That reminds me of the oft filmed scenes in Hollywood and Bollywood movies, of women who succumb to their seductors while saying:”No, no, no, no, never…” So I understand the need to affect revulsion while succumbing to the seduction of the coldest logic.

Since you like so much my “bizarre and irrelevant” Nazi scenes, shematics and comparisons, here is one, just for you. In it an analogy is made.
Eichmann famously treated Jews very correctly when he knew them personally. He paid a Jewish girl to give him Yiddish lessons (so he could better know his preys), he even went to Auschwitz when a jewish friend of his was put there, and asked his superior, Himmler, to make an exception. These were small things, they made Eichmann feel he was human and tried his best, according to Kant’s moral system.

Paradoxically those small things gave horror good conscience. Meanwhile Eichmann was organizing the killing of millions. Still, when he proposed the exchange of a million Jews against trucks, that was refused by Ben Gurion and the Brits. the latter obviously rejected the bigger picture. Ben Gurion cynically aggravated his case by saying that he preferred dead Jews to Jews going to Britain.

So MORE IS DIFFERENT. Dirty Rice, now defanged, is the very symbol of plutocrats filling their pockets while committing ecocide and genocide.

Meanwhile while asking me to live modestly, you personally live, like an ancient English Lord, on a vast domain, complete with a torn off bridge. You are not even in the .1% who own a personal stream and bridge! Power to you, I envy you. I wish I could live like an ancient lord too, but I can’t because I so not have the means. But understand that living small, and ecologically minute, means being in a high rise, in some city, with an apartment so exposed to the sun in winter that the electric bill stays small. Just as I do.

So believe me, my footprint is very small. I do not even gave myself the luxury of having one pet bird (of course I would not have a dog, as it would eat more meat than billions of human beings on this planet).

And, once again, what counts is the big picture. The USA has made a big big big choice: FRACKING TO THE MAX. it’s a huge deliberate strategy. Fracking is the ultimate military choice. Even the Swiss have understood that!

So you can come back to me, and tell me that your numerous dogs are now eating locally grown tofu, I know it would be “bizarre and irrelevant” What’s neither bizarre, nor irrelevant, is that the USA has made the choice that is the most extractive and exploitative. I am not even criticizing, just observing…

More than small irrelevant gestures to give oneself good conscience, what really matters is understanding what is going on. physically, and psychologically, and strategically.
PA

The core of what I was offering is that all the anger in the world at all the governments in the world is pointless. The only way out of the terrible economic and ecological mess that we have got ourselves into is for each one of us to make changes to our lives NOW.

Such as:

Committing to reduce one’s energy usage by 10% each year,
Actively seeking ways to get from ‘A’ to ‘B’ in more efficient means – car sharing, buses, walking, bicycles and more,
Making a commitment never to use aircraft for transport ever again,
Installing solar heating and solar PV,
Turning the home thermostat down a touch and putting more blankets on the bed (or in our case having more dogs sleep on the bed!)
Better home insulation
Buy local
Grow local

and on and on and on.

It’s never going to be someone else’s issue, Sec Rice or not. All the plutocrats and politicians can drown in their own rising tides for all I care. It’s always going to be ‘What can I do?’

I love the passion of your writing but (and I’m sorry there’s a but) what would inspire me is what you are doing to reduce your footprint upon this planet.

Here endeth my rant!

I do not “frequently compare people to Hitler”. This is an insult. I am not a primitive calling everybody a Nazi.I compare systems of thought and mood, and try to explain how they came to be. The most unsavory they are, the more important.

Obsessing about NOT mentioning the darkest systems of thought and moods, and the worst facts attached to them, is antinomic to the Christian and Western tradition, and reflects a pathology of avoidance of discomfort at the cost of intellectual rectitude. As Saint Augustine said: “Hope has two beautiful children: anger against the world’s injustice and the courage to get rid of it.”

Those who refuse to learn from injustice, deny anger, and thus, hope. Those who refuse to get rid of infamy, lack the courage, and thus also deny hope. Start with eyes, and the mind may follow.
PA