Purple, Gold, or Green: Capitalism Screws People-Screw The Electric Car!

What irks be about smug Green Capitalists rambling about the importance of electric cars is that they ignore that it requires all sorts of resources to manufacture and run them—in other words: new ecosystems devastated, new communities pillaged, and future wars created.

Yesterday’s New York Times reported about the automobile industry’s desire to mine lithium in Bolivia for lithium-ion batteries that could run electric cars. Evo Morales, the badass Bolivian president, indigenous activist, and radical has already nationalized the oil and natural gas industry. If he nationalized Lithium, First World Gree(dy)n Capitalists may turn his decision into a hot-button issue. I can only imagine the US PR-machine, the corporate media, further demonizing the hell out of Morales, like they have Chavez in Venezuela.

I can hear my fellow-protesters 10, 20, or 30 years down the line: “No Blood for Lithium,” as the U.S. races headstrong into war with Bolivia.

Here’s the problem as I see it. People use too much stuff. They need resources to build and fuel their stuff. When resources are scarce, they go to war and kill for stuff. This is the grim future of the human species—the future of all life on the planet. Eventually, our greed, our need to conquer will destroy us. Whether its green, fuchsia, purple, or gold, Capitalism is based in exploitation and it will destroy both people and the planet.