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Why we don’t want to mimic bee society

Since I was a youth, I have heard philosophers, “tree-huggers”, and the like, extol the virtues of a bee colony, as a model for human society. Here. for your review, is the basic social organization of the typical bee colony:

Queens

Queens are the only members of a colony able to lay fertilized eggs. An egg-laying queen is important in establishing a strong honey bee colony, and is capable of producing up to 2,000 eggs within a single day. Queens mate early in life and store up millions of sperm within their bodies. While they are capable of living up to five years, they only often only live two to three years producing eggs.

Workers

Worker honey bees are the largest population within a colony. Worker bees are entirely female, but they are unable to produce fertilized eggs. If there is no queen they do sometimes lay unfertilized eggs, which become male drones. Worker bees use their barbed stingers to defend the colony, but after attacking, the barbs attach to the victim’s skin, tearing the stinging bee’s abdomen, resulting in death.

Workers are essential members of honey bee colonies. They forage for pollen and nectar, tend to queens and drones, feed larvae, ventilate the hive, defend the nest and perform other tasks to preserve the survival of the colony. The average life span of worker bees is approximately six weeks.

Drones

Drones, or male honey bees, have only one task: to fertilize new queens. Drones mate outdoors usually in midair and die soon after mating. Some honey bee colonies will eject surviving drones during fall when food for the colony becomes limited.

Swarms

Honey bee swarming is a natural part of a developing their colony. Honey bees swarm as a result of overcrowding within a hive. To create a swarm, an old honey bee queen leaves the hive with about half of the hive’s worker bees, while a new queen remains in the old hive with the rest of the workers. In the wild, honey bees swarm most in late spring and early summer, at humid times of the day. While swarming is part of the healthy life cycle of every honey bee colony, beekeepers often attempt to reduce the incidence of swarming in domesticated bees.

A honey bee swarm may contain hundreds or thousands of worker bees and a single queen. Swarming honey bees fly temporarily, and then cluster on shrubs and tree branches. The clusters rest there for several hours to a few days, depending on weather conditions and the amount of time needed to search for a new nesting site. When a scout honey bee locates a good location for the new colony, the cluster immediately flies to the new site. https://www.orkin.com/pests/stinging-pests/bees/honey-bees/honey-bee-colony

NOTE: I have seen Google’s AI alters the name “drones” to “unmanned aerial vehicle”:

Unmanned aerial vehicleAn unmanned aerial vehicle, commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. Wikipedia

The bee colony/human society thing is an allegory.

noun

noun: allegory; plural noun: allegories

  1. a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.”Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory of the spiritual journey”

Our US society has, unfortunately, lost, or never gained, the understanding or usage of literary/philosophical tools, like allegory and metaphor. So, I see the need to review such structures when I write about them – otherwise, Amerikuns will fight and stab each others’ eyes out!

An allegory is not a metaphor – I not saying “bee colonies are similar to human colonies.” An allegory is much more a passive, i.e. left to the reader, tool: I describe the bee colony, and you, the reader, make inferences or comparisons, in your own minds and hearts. I do reserve the right to make metaphors, however, like…

Queens are clearly the rai·son d’ê·tre of the colony – not at all the “leader”; rather, the source of purpose for all the other members. If our society has a “queen”, it could be argued that the President of the United States fills this role. The President, currently, is in no way a “leader”. The President doesn’t really do anything, except serve as an icon for debate. Like the Queen, the President has only a short term – 5 years for the Queen/ 4 years for the President. The Queen is a gluttonous “feeder”. The dangerous aspect of the Queen is that she produces the eggs – the germinal members of the future society.

Workers are only female. They protect the hive, and do all the work. This could remind us of other females in nature – fiercely protective of the “nest”. At some point in US society, women/mothers worked at home – worked themselves to death, were responsible for guarding the children, “ventilating the hive”, etc.

Can’t help the comparison of drones to US males – again, not a generalization here: this cannot be applied to all American men, or American Males. But for the bees, their only purpose is to fertilize eggs. Very tempted to make that into a generalization, but leaving it up to you. Note that they do not fertilize the (female) workers – they only fertilize the Queen, which tempts me again to make the comparison that American males only serve to fertilize the Führer – serve the fertilize the ideals, but not the progenitors of the race. The other sad thing is that “Some honey bee colonies will eject surviving drones during fall when food for the colony becomes limited.” This reminds me more of our corporations nowadays – the employees (not necessarily only women, clearly): when the profit margin gets squeezed, you just eject them. What the little article I am citing does not mention is that it is the female workers who do the “ejection” – by stinging the drones when the try to enter the hive.

The last bit – that of the swam – is painfully reminiscent of most human societies I see in this era – whenever a culture “feels” cramped, they swarm out. The major difference is, in bee swarming, they seek out uninhabited locations, which they gain without conflict. Since the human population is essentially over-populous, there is nowhere to go without extant populations, or, because of the avarice which seems inherent in humans (although it is, IMO, learned from the Queen), human swarms focus on inhabited locations – urban sprawl, gentrification – these all are swarms.

For your consideration: are we comparable, allegorically, to bee society? Do we want to be?

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Cathartic

We constantly advise our friends to accept change as positive, empowering – there is a cottage industry with signs, mugs, hats, all extolling this, essentially a Buddhist philosophy, that wasn’t available to the masses, when I was a kid.

And it’s getting all the dirty corners of human existence – cancer, divorce, death, re-location – as it should. It is a wonder that we Westerners didn’t catch on earlier. Well, we did actualy. My parents went through the Great Depression – had to accept that, and the shitty life that it brought for regular humans – and even Wall Street stock brokers. My parents also went to World War II, after their parents returned from World War I. So, if they were still alive, they would chastise these new “generations lost in space,” telling them to get over it.

But that’s all just kind of folk wisdom, used as an alt propaganda (who generates the alt propoaganda? the self help cult?). There is always Reality, within easy grasp. If you have evern lived through cancer, or death, or all the real Horsement of the Personal Apocolypse, you did accept it, because it didn’t offer any choices, any placatory respite from the onslaught. The question is, how did you emerge on the other side? That’s what “self help” really means – can you survive with your soul and mind intact, or, will you be filled with hatred of those great mystical beings who seem to toss us mortals about like playthings?

I don’t believe that the Gods control our lives. That’s just a manifestation of our deep-seated belief in the higher power of Justice and Rectitude, both of which are flavors of Kompliance Kool-Aid, not borne of natural experience. We know that in nature, the domestic dog laps up a full nest of baby bunnies, leaving their tiny heads, as inedible. And that’s not Justice – or, it is Justice. But it’s not the created Justice that we hold dear, even though it is a lie.

Let’s separate the Natural and the Inevitable, from the man-made for a second. Just because Nature will ultimately provide us with a fate, doesn’t mean we have to accept the same from human-made Justice. This is where religious morals come in. “Rage, rage..” says John Milton. I don’t know if he was talking about his going blind – in which case he was another mortal fool – or, human injustice, which he definitely struggled with in his Big Book. To be clear, humans create misery and pain for one another, and that is optional, not inevitable. So there is the fight. Just don’t get confused by “inalienable rights”, or other philosophical shit. You are NOT safe, your rights are NOT protected -by God or your Government. It’s up to you, alone, or, with your community, to change what you can, and accept what you can’t (see the Serenity Prayer)

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Watergate, and the -gates that were opened

From Wikipedia:

The Watergate scandal resulted in 69 indictments and 48 convictions, involving several high-ranking officials from the Nixon administration.[12] The term “Watergate” has since become synonymous with various clandestine and illicit activities conducted by Nixon’s aides, including the bugging of political opponents’ offices, unauthorized investigations, and the misuse of government agencies for political purposes.[13] The addition of “-gate” to a term has since been used to denote public scandals,[14][15][16] particularly in politics.

I was alive then. Every night the news (because there was only really one news back then, on three different stations) was about fekkin Watergate. As a nation, the United States was partially destroyed by Watergate – the revelation that political officials engaged in unscrupulous behavior was apparently never heard of prior to this.

Really? I mean, there had been unpricipled politicians before that, right? For some reason – maybe it was the 60s – I had a mistrust of any/all politicians. I think my parents did not.

But I have to say now – what was the big deal? The Republicans spied on the Democrats before an election? Wow. That’s kind of boring, isn’t it? But isn’t this just dirty politics between political parties – which are not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, lest we forget. I mean, was the President impeached for his role in the illicit collection of data from the opposing party? That’s imeachable?

Just trying to put things in perspective.

Let’s consider “the misuse of government agencies for political purposes.”. Hilary Clinton’s campaign launched something called “Russiagate”, which led to a lenghty investigation of the President, but was later completely refurted, and Clinton was fined a whole $175,000 for perptrating an unfounded investigation – against a standing President. I know some of you are behind, but this is the truth. Pick your source. Here’s the WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-russia-collusion-hillary-clinton-2016-e341cd7d

I’d like to suggest that the Republicans and the Democrats have been at this for decades. By “this” I mean dragging the whole country, and the government, into generally childish squabbles, which are entirely politically motivated. Now the problem these days is that Trump said the words “politically motivated”, making thie phrase an instant disclaimer for ANY investigation that might actually be politically motivated.

Lookey here – in an election year, Children, everything is politically motivated. Do you need someone to tell you that? It’s always been about winning, and there have been the same two contestants, who behave in exaclty the same way – like liars, cheats, and babies. Or do you want this to be a conspiracy theory, too? Or is it just common sense.

The trouble is never with the investigation itself – the problem is with the freedoms that every American has to give up, unwittingly, which is party of the “freedoms grab” that is a fringe benefit of any of these political squabbles.

Back to Watergate (and Wikipedia):

Subsequent investigations and revelations during trials prompted the U.S. House of Representatives to grant the House Judiciary Committee expanded investigative authority.[3][4]

Think this through – the House Judiciary Committee, which belongs to you and me, is involved in an investigation of Republicans spying on Democrats, to gain an election advantage. But because at the time they could not get those famous Nixon tapes, they changed the law, so that they could get those tapes. Now, that law never went away. It’s still there, even though Nixon is long gone.

What about bimbos? We know that Trump is now accused of felonies, associated with the hush money for a porn star. Boy do we know it. Now maybe you didn’t know that, even though the actual trial featured a lot of sex talk, bribing a bimbo is not a felony. Instead, it was a legal technicality – do you like those as much as I do? – about the reporting of a hush money payment as a campaign expense, during the election campaign. It was couched in an improper reporting case. Because bimbos in the White House is not so new – let’s think about my hero JFK, and your hero, William Jefferson Cllinton, for two.

During Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential election campaign, Flowers came forward to say that she had had a 12-year extramarital relationship with Clinton, and that he had assisted her in securing a job as an administrative assistant with the Arkansas Appeal Tribunal. – Wiki

Again, is this impeachable? Well, he was a governor then, and he traded her a job for a job. Anyway, he got off. – because he didn’t pay her off his campaign books – of something. It was definitely politically motivated – no concidence that the investigation, and her coming out, happened during the election cycle.

I’m just stirring the pot here – the one that called the kettle black. I don’t care about inter-Party chacanery – until it starts to strip away my rights, allows me to be surveilled, etc. But it does piss me off to have to listen to people say that all this is not politically motivated. Just a personal gripe, I won’t go to the Supreme Court (or the Playground Teacher) to get my point proven.

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Retirement, and other Western Myths

My dad retired when he was 62 – took early retirement, because he could. This was in the late 70’s, when my dad could go to the local car dealer, and buy, not one, but two new Toyotas – a Corolla and a Celica – with money he had saved, working as an elementary school Principal, in a small town in Iowa. That’s right – no auto financing was needed, because inflation – considered “rampant” at the time – was nascient, compared with its blood-sucking dominance today. His retirement package was 67% of his final salary, for 10 years following.

By the mid 2000’s (I’m guessing), the reality of a company-sponsored, extended retirement, was gone. Now, as with most myths, this one has taken a long time to be erradicated from the public conscience, mostly because the myth is ardently perpetrated by the headless “financial system”, with its attendant media arm. To what end, we can only guess, but it would make sense that it is tied directly to the profits invesment firms make on the corporate IRAs, which essnentially replaced the pension that my father had (and even I had, until the mid 2000’s). As you may know – although, again, many “believers” never cued into this – you put money into the company IRA, and it can be matched by the company. But where does it go? Into stocks – all of it. It’s not a savings account – it’s an investor/trading account. Your retirement dollars get whisked away into stocks, which perform well, or not. As a lot of people found out (surprise!), much of their IRA just disappeared in 2008! I know people who “called their company” to find out what the hell happened. Well, what happened was, your retirement account blew away with the winds of a market economy (yet another myth buster – that “supply side economics” they taught you in school, was gone from reality, long before they took it out of your textbook – along with the heroism of Christopher Columbus).

I don’t pretend to be an economist – as a rule, they have a pretty poor track record, anyway. But I do know that inflation hit 13% in 1980. To me, this is when the middle class (myth 3 in this post), left, and was replaced by the Debtor Class, or TCFKAM (making a joke at Prince’s expense). By this point, or soon after, every house had a mortgage and every car had consumer financing. Of course, people still thought that as middle class citizens, they should still buy several cars and sevreral houses. They just lost sight of the fact that all these things are now 10 times as expensive as they were 10 years before.

When you talk to a financial advisor today, their first quesiton is always “how much do you want per month, when you retire?” What a funny question – of course, I want like $10 million a month! But they ask this only to lead you into a discussion of how that corporate IRA is going to be the answer. But the solution they offer is for you to contribute the max amount to the IRA fund – dovetails nicely with the Wall Street profit motive I mentioned above.

In the end, you don’t have enough money to be building the kind of retirement fund you would need, AND deal with the wild inflation. So, you end the conversation with some kind of compensation – you’ll do your best to contribute more, and wait until you are 70 to retire.

But the truth is that, when you are 70, you will retire with about 1/3 of your monthly income, assuming that’s even relevant in 10 years – and that includes Social Security, assuming that’s even relevant in 10 years.

Just open your eyes. Don’t listen to NPR, or your corporate financial advisor. Look around. How many elderly people do you see working at Walmart, WinDixie, etc. (just not Whole Foods – far too elitist to hire smelly old people). I have small jobs done by people in their 70s, I get groceries delivered by people in their 70s – the middle class is gone, and so is the working class.

There’s always the conflict with the “official narrative” that keeps using the inflation rate, which is heavily adjusted, rather than the cost of living, which is hidden, to judge the economy. The official narrative wants you to keep working, until you’re sick, and then when you’re sick, you can support the medical complex until you’re dead.

So, your retirement is going to be spent in the grocery business, greeting and helping people, along with millions of new immigrants to the US (which I welcome whole-heartedly). I just want to show the connecting thread in the economy: the “class system” that is preached, is really now obsolete. There is the Market Class, at the top (until the Wall Street “casino” busts), and the Service Class, which are minimum wage (indentured slave wage, by any other name), and the Debtor Class, which lives in blissful debt, counting themselves among the well-to-do, when in fact, they are a hair away from the Service Class, where they will end up eventually.

It’s all good. You didn’t want to retire anyway! You might want to consider a career change early though, since your corporate job is going to be taken away from you when you are too old and cost too much. If you cram your Library Science MA into the last two years of your job, you will end up with a decent salary, augmented by your meager retirement and Social Security, and live within your means (finally!), at peace, and in touch with real people.

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The Tedious Process of Seeing Your Life Flash Before Your Eyes

Yeah, so that’s the cliche taggged to the last moments of life – you see a B Grade movie of your entire existence, sped up – of course! who could stand watching that shit in real time. And, you’re presumably dying relatively soon, so no time for commercials.

Well, I haven’t died yet – or so I think. Because after a certain age – can’t quite remember – but around the 50s, I started to have vivid dreams of exactly that nature: re-runs of my syndicated life moments, as an ongoing docu-drama series, or, set of series. I had a lot of great shows in my life. But they were definitely all “shows”. When I watch them again, I guess, like Clint Easdtwood, I hardly connect to that dumbshit playing the role of ME. I’m hoping that years and years of practicing yogic detachment (Buddhism inherited from yoga, sorry…), maybe that let me do this – this detached viewer.

Nah. Because I’m not detached – I’m trapped in the shit! It’s like Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony”, where my sins are engraved into my skin, by some lurid gravure machine, until sufficient repetitions have caused sufficient depth, so that pieces of me start to fall off. I get stuck on that segment where people have rewound it so many times that it’s worn. But they are not sections that I would mark – in fact, the opposite: they are the small,but excruciating segments, which held the greatest shame. That moment when you remember your wife and family, but you’re on some sordid boondoggle with a bunch of youngsters, raging on chemicals, racing along some road – and, for me at least, this lasting dichometric pattern of good Kam v. bad Kam, has to skip, like a record, digging the groove deeper and deeper, until I can smell the burning vinyl. Fuck.

Let’s take an example that only I and maybe 50 people in the world will understand. I used to teach at a Catholic Seminary – ESL. I had a great love of Catholicism, and a great love of helping people from other countries, make it in the Land of Coppurtunity. So, my base philosophy was solid. On the other hand, I greatly resisted transforming these vital young men into conformists. Beside the point. I was assigned a beautiful second-floor office, with an office-mate, windows, sunlight…but I soon found a room in the basement, that had been a radio studio in some distant past! After some intensive, poinsonous mold cleaning, I moved in, and never left for 10 years. So, the dream is just me trying to find my way to the basement. Of course I’m late, because I was raised to hold the fear of lateness – I don’t believe I was ever really late, but always held the tension of being late. So, that vignette just replays endlessly: the entrance to the basement has changed over the years, as though the Seminary had come into a lot of money, and had remodeled everything, such that I can’t find the old door, or, if I do, it leads somewhere else. And then there are all the well-meaning “adults” – did I mention I have a permanent man-child thing? They are always trying to help, and, to be fair, they DID always try to help me get along, find my way – they loaned me money, tolerated my hippie shit.

In dreamland, the Seminary had evolved – a lot. Much more in control, much better financed, and well-rounded in its mission. But me – I was still stuck, wearing the wrong clothes, trying to burrow into nonentity, being on the verge of missing my first class.

While I wish this shit would end – just to sleep – I fear the way that will happen is my actual death. So I will shut up and bear it for now. Just wondering what the key is, to transfer into a new dream state, one of the present, of my successes. Probably fucking therapy. Or Ayahuasca.

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Judaism and Zionism: One – the definition

Found this article to be right on the mark. I will translate the relevant part.

Zionism and Judaism are simply two different things, and therefore anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are also different. Zionism is a nationalist political ideology with less than two hundred years of existence, while Judaism is a religion, a culture for some, a nation, a community for others, which dates back several centuries of existence before the Christian era. The link between one and the other, however, is undeniable. Zionism is an ideological-political current that emerged and was intended as a solution and safeguard for the persecuted Jewish people, who managed to establish a self-proclaimed Jewish State in Palestine in 1948. Despite this, Zionism continues to be a current, a partiality, as is theocratic Islamic fundamentalism against Islam or a Christian sect for Christianity. It is true that Zionism is hegemonic among Jews, and explaining why this happens exceeds the objectives of this text.

Ariel Feldman – https://jacobinlat-com.translate.goog/2023/10/16/gaza-sobre-sionismo-judaismo-racismo-y-barbarie2/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en

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Keystone Pipeline is NOT a case of Trump vs. Obama

The Wall Street Journal headline for today is:

President Donald Trump took steps Tuesday to revive two controversial oil pipeline projects that had been rejected by the Obama administration, moves that likely represent the leading edge of a sweeping overhaul of his predecessor’s environmental agenda. http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-set-to-take-action-on-keystone-dakota-pipelines-1485270333

This is another case of the media taking the opportunity, on a dull, unwitting readership, to create a false dilemma. In the spirit of Noam, I have complied by “clippings”, to let the story tell itself.  Here are the main things I discovered:

  1. The Keystone Pipeline already exists – it begins in Steele City, Nebraska.  This bill concerns the “extension” to the pipeline.
  2. The “rejection” of the Keystone Pipeline was in no way part of Obama’s environmental agenda.
  3. Obama approved a portion of the Keystone Pipeline.
  4. The Obama Administration approved other pipelines, namely the Trans-Pecos and Comanche Trail pipelines.

The point is accuracy in reporting. Obama was categorically NOT opposed to the Keystone Pipeline, in principal.  In fact, he supported it. He “rejected” the Keystone Extension project.  But even this rejection must be qualified.  Read on.

In March 2012, Obama endorsed the building of the southern segment (Gulf Coast Extension or Phase III) that begins in Cushing, Oklahoma. The President said in Cushing, Oklahoma, on March 22, “Today, I’m directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done.” (“Remarks of the President” (Press release). The White House. 2012-03-22. Retrieved 2013-03-04.)

This is from the New York Times, 2012

RIPLEY, Okla. — President Obama stood in a red-dirt field before acres of stacked pipeline pieces on Thursday to illustrate his support for expedited construction of the southern leg of the Keystone XLoil pipeline. But his public declaration for the project pleased neither the industry and its Republican allies nor environmentalists.

That was clear hours later when several people interrupted his next speech, shouting “Stop the pipeline!” at Ohio State University, where Mr. Obama emphasized clean-fuel alternatives in his “all of the above” energy agenda. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/us/politics/in-oklahoma-obama-declares-pipeline-support.html)

I remember being surprised by this; but I also recall Obama’s logic, in an interview I heard.  He said that we are already transporting the oil – so the question is not whether we should or should not transport the oil. The problem is that we use the oil,regardless. His point was that alternatives, including truck or rail,would have a greater impact on the environment. This made sense to me. However, it also reveals the true issue, which, as usual, points to the true, hidden criminal: the American People: don’t demand the oil, and you won’t have this controversy.

Here is the history of the Obama Administration’s “rejection” (taken from Wikipedia: http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-set-to-take-action-on-keystone-dakota-pipelines-1485270333)

  1. On November 30, 2011, a group of Republican senators introduced legislation aimed at forcing the Obama administration to make a decision within 60 days.[51] In December 2011, Congress passed a bill giving the Obama Administration a 60-day deadline to make a decision on the application to build the Keystone XL Pipeline.[47][52] In January 2012, Obama rejected the application stating that the deadline for the decision had “prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact”.
  2. In March 2012, Obama endorsed the building of the southern segment (Gulf Coast Extension or Phase III) that begins in Cushing, Oklahoma. The President said in Cushing, Oklahoma, on March 22, “Today, I’m directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done.”[55]
  3. In its supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) released in March 2013, the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs described changes to the original proposals including the shortening of the pipeline to 875 miles (1,408 km); its avoidance of “crossing the NDEQ-identified Sandhills Region” and “reduction of the length of pipeline crossing the Northern High Plains Aquifer system, which includes the Ogallala formation”; and stated “there would be no significant impacts to most resources along the proposed Project route.”[2]   Note: this is the Obama State Department (i.e, a part of the Obama Administration).
  4. On January 22, 2014 the Gulf Coast Extension (phase III) – approved by President Obama – was opened.[12]
  5. On April 18, 2014, the Obama administration announced that the review of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline has been extended indefinitely, pending the result of a legal challenge to a Nebraska pipeline siting law that could change the route.
  6. A bill approving the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline was passed by the Senate (62–36) on January 29, 2015,[64] and by the House (270–152) on February 11, 2015.[65] President Obama vetoed the bill on February 24, 2015, arguing that the decision of approval should rest with the Executive Branch.[66]
  7. On 6 November 2015, the project of Keystone XL was rejected by the Obama administration after more than six years of review and initial approval by the Obama State Department.

It should be clear that the Obama administration was never against the Keystone Pipeline; nor did they have some environmental agenda, which was always used to defy the extension proposal.  It’s just not evident from any statement or actions on the port of Obama.  Note his reasons for veto above:

  • the deadline for the initial bill would preclude adequate research (the Obama State Department later did the research, and gave the green light).
  • the decision should rest with the Executive Branch (not the US Congress, duly elected by the People). Heard that before.

It was all summed up in Obama’s final words on the issue:

In his speech announcing the rejection of the pipeline on November 6, 2015, President Obama lamented the symbolic importance Keystone XL had taken on, stating, “for years, the Keystone pipeline has occupied what I, frankly, consider an overinflated role in our political discourse. It became a symbol too often used as a campaign cudgel by both parties rather than a serious policy matter. And all of this obscured the fact that this pipeline would neither be a silver bullet for the economy, as was promised by some, nor the express lane to climate disaster proclaimed by others.”[76]