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Twenty-first century capitalist society appears constitutionally incapable of solving any problem. All it can do is to expunge symptoms. Perhaps capitalism has never been capable of correcting its own manners; but there have been times when the balance of forces compelled it to accept the shutdown of at least some root causes — decolonisation in the 1970s being one of the last cases. Because it now succeeds to excess, it keeps producing symptoms of crisis and stays unqualified for anything other than their most superficial treatment. In its excremental stage, capitalism is so bloated from victory, so unable to exercise any retention or restraint that it swims from one pool of its own shit into another and has to design new hazmat suits to keep going. Geoengineering would just be the latest, arguably the most all-embracing model.

— The Long Heat by Wim Carton, Andreas Malm (Page 278 - 279)

Negative emissions technologies had actual impact on atmospheric concentrations of CO2, not by dint of their existence but by virtue of their not existing other than as a chimera. ...all those technologies peddled as instruments for dealing with the climate crisis when it is too late instead contributed to making it too late. What was meant to reverse climate change conduced to it becoming irreversible.

— The Long Heat by Wim Carton, Andreas Malm (Page 207 - 208)

"No idea," Alf clutching a cold cigar tightly between his teeth, "what to make of this confounded Blavatskian narkomat of his. He may have gone mad, he may in fact have crossed a line forbidden or invisible to the likes of us, thrown by some occult switchwork over onto an alternate branch line of history, where Stalin and his crew are no longer possibilities . . ."

— Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon (Page 236)

Today, Zionists have been cornered into siding with the most reactionary and protofascistic forces in American and European politics. It was a delusion that Zionists could be liberal too. The nightmares of Zionism are bold, brilliant Jewish voices heard loud and clear around the globe, denouncing Zionism as a misbegotten, genocidal delusion.

— After Savagery by Hamid Dabashi (Page 57)

The sad thing about surviving several historical catastrophes is that you grow old like everybody else, and after spending your strength resisting fascism you still need one or two meals a day.

— Last Times by Ralph Manheim, Victor Serge, Richard Greeman (Page 49)

labor as a live, fermenting agent

— Capital by Wendy Brown, William Clare Roberts, Karl Marx, and 2 others (Page 161)

After structures are damaged or destroyed by wildfire, the victims are sometimes offered state and federal disaster relief. Assistance in the form of low-interest loans, temporary relocation expenses, and other services often supports and encourages people to more easily rebuild in the same location. These actions arise from the natural desire we all feel to help people who have had their lives disrupted by sudden and unexpected catastrophe, but it must be kept in mind that the result may be to perpetuate and subsidize settlement patterns that are inherently dangerous. It is common to require that replacement buildings be constructed with materials and in ways that are more fire safe than the originals. Over the long run, society as a whole might be better off to go a step further and entirely eliminate incentives for living in places where future fire disasters are likely. As city, county, state, and federal budgets become more and more strained and stretched, it is imprudent to allow private landholders to bill the ultimate cost of their private decision to live in a hazardous area to the rest of us. That decision is not private, and it is expensive.

— Introduction to California Chaparral by Ronald D. Quinn, Sterling C. Keeley (California natural history guides ;) (Page 285 - 286)

Proclaiming someone or something's defeat contributes to it. It's a form of sabotage.[...] I remember that we were never going to stop the Keystone XL pipeline—or so said the armchair experts, who, by discouraging participation, essentially campaigned for that outcome, because such speech is itself a form of participation. After more than a decade of organizing and activism, the death blow was delivered to KXL in 2021, but so many campaigns and the climate movement as a whole would be a lot easier without this disparagement, which serves as a brake when we need accelerators.

— No Straight Road Takes You There by Rebecca Solnit (Page 70)

Drug use was never a problem that powerful institutions addressed urgently because they cared about the health and well-being of all people. It was not a problem they viewed as so threatening that they calculated the extraordinary human and financial costs and found mass criminalization worth it. Instead, the expansion of the machinery of state power and profit amid social and racial inequalities was, in many overlapping ways, the impetus to search for policies like what became the war on drugs. The war on drugs was a solution in search of a problem.

— Copaganda by Alec Karakatsanis (Page 274)