There are so many things I didn't say in what I thought was already a high-density post, but please do notice the gloriousness of the term "community choice aggregation." You made a choice, but you didn't know about it, because we aggregated it for you. Chef's kiss for the perfection of this.
Smash and grab on the grandest scale. Nobody knows what hit them. This is, I believe, what the Declaration of Independence meant by this:
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.”
I would categorize ‘Community Choice Aggregators’ as abuses and usurpations…
Yes. Frederick Douglass said it best and far more succinctly than I (modest paraphrase): "Civil life is based on three boxes: The ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box." Most would agree that the ballot box has been suborned. The jury box was always the most corrupt of the three branches, and now it has been completely voided of any integrity or trust. There is only one box left. This does not necessarily mean a shooting war, but state secession and other variants clearly become the currency of the future. Better think about how we want to shape the third box because it is all that is really left.
I believe there's a fourth box. Invent and build the new systems. New sandbox. We know well enough what's wrong at this point. What are the alternative energies? The Constitution and its intent has been waylaid by long subterfuge, but what if it hadn't been? What would that look like? what can we build now in parallel so when their house of cards collapses, we have better systems up and running. Standing up and saying no to the bs is definitely important, but they want us to be in a fight forever. They want us stuck there. They psyop us all day long to push us there. Do the opposite.
Yes, I'm a Canadian and thus an outsider, but plainly it is a natural human right and a duty of us, the brotherly peoples of North America, to oppose effectively the criminals who have corrupted the governments of our countries, overthrow or reform our governments to bring them back to some stable semblance of the ideal constitutional structure that founded us as nations.
But is violent revolution either possible to be done or, if it's practicable, would it result in a renewal of the fine ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights? I have to say I think the answers are no and no.
This is the tragic historical pattern of republics, governments based on some form of public participation: All citizens are declared by the founding constitution to be equal politically. But those who have more money soon gain more influence and soften the moral and political independence of the polity. When this corruption has resulted in the powerful few buying justice and the people themselves becoming morally and politically decadent the only way to prevent the nation from dissolving is to overthrow society by force and by force to bring it back to it's first pristine constitution. But overthrowing society by force presupposes a bad man whereas reforming society presupposes a good man. So that it almost always comes about that when the bad man has overthrown society by force it seldom or never comes into his head to reform it. [I'm quoting Machiavelli, The Discourses]
In the 1770s your people's bad men overthrew society but by lucky chance there were good men to reform society and establish your republic. Our republic was established by peaceful means. But here we both are at the brink of Machiavelli's tragedy. Where are the Madisons and Hamilitons of today? Where is another Sam Adams? Where are the Lincolns? Where are the John A. MacDonalds?
This is what I mean by despair. Personally. I hope I am suffering from having too little faith in our peoples and the young will rise to the challenge despite my pessimism. If your nation breaks apart ours will not long survive it. We are both becoming the prey of slave hunters. This is what happens when anarchy takes over a weakened people.
The American Revolution was not fomented by outsiders, but by insiders. The Patriot leaders were all established community and government leaders. That is generally the case; coups come from the inside, not the outside.
Totalitarians rule more from the power of propaganda than from the power of guns. They rule by weaponizing the law. They rule by indoctrinating students, as both Hitler's Youth, and the NEA have done.
As Substack and other sites have demonstrated, it's difficult/impossible to keep a lid on the propaganda. in the age of the internet. The NEA is losing its grip. Having failed to keep at least one foot within the bounds of reality, they are easily seen as the frauds they are. Even the law is getting more attention than it can tolerate. Mask mandates and vaccine mandates stand out as examples of "The Emperor's New Clothes.' The banana republic persecution of Trump and his supporters is obvious to any but the most useful of idiots.
No ruler can lead a people who refuse to be ruled, regardless of tactics. But it can take a critical mass to make a difference, just as it did in colonial America. That time is coming. The only way it might not arrive is if the totalitarians take strong enough, violent enough control. We must not let that happen.
Keep quoting Jefferson and this paragraph of the Declaration. Every time it applies. Its a good reminder. We are absolutely subject to a 'long train of abuses and usurpations. ' There will be a tipping point. One possible fulcrum will come when citizens are categorized as terrorists (or out right arrested or sanctioned in other ways) for quoting the Declaration of Independence.
I’m reminded of the Star Trek episode "The Omega Glory" in which "Kohms" and "Yangs" have been at war for hundreds of years, but which the Yangs have just won. The Yangs’ holy relics are brought out, and the leader begins to recite the “E Pleb Nista” in an unintelligible language. Kirk finally recognizes it and finishes in English and opens the box containing the document which begins “WE THE PEOPLE…” Kirk is threatened with death because only the Holiest of Holies may see the E Pleb Nista or speak its words.
Disagree, RG. I watched the would-be totalitarians prime the pumps and start churning out their shit over 50 years ago. In the sixties. Rights! Everybody had rights! No duties, no obligations, but lotsa rights. And equality. Gotta be "equal". Cretins who had never done a days work in their useless lives demanded free everything. So the politicians of the day borrowed from their grandkids, from us, to give it to them. Bread and circuses for all! They created a nearly complete dependence on government - that haunts us today. And has effectively bankrupted the western world.
The sixties are when legislators discovered them could vote themselves insane salaries, and obscene pensions. The sixties were when the civil service began to grow exponentially. As did bureaucrat's salaries and pensions. The sixties saw the birth of the infamous "NGO's", that bottomless sink of corruption and graft, indistinguishable today from the kleptocratic oligarchs that control most of the so-called free world.
I will concede that the last couple of decades have been a perfect illustration of Papa Hemingway's famous “How did you go bankrupt?”, “gradually, then suddenly”.
No Ryan, it didn't start twenty years ago. It was much further back. And we LET them do it.
It really started immediately post-WWII with the immigration of the members of the Frankfurt School and Herbert Marcuse from Germany. In addition to their own takes on Marxism, they brought us the “Critical Theory” of Antonio Gramsci (pushed by Marcuse). Gramsci advocated the invasion & takeover of societal institutions, and the concept of oppressor and oppressed. . The morons of the modern Left couldn’t think of this stuff if they tried. They’re just parroting gobbledygook from long dead revolutionaries.
all parts of this ongoing saga. Canadian historian Matt Ehret points out we're still fighting the Revolution ... the British City of London powers never left. Many chose to stay and subvert the U.S from within. They're still here.
A small quibble, JG. You are absolutely correct in that the world-wide rush of freedom, and economic growth that followed WWII gave the would-be socialist/totalitarians space in which to attempt to act out their real world "Animal Farm".
And here's the quibble: My rant was triggered by my own observations, since I became politically aware, in high school, in the early sixties. (My Grandfather's fault! He was wounded twice, in 'the war to end all wars', and both times, "They patched me up, and threw me back in the mud of Flanders." Grandad didn't have much use for politicians.)
My fellow BC person, I agree. I've copied this whole thread because it's a great discussion. At least we can try to see the problems clearly. Which reminds me of the I Ching [from memory, approximately]:
"One must have the courage to see things as they are without any form of self-deception. Only then can there be the clarity out of which a light may dawn to show the way to the solution"
This is a toll booth model. He who controls the tollbooth, controls the future. Now ask yourself; how will the GCC narrative be used in order for those who hold power to meet those ends?
I'll say it again, It is for the elites to control all of the world's energy, thereby giving them the power to dictate whether you can bring life into this world. Seems straightforward and...potentially EVIL. I can't think of a more powerful form of control than to control "power.
In S.D. I caught that and opted out of the government approved automatic transfer to 'community power' because they couldn't tell me what the rates would be when I called. They could only tell me that the 'community power' was more GREEN. Yes, GREEN for them!
I opted out as well for the same reason. People need to really pay attention to your local politics. They’re slipping lots of nefarious things in that you won’t know about until it’s too late. Become active locally.
You were a statistical outlier of the milieu within which this wealth transfer was imposed, Sandra. I would hazard a guess that you actually (gasp!) verified assertions being made in the effort to secure your compliance.
It didn't require business acumen to smell the rot at the heart of the money grab; the "tell" was the "opt out." A good business model does not require compulsion to obtain customers.
Another reason to leave California. There's no countervailing power, as everyone is in on the graft. So it will only not stop, but will get worse. Until it all collapses, then they'll blame on Trump. Or this guy Chris Bray, who criticized them, harshly!
As a former California resident who saw this coming a decade ago, the Golden State will soon achieve their dystopian "Game of Thrones" vision. The gated community-private security-insulated "elite" and the subsidized "poor". Anyone who doesn't fit those categories will leave or perish.
But do you really want a “Mad Max” world for your children?
Our problem is that we’ve allowed money & speech to be equated. I don’t know any politicians corrupted by speech, but there are 520K+ elected Federal, State & local politicians (plus the staffs of these new CCAs…) who are damn sure corrupted by the money needed to run for office.
The political corruption really didn’t have much practical effect until 1932 when FDR campaigned on using the public’s money to bribe the voters. Like a dead satellite returning from space, it’s been headed downhill at an accelerating pace ever since.
Unsurprising. Ultimately, Politics is a game which people play with one another right up until things go Kinetic... & to achieve this, one of the steps to get there involves economic pressures exerted by the ruling elite on the common folk. America is simply cycling toward 'Showtime!'
The elites/Globalist will lose. They can't seem to figure out that all the shit they need is produced, manufactured and delivered by the people they despise.
That is our advantage. They are revealing their weak spot....and are completely unaware in their ivory towers.
But the commies and fascists have always faced that problem, and sadly, it can take a long time to cause their collapse--70 years in the case of the Soviets. Of course, our current predators don't even pretend to care about "the people," so perhaps their fall can come quickly.
I’m thinking it’s started. Look at who the atf just murdered in cold blood. These are the patriots,those that won’t be taken under any circumstances. We need to support his family.
But I’m not as concerned about the Elite. I’m more focused on the apparatchiks who enact & enforce this crap.
The French have a terrible phrase that fits here perfectly: “pour encourager les autres” (for the encouragement of others). It stems from their practice in WWI of selecting a sampling of surviving troops at random from units which had broken under fire, and executing them in front of their fellow soldiers. The objective was to inspire individual soldiers to keep an eye on their comrades to rat out disloyal talk in the trenches.
If the domestic “cartridge box” balloon goes up, we would do well to focus our efforts on the authors and apparatchiks of the policies that caused our societal decline. It wouldn’t take too many executions to cause a repudiation of these policies, which after all, is the real
objective. These people utterly lack courage – how many pro-Hamas Ivy League students have boarded a plane for Cairo to infiltrate Gaza by water and fight the IDF?
Yup, when their cell phone & internet go down and prevent groceries being delivered or guards arriving or bank EFTs being processed, they’ll be SOL (as I write this on my phone over Wi-Fi…).
The Consumer Finance Protection Board would just take over the local community aggregators and add their 10 or 20% on top of the already inflated charges.
Yes please can we have them? But you make a good point. This shit is readily reversible. We see how easily and effectively they prosecute when it’s in support of their agenda.
It's socialist theft to further the corruption of the regulatory space by covertly expropriating funds from utility customers. It's likely illegal to steal from consumers based on levying additional 'fees'. This is the 10,000th reason why people are fleeing uber-Marxist insufferably corrupt California, the ass-end of the late great US of A.
Great catch, Chris. Thanks for sharing. California today, the rest of the USSA tomorrow. Now we know what to look for. When I read this post, I kept saying to myself, “WTF? How do they get away with this?” They get away with it becasue they have no ethics or morals, and because citizens don’t care enough to read the notices - too busy with bread and circus. We sleep while our nation crumbles.
so they're trying to "nudge/trick" people to choose "green" energy by making it the default. I hate those behavioral economists--if I could go back in time I would make sure they were flunked out of school at an early age....
In the aggregate, and immediately, not much, but I do have one idea that I'll save for the end.
Personally, you can notice being transferred to a community choice aggregator, and the law allows you to opt out. You can send a written notice declining the CCA and demanding to be a customer of your IOU, and I did that.
One thing I didn't mention, trying to keep from overloading the story, is that the city council or county board of supervisors that votes to transfer you to a CCA also chooses your rate plan for you. My city, being wonderfully virtuous and deeply progressive, chose the "100% green energy" rate plan for every utility customer in the city, to control the climate of the entire planet. (I've asked them how they sort the electrons for people on different rate plans and the same powerline.) So they voted to make us all buy electricity on the most expensive rate plan.
When I opted out, I asked SCE for their absolute bedrock dirt-cheapest rate plan. My electric bill this month for a two-bedroom house in the Los Angeles suburbs is $125. I just laughed out loud.
Longer term, I think we can agitate for CCAs to be treated like municipal utilities. LA DWP transfers their surplus to the city's general fund, and I think CCAs should do the same thing. I've said this out loud to CCA directors, and they get a look of horror on their faces.
"My electric bill this month for a two-bedroom house in the Los Angeles suburbs is $125. I just laughed out loud."
I did too after reading that! Laughing immediately like that has to be one of those 'gallows humor' coping mechanisms we were fortunate enough to 'hone' in the military.
Based on your example above as I’m in alameda county and unincorporated i think I recall an “AVA” note on my bill. Thankfully I put up solar panels which really drives my electric spend down to a small number. But the whole thing in principle is just flat wrong. If you’ve got ideas or need people to get involved somehow im interested. He’ll even go door to door and inform people.
And still idiots freaking out about climate change or justice or whatever will say “well that’s a good thing”. Never mind the fact that it’s just shell companies and unaccountable dollars out. It’s the same model as our gas tax.
Try asking them how they pipe "green" electricity to some customers, and "normal" electricity to others, using the same power-lines and cables.
They started that scheme here in the 1990s, selling "green" power at +13% of the normal price, and the majority just went with it, bleating about how important it was to have "green" power.
As I'm fond of saying, "100 IQ means average intelligence, key word being 'average'".
great to know there's a window from which people can escape that particular dungeon. People need the map. And great idea to convert CCAs to muni utilities. The argument can be the state's budget is in freefall since a million people have left ... due to woke schemes like this.
Yes Willy, Chris is doing the first step which is trying to make people aware. But what comes next is that we need a Javier Milan that gets rid of all of the 'government' parasites'. Terminator couldn't or wouldn't so basically we a likely f@#&3ed
We can’t wait on a savior. This system here is unassailable. There is no Javier Milai that can break through. Either citizens push back or we just let the whole thing crater.
What is particularly useful about this article is that I’ll look in to it further and it makes a great example to explain to people when they go on about “climate this and that” that this is what that really means. Slush funds and shell companies and unaccounted taxation.
Also shellenbergers article about the net cost of renewables to taxpayers just dropped as well. These are great examples to speak to in a way that people can relate to in their monthly expenses which are already brutal in California.
I upgraded my solar system this year, had to take it down to put a new roof on the house because the asshole that owned it in 2014 ( the president of the nation home builders association) yeah you Steven,you piece of shit, didn’t want to get a permit. So I had to replace a ten year old roof thanks to insurance. I bought some used panels, added to my system, I now have 30 panels at 285 watts each and brand new microinverters, because I’m good like that. Without my system on line my bill went to 685. With it on line and summer load, I’m around 200. So that’s doable. And if they try to fuck with me, I’ll just separate. Fuckem.
I have always wondered why use grid connected solar panels. And to be clear I do not have them.
The main question is; Why would I invest $20-30K for a system that will need to be replaced in say 10-15 years, that works out to about $2K per year in cost, to "save" about $2K a year in utility bills?
It isn't "saving the planet", it's making the CCP and their investors rich.
It seems like it's just shifting the expense from one payee to another.
I get that there are gov't "subsidies" to reduce the upfront cost (socialize the cost, capitalize the profits), but those generally come with many TOU caveats and surprises down the road, and for me, a sh!t ton of guilt for redistributing the cost of my electricity onto the backs of my neighbors.
But you can still buy a lot of time. We left CA (where I grew up) in 1990 for what is now deep blue Minnesota. When we arrived, the governor, both US senators, our US congressman and state legislators were all Republicans, the land of Humphrey and Mondale notwithstanding. Sadly, all have flipped blue, yet I can ride my motorcycle without a helmet (I don’t), carry a gun on my hip in most public places (also don’t), and the electric bill for our four bedroom house averages about $125 a month. I don’t think there’s been two murders in our city in the 34 years we’ve lived here, well west of Minneapolis. The city services are outstanding, we’re surrounded by magnificent elm, oak and ash trees, and regularly have deer, wild turkeys and other assorted critters trekking through our unfenced yard. We try, but still can’t think of a place we’d rather live…… so far.
We live between Tampa and Sarasota and love both. Sarasota is strong red. Tampa just turned red over the last 8 years and went full red during c19.
Pensacola and Destin area are great though...but you'll still get the occasional cold snap. Once you get down to Tampa area it's basically beautiful all the time....although the summers are HOT.
If you want value then Lakeland is a good choice but it's about 40 minutes east of Tampa. All red there.
I upgraded my solar system this year, had to take it down to put a new roof on the house because the asshole that owned it in 2014 ( the president of the nation home builders association) yeah you Richard, you piece of shit, didn’t want to get a permit. So I had to replace a ten year old roof thanks to insurance. I bought some used panels, added to my system, I now have 30 panels at 285 watts each and brand new microinverters, because I’m good like that. Without my system on line my bill went to 685. With it on line and summer load, I’m around 200. So that’s doable. And if they try to fuck with me, I’ll just separate. Fuckem
Believe me it’s in discussion. But like many it’s not that simple. Mother in law in assisted living. Grandson close by. Also Chris is correct. This shit is a disease and it will spread. So I dunno. Stay and fight somehow is something I would put work in to. At least until the timing is better to leave. But we don’t board it up when we leave right. That doesn’t happen. Its tentacles want to spread and they are good at it because in every county in this nation now there are people making careers and building mansions on grifting its citizens.
There are so many things I didn't say in what I thought was already a high-density post, but please do notice the gloriousness of the term "community choice aggregation." You made a choice, but you didn't know about it, because we aggregated it for you. Chef's kiss for the perfection of this.
Smash and grab on the grandest scale. Nobody knows what hit them. This is, I believe, what the Declaration of Independence meant by this:
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.”
I would categorize ‘Community Choice Aggregators’ as abuses and usurpations…
"it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security"
Are we there yet?
Yes. Frederick Douglass said it best and far more succinctly than I (modest paraphrase): "Civil life is based on three boxes: The ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box." Most would agree that the ballot box has been suborned. The jury box was always the most corrupt of the three branches, and now it has been completely voided of any integrity or trust. There is only one box left. This does not necessarily mean a shooting war, but state secession and other variants clearly become the currency of the future. Better think about how we want to shape the third box because it is all that is really left.
I believe there's a fourth box. Invent and build the new systems. New sandbox. We know well enough what's wrong at this point. What are the alternative energies? The Constitution and its intent has been waylaid by long subterfuge, but what if it hadn't been? What would that look like? what can we build now in parallel so when their house of cards collapses, we have better systems up and running. Standing up and saying no to the bs is definitely important, but they want us to be in a fight forever. They want us stuck there. They psyop us all day long to push us there. Do the opposite.
Yes, I'm a Canadian and thus an outsider, but plainly it is a natural human right and a duty of us, the brotherly peoples of North America, to oppose effectively the criminals who have corrupted the governments of our countries, overthrow or reform our governments to bring them back to some stable semblance of the ideal constitutional structure that founded us as nations.
But is violent revolution either possible to be done or, if it's practicable, would it result in a renewal of the fine ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights? I have to say I think the answers are no and no.
This is the tragic historical pattern of republics, governments based on some form of public participation: All citizens are declared by the founding constitution to be equal politically. But those who have more money soon gain more influence and soften the moral and political independence of the polity. When this corruption has resulted in the powerful few buying justice and the people themselves becoming morally and politically decadent the only way to prevent the nation from dissolving is to overthrow society by force and by force to bring it back to it's first pristine constitution. But overthrowing society by force presupposes a bad man whereas reforming society presupposes a good man. So that it almost always comes about that when the bad man has overthrown society by force it seldom or never comes into his head to reform it. [I'm quoting Machiavelli, The Discourses]
In the 1770s your people's bad men overthrew society but by lucky chance there were good men to reform society and establish your republic. Our republic was established by peaceful means. But here we both are at the brink of Machiavelli's tragedy. Where are the Madisons and Hamilitons of today? Where is another Sam Adams? Where are the Lincolns? Where are the John A. MacDonalds?
This is what I mean by despair. Personally. I hope I am suffering from having too little faith in our peoples and the young will rise to the challenge despite my pessimism. If your nation breaks apart ours will not long survive it. We are both becoming the prey of slave hunters. This is what happens when anarchy takes over a weakened people.
Great comment. I'd like to add some thoughts.
The American Revolution was not fomented by outsiders, but by insiders. The Patriot leaders were all established community and government leaders. That is generally the case; coups come from the inside, not the outside.
Totalitarians rule more from the power of propaganda than from the power of guns. They rule by weaponizing the law. They rule by indoctrinating students, as both Hitler's Youth, and the NEA have done.
As Substack and other sites have demonstrated, it's difficult/impossible to keep a lid on the propaganda. in the age of the internet. The NEA is losing its grip. Having failed to keep at least one foot within the bounds of reality, they are easily seen as the frauds they are. Even the law is getting more attention than it can tolerate. Mask mandates and vaccine mandates stand out as examples of "The Emperor's New Clothes.' The banana republic persecution of Trump and his supporters is obvious to any but the most useful of idiots.
No ruler can lead a people who refuse to be ruled, regardless of tactics. But it can take a critical mass to make a difference, just as it did in colonial America. That time is coming. The only way it might not arrive is if the totalitarians take strong enough, violent enough control. We must not let that happen.
There are too many Hamiltons and not enough Jeffersons.
Keep quoting Jefferson and this paragraph of the Declaration. Every time it applies. Its a good reminder. We are absolutely subject to a 'long train of abuses and usurpations. ' There will be a tipping point. One possible fulcrum will come when citizens are categorized as terrorists (or out right arrested or sanctioned in other ways) for quoting the Declaration of Independence.
I’m reminded of the Star Trek episode "The Omega Glory" in which "Kohms" and "Yangs" have been at war for hundreds of years, but which the Yangs have just won. The Yangs’ holy relics are brought out, and the leader begins to recite the “E Pleb Nista” in an unintelligible language. Kirk finally recognizes it and finishes in English and opens the box containing the document which begins “WE THE PEOPLE…” Kirk is threatened with death because only the Holiest of Holies may see the E Pleb Nista or speak its words.
Much like today’s Democrats.
This shit will continue until the revolution.
We're already in one. We need a counter revolution.
Which is why we need to wake up the normies to let them know the Left started theirs 20 years ago.
Disagree, RG. I watched the would-be totalitarians prime the pumps and start churning out their shit over 50 years ago. In the sixties. Rights! Everybody had rights! No duties, no obligations, but lotsa rights. And equality. Gotta be "equal". Cretins who had never done a days work in their useless lives demanded free everything. So the politicians of the day borrowed from their grandkids, from us, to give it to them. Bread and circuses for all! They created a nearly complete dependence on government - that haunts us today. And has effectively bankrupted the western world.
The sixties are when legislators discovered them could vote themselves insane salaries, and obscene pensions. The sixties were when the civil service began to grow exponentially. As did bureaucrat's salaries and pensions. The sixties saw the birth of the infamous "NGO's", that bottomless sink of corruption and graft, indistinguishable today from the kleptocratic oligarchs that control most of the so-called free world.
I will concede that the last couple of decades have been a perfect illustration of Papa Hemingway's famous “How did you go bankrupt?”, “gradually, then suddenly”.
No Ryan, it didn't start twenty years ago. It was much further back. And we LET them do it.
And I disagree with YOUR timeframe. 😂
It really started immediately post-WWII with the immigration of the members of the Frankfurt School and Herbert Marcuse from Germany. In addition to their own takes on Marxism, they brought us the “Critical Theory” of Antonio Gramsci (pushed by Marcuse). Gramsci advocated the invasion & takeover of societal institutions, and the concept of oppressor and oppressed. . The morons of the modern Left couldn’t think of this stuff if they tried. They’re just parroting gobbledygook from long dead revolutionaries.
Good point. Additional, not really contradictory.
all parts of this ongoing saga. Canadian historian Matt Ehret points out we're still fighting the Revolution ... the British City of London powers never left. Many chose to stay and subvert the U.S from within. They're still here.
https://youtu.be/7JXst_kYib0?si=IkAG6hWfSaGTberS
A small quibble, JG. You are absolutely correct in that the world-wide rush of freedom, and economic growth that followed WWII gave the would-be socialist/totalitarians space in which to attempt to act out their real world "Animal Farm".
And here's the quibble: My rant was triggered by my own observations, since I became politically aware, in high school, in the early sixties. (My Grandfather's fault! He was wounded twice, in 'the war to end all wars', and both times, "They patched me up, and threw me back in the mud of Flanders." Grandad didn't have much use for politicians.)
I agree with that. But the last 20 have produced a hegemony that half the country will vote for....
Because the other half have been uniformly painted as the enemy.
My fellow BC person, I agree. I've copied this whole thread because it's a great discussion. At least we can try to see the problems clearly. Which reminds me of the I Ching [from memory, approximately]:
"One must have the courage to see things as they are without any form of self-deception. Only then can there be the clarity out of which a light may dawn to show the way to the solution"
Not sure if your almost quote precisely identifies the root cause of our societal malaise, or is a particularly horrifying symptom.
"Was everything perfect with your meal?"
Wow.
This is a toll booth model. He who controls the tollbooth, controls the future. Now ask yourself; how will the GCC narrative be used in order for those who hold power to meet those ends?
I'll say it again, It is for the elites to control all of the world's energy, thereby giving them the power to dictate whether you can bring life into this world. Seems straightforward and...potentially EVIL. I can't think of a more powerful form of control than to control "power.
But I'm a conspiRACIST.
I'd say money. Money is the "ring" to control them all.
Energy is money. It is the lifeblood of commerce.
true. that's why we can't have actually free energy.
Add in control of the food supply (another thing the "elites" are working on) and they have the essentials of life under their control.
Exactly
In S.D. I caught that and opted out of the government approved automatic transfer to 'community power' because they couldn't tell me what the rates would be when I called. They could only tell me that the 'community power' was more GREEN. Yes, GREEN for them!
Same, for the same reason.
I opted out as well for the same reason. People need to really pay attention to your local politics. They’re slipping lots of nefarious things in that you won’t know about until it’s too late. Become active locally.
You were a statistical outlier of the milieu within which this wealth transfer was imposed, Sandra. I would hazard a guess that you actually (gasp!) verified assertions being made in the effort to secure your compliance.
It didn't require business acumen to smell the rot at the heart of the money grab; the "tell" was the "opt out." A good business model does not require compulsion to obtain customers.
Another reason to leave California. There's no countervailing power, as everyone is in on the graft. So it will only not stop, but will get worse. Until it all collapses, then they'll blame on Trump. Or this guy Chris Bray, who criticized them, harshly!
Danny Huckabee
Chris Bray IS Trump! They're the same deadly evil!
No, but yes, and youre both actually Hitler
Fair
Bray Man Bad
Perfect. Lolol
Good point.
Now that you mention it, I don't recall anyone ever documenting Chris Bray and President Trump being in the same place at the same time. ;-)
If pdt ends up imprisoned and the revolution starts, you need to run.
Unfortunately that is true and perhaps true of the country as a whole.
As a former California resident who saw this coming a decade ago, the Golden State will soon achieve their dystopian "Game of Thrones" vision. The gated community-private security-insulated "elite" and the subsidized "poor". Anyone who doesn't fit those categories will leave or perish.
California has been on the road to becoming Brazil for probably 15 years now.
Sounds just like the Obama Care model to me -- and that didn't help either the consumers or the producers.
Sounds like communism
Literal fucking communism.
Oh goodness...genuine lolol
The commissar does not appreciate your comments, comrade…GULAG FOR YOU!
Or just plain ol' government.
Any government.
Yeah. True
But do you really want a “Mad Max” world for your children?
Our problem is that we’ve allowed money & speech to be equated. I don’t know any politicians corrupted by speech, but there are 520K+ elected Federal, State & local politicians (plus the staffs of these new CCAs…) who are damn sure corrupted by the money needed to run for office.
The political corruption really didn’t have much practical effect until 1932 when FDR campaigned on using the public’s money to bribe the voters. Like a dead satellite returning from space, it’s been headed downhill at an accelerating pace ever since.
Communists would be more blunt?
It sounds like Fascism to me.
Pick one. I can't make up my mind today...:)
forcing you to buy insurance ... and I don't recall anyone questioning who was getting this windfall.
Unsurprising. Ultimately, Politics is a game which people play with one another right up until things go Kinetic... & to achieve this, one of the steps to get there involves economic pressures exerted by the ruling elite on the common folk. America is simply cycling toward 'Showtime!'
The elites/Globalist will lose. They can't seem to figure out that all the shit they need is produced, manufactured and delivered by the people they despise.
That is our advantage. They are revealing their weak spot....and are completely unaware in their ivory towers.
But the commies and fascists have always faced that problem, and sadly, it can take a long time to cause their collapse--70 years in the case of the Soviets. Of course, our current predators don't even pretend to care about "the people," so perhaps their fall can come quickly.
They didn't have 2A
I dunno, I'm starting to get very black-pulled about the future. If it hasn't come to open conflict yet, I'm beginning to think it wont.
Things have to get worse. That's the worst part about the whole shit show.
But then again it is hard to separate people from their 3 meals and 4 manacles.
However, its worth remembering it doesn't take a majority of the public to turn the tide.
I’m thinking it’s started. Look at who the atf just murdered in cold blood. These are the patriots,those that won’t be taken under any circumstances. We need to support his family.
Who's that? Did I miss something in the news? The ATF murdered somebody else?
it also happened at Waco and Ruby Ridge.
Murderers
Oh, O.K. I knew about those. I just thought something more recent had happened.
But I’m not as concerned about the Elite. I’m more focused on the apparatchiks who enact & enforce this crap.
The French have a terrible phrase that fits here perfectly: “pour encourager les autres” (for the encouragement of others). It stems from their practice in WWI of selecting a sampling of surviving troops at random from units which had broken under fire, and executing them in front of their fellow soldiers. The objective was to inspire individual soldiers to keep an eye on their comrades to rat out disloyal talk in the trenches.
If the domestic “cartridge box” balloon goes up, we would do well to focus our efforts on the authors and apparatchiks of the policies that caused our societal decline. It wouldn’t take too many executions to cause a repudiation of these policies, which after all, is the real
objective. These people utterly lack courage – how many pro-Hamas Ivy League students have boarded a plane for Cairo to infiltrate Gaza by water and fight the IDF?
Yup, when their cell phone & internet go down and prevent groceries being delivered or guards arriving or bank EFTs being processed, they’ll be SOL (as I write this on my phone over Wi-Fi…).
Exactly
10% for the big guy.
They're disgusting, and almost make me look forward to the burning times.
Where is the Consumer Finance Protection Board? Maybe NY can lend Letitia James and Arthur Engoron to CA.
The Consumer Finance Protection Board would just take over the local community aggregators and add their 10 or 20% on top of the already inflated charges.
Good point
Yes please can we have them? But you make a good point. This shit is readily reversible. We see how easily and effectively they prosecute when it’s in support of their agenda.
Comment: "SHIT"
It's socialist theft to further the corruption of the regulatory space by covertly expropriating funds from utility customers. It's likely illegal to steal from consumers based on levying additional 'fees'. This is the 10,000th reason why people are fleeing uber-Marxist insufferably corrupt California, the ass-end of the late great US of A.
Your right. The reason they can get away with the fees (unlike rate base increases) is that they don't need the public utility commissions approval.
So they just bypass it.
Great catch, Chris. Thanks for sharing. California today, the rest of the USSA tomorrow. Now we know what to look for. When I read this post, I kept saying to myself, “WTF? How do they get away with this?” They get away with it becasue they have no ethics or morals, and because citizens don’t care enough to read the notices - too busy with bread and circus. We sleep while our nation crumbles.
so they're trying to "nudge/trick" people to choose "green" energy by making it the default. I hate those behavioral economists--if I could go back in time I would make sure they were flunked out of school at an early age....
Passive-aggressive authoritarians. Terrible combination
It’s all going to collapse.
So Chris as a fellow Californian what can we do about this ?
In the aggregate, and immediately, not much, but I do have one idea that I'll save for the end.
Personally, you can notice being transferred to a community choice aggregator, and the law allows you to opt out. You can send a written notice declining the CCA and demanding to be a customer of your IOU, and I did that.
One thing I didn't mention, trying to keep from overloading the story, is that the city council or county board of supervisors that votes to transfer you to a CCA also chooses your rate plan for you. My city, being wonderfully virtuous and deeply progressive, chose the "100% green energy" rate plan for every utility customer in the city, to control the climate of the entire planet. (I've asked them how they sort the electrons for people on different rate plans and the same powerline.) So they voted to make us all buy electricity on the most expensive rate plan.
When I opted out, I asked SCE for their absolute bedrock dirt-cheapest rate plan. My electric bill this month for a two-bedroom house in the Los Angeles suburbs is $125. I just laughed out loud.
Longer term, I think we can agitate for CCAs to be treated like municipal utilities. LA DWP transfers their surplus to the city's general fund, and I think CCAs should do the same thing. I've said this out loud to CCA directors, and they get a look of horror on their faces.
"My electric bill this month for a two-bedroom house in the Los Angeles suburbs is $125. I just laughed out loud."
I did too after reading that! Laughing immediately like that has to be one of those 'gallows humor' coping mechanisms we were fortunate enough to 'hone' in the military.
bsn
Based on your example above as I’m in alameda county and unincorporated i think I recall an “AVA” note on my bill. Thankfully I put up solar panels which really drives my electric spend down to a small number. But the whole thing in principle is just flat wrong. If you’ve got ideas or need people to get involved somehow im interested. He’ll even go door to door and inform people.
And still idiots freaking out about climate change or justice or whatever will say “well that’s a good thing”. Never mind the fact that it’s just shell companies and unaccountable dollars out. It’s the same model as our gas tax.
Try asking them how they pipe "green" electricity to some customers, and "normal" electricity to others, using the same power-lines and cables.
They started that scheme here in the 1990s, selling "green" power at +13% of the normal price, and the majority just went with it, bleating about how important it was to have "green" power.
As I'm fond of saying, "100 IQ means average intelligence, key word being 'average'".
And this is as simple as calling your utility and stateing this verbally:
"I want to Opt out"
I wan t the cheapest plan?
No paperwork, anything else?
great to know there's a window from which people can escape that particular dungeon. People need the map. And great idea to convert CCAs to muni utilities. The argument can be the state's budget is in freefall since a million people have left ... due to woke schemes like this.
Yes Willy, Chris is doing the first step which is trying to make people aware. But what comes next is that we need a Javier Milan that gets rid of all of the 'government' parasites'. Terminator couldn't or wouldn't so basically we a likely f@#&3ed
We can’t wait on a savior. This system here is unassailable. There is no Javier Milai that can break through. Either citizens push back or we just let the whole thing crater.
Leave.
I'm leaning that way, but activists are also trying to bring community choice aggregation to other states.
What is particularly useful about this article is that I’ll look in to it further and it makes a great example to explain to people when they go on about “climate this and that” that this is what that really means. Slush funds and shell companies and unaccounted taxation.
Also shellenbergers article about the net cost of renewables to taxpayers just dropped as well. These are great examples to speak to in a way that people can relate to in their monthly expenses which are already brutal in California.
bingo. Well put.
I upgraded my solar system this year, had to take it down to put a new roof on the house because the asshole that owned it in 2014 ( the president of the nation home builders association) yeah you Steven,you piece of shit, didn’t want to get a permit. So I had to replace a ten year old roof thanks to insurance. I bought some used panels, added to my system, I now have 30 panels at 285 watts each and brand new microinverters, because I’m good like that. Without my system on line my bill went to 685. With it on line and summer load, I’m around 200. So that’s doable. And if they try to fuck with me, I’ll just separate. Fuckem.
I have always wondered why use grid connected solar panels. And to be clear I do not have them.
The main question is; Why would I invest $20-30K for a system that will need to be replaced in say 10-15 years, that works out to about $2K per year in cost, to "save" about $2K a year in utility bills?
It isn't "saving the planet", it's making the CCP and their investors rich.
It seems like it's just shifting the expense from one payee to another.
I get that there are gov't "subsidies" to reduce the upfront cost (socialize the cost, capitalize the profits), but those generally come with many TOU caveats and surprises down the road, and for me, a sh!t ton of guilt for redistributing the cost of my electricity onto the backs of my neighbors.
Help me understand.
But you can still buy a lot of time. We left CA (where I grew up) in 1990 for what is now deep blue Minnesota. When we arrived, the governor, both US senators, our US congressman and state legislators were all Republicans, the land of Humphrey and Mondale notwithstanding. Sadly, all have flipped blue, yet I can ride my motorcycle without a helmet (I don’t), carry a gun on my hip in most public places (also don’t), and the electric bill for our four bedroom house averages about $125 a month. I don’t think there’s been two murders in our city in the 34 years we’ve lived here, well west of Minneapolis. The city services are outstanding, we’re surrounded by magnificent elm, oak and ash trees, and regularly have deer, wild turkeys and other assorted critters trekking through our unfenced yard. We try, but still can’t think of a place we’d rather live…… so far.
Florida is different in many counties. Take squatters for example,
https://youtu.be/kQF2SFz0A0I?si=qNCdQ4ud-o5mImGA
Exactly. So glad I moved from CA to Florida.
Just common sense, right Eric?
Had big talk with wife tonight about moving. It is dawning on her how bad things are getting. Was thinking of looking at pensicola. Thoughts?
Anyway you can literally smell freedom down here. Hard to explain.
C'mon down!
Anywhere on the gulf side or Central or north.
Avoid the east coast.
We live between Tampa and Sarasota and love both. Sarasota is strong red. Tampa just turned red over the last 8 years and went full red during c19.
Pensacola and Destin area are great though...but you'll still get the occasional cold snap. Once you get down to Tampa area it's basically beautiful all the time....although the summers are HOT.
If you want value then Lakeland is a good choice but it's about 40 minutes east of Tampa. All red there.
I upgraded my solar system this year, had to take it down to put a new roof on the house because the asshole that owned it in 2014 ( the president of the nation home builders association) yeah you Richard, you piece of shit, didn’t want to get a permit. So I had to replace a ten year old roof thanks to insurance. I bought some used panels, added to my system, I now have 30 panels at 285 watts each and brand new microinverters, because I’m good like that. Without my system on line my bill went to 685. With it on line and summer load, I’m around 200. So that’s doable. And if they try to fuck with me, I’ll just separate. Fuckem
Believe me it’s in discussion. But like many it’s not that simple. Mother in law in assisted living. Grandson close by. Also Chris is correct. This shit is a disease and it will spread. So I dunno. Stay and fight somehow is something I would put work in to. At least until the timing is better to leave. But we don’t board it up when we leave right. That doesn’t happen. Its tentacles want to spread and they are good at it because in every county in this nation now there are people making careers and building mansions on grifting its citizens.