs to be done. I have something they want/need. They have the power to affect change the way that me and a lot of other people want. Its called bargaining. If they want what we have, our consent, then they have to earn it. Don’t they like to call this country a meritocracy? We know they won’t keep their promises after they get our vote. they don’t need us after that so why would I so easily give up the only bargaining chip I have when there is no sign they will perform

yea means i wouldn’t be able to vote anyway cause i wouldn’t have a permanent address. personally i rent so i do have an address but yelling at disenfranchised citizens that they are bad because they didn’t vote is such a dem thing to do. why don’t they house them instead of cast them off as a non-important demographic? i know thats off topic but if i did live in a cardboard box like you suggested, then i wouldn’t be able to vote anyway.

Democrats support a social safety net. Republicans fight against EVERY form of social(ist) support with legislation and propaganda. Let’s list the states which denied accepting federal funds to expand Medicaid… hmm… and no, it has nothing at all to do with “disabled, queer, non-white, neurodivergent or an intersection of those things” as they specifically help those people. As noted, we are comparing them to fucking republicans. What you’re saying makes almost no sense at all. Are you confusing Democrats with Republicans?

If Democrats are so supporting of social(ist) programs, why did 106 of them vote YEA in a resolution denouncing socialism and deeming US as capitalist country first and foremost? https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/02/02/u-s-house-agrees-on-something-lawmakers-condemn-the-horrors-of-socialism/ https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2023106?Page=2

If democrats care so much about marginialized peoples, why are they not donating to these peoples gofundmes? Or responding to their calls for mutual aid? Because it cuts into the neoliberal commodification and privitization of public assistance.

“This “neo-liberalization of social services” transformed charity into an industry where professionalism, maintaining tax-exempt status, and uplifting the needs of corporate donors and capitalist foundations fueled the work. Now, the nonprofit system encourages social movements to follow capitalist models, is monitored and influenced by state and corporate entities, and is generally focused on employing educated workers to the helping profession rather than mass activist organizing.11 Conversely, mutual aid organizers are attuned to the needs of the collective over any other stakeholder, and the lines between those offering and receiving assistance are blurred.”

https://cunyurbanfoodpolicy.org/news/2023/08/22/mutual-aid-101-history-politics-and-organizational-structures-of-community-care/

Democrats are closer in class and ethics to republicans than they are to the working class. They are all friends and colleagues of each other, not sworn mortal enemies like they portray.

Its hard to differentiate Dems from Repubs since they both seem to want the working class to dissolve.

Tell me how Trump being elected will help the Palestinian cause.

Nobody thinks that.

Democrats gave a cushy border deal to Republicans knowing they’d refuse it over electoral concerns and guess what, they did. Again: either a Democrat or Republican will be elected for each seat available in the upcoming elections. How will a Republican taking office help migrants?

the link referring to the border issue is talking about biden concocting a trump era border policy in executive order style, so not about the deal he tried to make with repubs. the dems don’t want more people crossing the border either.

biden cant unilaterally solve the problems of the the US but he can stop weapons and money going to a genocide.

EDIT: adding citations as to why biden is not that labor friendly:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/02/joe-biden-is-no-friend-of-unions

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/01/joe-biden-rail-strike-labor-unions

what dog whistles? i used factually accurate information. that 260 bil is fact. it is fact that israelis are zionists, they literally call themselves that. israel is a terror state much like the US is a terror state and always has. always will be.

By the way, all this colonialism talk always irks me most cause Americans glassed and colonized my country and continue to colonize and own it, yet they feel they’re qualified to criticize others on the subject. My people were murdered, used and made out to be the enemy and we never got so much as an apology, before you guys moved on and are moralizing over there now.

so you don’t want people within the imperial core to protest against the imperial core and its colonial, genocidal policies?? all your paragraph above tells me is i should be protesting against both parties more. i can personally apologize for the US actions but it wouldn’t really do much. there are a lot of reparations that need to be paid by the US and that is what we are trying to do. you can’t force democrats to do jack shit unless they feel they will lose their power.

Extract yourself from my Nation first before you call out others

i would if i personally could. and that is something that i advocate for. and i’m not calling out other nations that are occupied by US military/capital. i’m calling out my country and israel for conducting an ethnic cleansing.

hilarious of you to think that it made no difference. if democrats admitted that it did, then they would be giving away the only that really scares them, not being liked and voted for!

bold of you to assume i own a home i can sit and pout in

agreed

We can argue that neoliberals like Biden and the current establishment Democrats are hating of the QIA+ part of the LGBTQIA+ community, climate activists, climate refugees, direct action initiatives, grassroots movements, just to name whats off the top of my head. They also have a disdain for poor people but historically yes have made things more accessible, on paper. If you are disabled, queer, non-white, neurodivergent or an intersection of those things, you are second class and that is the lived experience. The way they talk and the way they spend and lobby shows that they also want to push an ableist, classist agenda that only allows certain diversity to a point before it becomes too inconvenient or uncomfortable.

Biden has supported israel since his days in congress. He said that if there was no Israel, the US would create one. Israel has been doing this since day one. 1948 Nakba. He shares the same values as israel. The values of fascism, colonialism, zionism. This is his legacy and we should not let him forget it. https://theconversation.com/biden-says-the-u-s-would-have-to-invent-an-israel-if-it-didnt-exist-why-210172

Kamala Harris told Guatamalans not to try and come to the US. We did a coup there once. The Biden admin now wants to be even tougher on the border than Republicans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d'état https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57387350 https://news.yahoo.com/biden-may-sign-trump-esque-220052566.html

yo all these people downvoting you is funny as fuck

like you put biden in your penis? just want to make sure i got that right. either way, i’ve already imagined it and now i have to take some psilocybin to get that out of my mind

who said anything about apathetic? i went to a protest today calling for ceasefire. looks more like the dems are apathetic if they think that there is any sort of justification to continue funding genocide.

NYPD, KKK

IDF, They’re all the same!