During a brief exchange with Senator Dianne Feinstein about a controversial viral video in which she was seen telling off a bunch of small children for making demands about climate change legislation, journalist Ryan Grim reports that the senior US lawmaker told him something very peculiar.
"Feinstein told me she was surprised she went viral, because: 'You know what somebody said to me?--I didn’t see any of this--they said anybody with a cell phone in their hand can get you on international news in two minutes. I never knew that," Grim tweeted, adding, "She was chair of the Intelligence Committee, and had just come from a hearing."
If Feinstein is telling the truth about this, it's an admission from one of the most powerful politicians in the most powerful government on earth that she literally just found out how mobile phones, social media and the internet work. If she's lying about this, one of the most powerful politicians in the most powerful government on earth just used an "I'm too old and befuddled to understand how these newfangled dongle widgets work" excuse for her behavior. Either way, this doesn't say good things about the sort of person who is at the steering wheel of America's legislative branch today.
Feinstein is 85 and looks like she's held together by nothing but formaldehyde, contempt for the working class, and a wig. She is also worth an estimated 94 million dollars and married to a billionaire, and when she took office in 1992 news networks were running segments about the internet that looked like this:
So it is quite believable that she has been so pervasively cocooned within an elitist beltway echo chamber that she hadn't the faintest inkling how ordinary people have been communicating with each other online for years, nor the curiosity to find out. But what does that tell you about the kind of life US senators live, and how distant they are from the citizenry whose interests they're meant to be advancing?
Take this isolated ivory tower lifestyle and combine it with the fact that the average age in the US Senate is 61 years old, an age where ordinary Americans are preparing to retire from the work force, and you're looking at a legislative body that is simply not doing the work required to stay informed about the wildly unprecedented realities of modern everyday communication. Given Capitol Hill's intense interest in Russian internet behavior, just to name one example, this means the people who are making important demands and decisions about things like internet censorship are doing so with little or no information about the fundamentals of the matter at hand. There's no way someone who doesn't even know what a viral video is could know things like how small of an operation St Petersburg's Internet Research Agency was in relation to the rest of the content produced online, or even what a meme is. And that says so much about the idiotic consensus building that happens in both houses of the US Congress every day.
The word gerontocracy is defined as "a state, society, or group governed by old people." I get accused of ageism whenever I point out that the legislative branch of the US government most certainly fits this description, but if anything this obvious bias towards people who continue working long after an age when most Americans are forced to retire from far less consequential jobs is ageist in the other direction, by which I mean rigged against young people. And that disdain for the young was displayed openly in Feinstein's viral reaction to demands from a classroom of children that action be taken to preserve the ecosystem which they and they alone will eventually be left with.
There is no legitimate reason for an 85 year-old lawmaker to be anything but humble and deeply sympathetic toward frightened children who've been told that there may only be twelve years left to make the massive, sweeping changes necessary to prevent cataclysmic ecosystemic collapse. There is no excuse for a powerful leader who is that close to death's door exhibiting any kind of arrogance or dismissal toward the concerns of the generation that is going to inherit the fallout from her decisions long after her generation has squeezed the life out of our planet and then left it for the arms of the cold, cold ground. Yet that is exactly what she gave them.
"I’ve been doing this for 30 years," Feinstein told a group of students who came to urge her to sign on to the Democratic Party's Green New Deal. "I know what I’m doing. You come in here and you say it has to be my way or the highway. I don’t respond to that. I’ve gotten elected. I just ran. I was elected by almost a million vote plurality and I know what I’m doing. Maybe people should listen a little bit.””
In other words, Feinstein's answer to a bunch of schoolchildren who are concerned about the fact that their government has done essentially nothing to slow their planet's slide into climate collapse is that she's spent thirty years as a part of that government and participating in that refusal to take meaningful action. She is saying, Don't tell me how to deal with climate change; I've spent thirty years not doing anything about it and it's been working out fine for me.
Regardless of your opinions about the Green New Deal or the science behind climate change (and yes my libertarian readers I am exceedingly aware that you have some intensely strong opinions on that subject), there's no excuse for a grown adult to have that kind of an ego trigger to the concerns of children who are having a perfectly natural response to the information they're being given, much less a grown adult at the forefront of Capitol Hill leadership. There is no excuse for someone who is not long for this world to be curt and dismissive of the very real concerns of the generation which just arrived here. Yet that is exactly what happened.
And today Feinstein defends that condescending brush-off with a claim that she is so completely removed from the lifestyle of ordinary human beings that she doesn't understand the barest fundamentals of a new media landscape that is all my two teenaged children have ever known. Doesn't understand, and doesn't care to understand.
These are the kinds of people who are making decisions in the most powerful government in the world: a gerontocracy with nothing but cold indifference to the generations it leaves behind or the way those generations live and communicate. They will suck the vitality out of the world like the Skeksis in The Dark Crystal and leave it a used-up husk if we allow them to.
Call me ageist if you want; Feinstein is too goddamn old and too goddamn insulated from the world to be doing her job correctly. It's a combination that results in bad decisions, and Feinstein's uninterrupted streak of supporting imperialism and oligarchy proves this. But this is exactly the sort of warped, life-leeching mummy that is elevated to one of the highest leadership positions in the most dominant and influential government on the planet. This is the sort of soulless death cultist that needs its fingers pried the fuck off the steering wheel of our world before we'll ever be in any position to steer it toward health.
Thanks for reading! My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
First and foremost what she said to those kids was appalling, she should be banned from ever speaking to children again since it's obvious she hasn't the slightest idea how to talk with children and the things she said were way above their head and in no addressed their concern.
It's bothersome enough that someone like her gets re-elected but it's just totally mind boggling that someone who had a Chinese spy driving her around for two decades can continue to be allow to sit on the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. Now as you have pointed out she claims to not have any idea what so ever how technology has evolved and how easily it can be manipulated in a manner of minutes against those whom she sits on a committee to hear the intelligence on such matters concerning national security and the effects of those capabilities. One definitely has to ask just what has she been doing all this time? Sleeping on the job?
I do though take issue with once again bad mouthing a country who has done more toward reductions of pollution that any other country on earth. Yes we are the most industrial nation on the earth and yes that production has resulted in being a big contributor of pollution. Unlike many countries though we have taken steps, regulatory steps to try resolve many of the issues involved. Our nation, unlike many others have been aware for decades of the consequences involved and have worked to achieve a better place for our planet only to be met with corporations fleeing to other countries without such costly strict mandates where they are free to pollute away. Then these same countries bulked when Trump said no way are we paying other countries to reduce emissions when they don't even have to meet any mandates, to which even China, one of the worst polluters in the world had already at the point the Paris Accord was signed had met their voluntary but not mandated point of reduction.
If you want to look for blame toward the environment you have to start by research trade agreements. In those agreements it specifically states that globalization of economies is first and foremost even over concerns about the environment. (not worded exactly like that but that's the overall meaning) I'll even give you one excellent example. The dolphin issue and catching dolphins in tuna nets. The US decided to ban any import of tuna that was caught with netting capable of capturing dolphins in their nets. (there is a way to catch tuna without capturing dolphins) The UN objected because this would hinder the ability of small third world fishermen to sell their tuna on the global market and take away their right to trade on a global scale. So the US then went and said they wouldn't allow any tuna caught by such netting in US waters, again the UN objected. It was such a hot button issue that they finally agreed to allow the US to label tuna as dolphin free...but, but, but globalization and the movement of product across the globe must continue even if we lose every last dolphin on the planet. Studies have proven that the US was making gains in reductions through all their regulatory endeavors up until NAFTA was signed, the increased transportation of goods by trucks across the continent is shown as a significant cause of increased pollution spikes. Mexico doesn't have the same regulatory requirements on their vehicles that the US has, these trucks sit idling at the border then can truck across the US all the way to Canada spewing out twice the amount of pollution. It is globalization and the increased mobilization of goods thousands of miles away from their destination that is the biggest threat to the planet, since the implementation of globalization the earth has suffered at a more accelerating rate then any other time in history. So the next time one is out shopping and you are really concerned about the environment then put your money where your mouth is and buy local.
More tears Michael, we need to get the word out to your 6 followers. Why anyone would censor a proponent of torture is beyond me.
I guess so, every time you leave a reply it's censored and I have to click on it to see it.
This article is good in criticizing Feinstein's attitude to young people. The video shows a very powerful and rich person so unsure of herself she has to say she won the last election and knows better than anyone what is right. One thing, however, I disagree with is the focus on her age. I believe it is true that many people as they age or get wealthier get more and more like Feinstein, cold, arrogant, condescending, and so on. In the meantime, age is not really the issue, it is Feinstein's evil policy choices. Young people while often more open to change, can be just as rotten and cold as this ecocidal dope. I believe the emphasis should stay on her policies not her age, otherwise it diverts the arguments away from her very bad ethics, the only thing that really matters. (I use the term ethics because I believe it encompasses both a person's willingness to keep trying to see what is really true and then acting on that instead of what one's ego wishes was true. )
I always seem to get a chuckle from any psychopath who feels the need to interject with "I know what I'm doing" or "Trust me." Oh, is that why you felt it necessary to vocalize such a hypnotic statement? Maybe if you say it enough times they all click their heels and join a voting rally, haha.
stupid bitch!
Posted using Partiko Messaging
Yes, let the anger flow through you!
Screw you! I had to deal with a 30 hours Blackout in Venezuela while you there applauding Maduro and criminal Left!
Posted using Partiko Android
Actually, she is not censoring your comment, Steemit is. It says this comment is hidden due to low ratings. Go get a life bro, it's kind of sad watching you. You could accomplish so many good things if you put in half the time somewhere else. Peace.
Yes Michael, you're the "victim" here. How will your 16 followers find your abusive comments if they're hidden?!
the same happens here in Venezuela! Socialism is the death of a country...
Posted using Partiko Android
Dick Cheney Death Watch - I'm not dead yet.