im the bird gay @callieroxy@shrike.club

As we watch events in Texas unfold, bear in mind that Texas "seceded" from the US national electrical grid in order to avoid federal regulation. They privatized their grid into the hands of a few wealthy people. As a result there are only two limited interconnects making it impossible for surrounding states to share power to keep Texas afloat in terms of electric power.

All this suffering in Texas should not be happening. The grid in Texas is intact, they just don't have generation capacity. If Texas had remained part of the US grid, power from as far away as California, Washington, West Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, could be routed to Texas. Looking at the real-time data here, the US grid is running at more than 200 GW below capacity. There's enough power to hold up two states of Texas even if Texas had no generation at all. But we can't send them power.

Keep this in mind when rich people trick the public and politicians about privatization, and spout garbage like "going it alone, in keeping with the pioneering spirit of the USA". No. Organized cooperation is power. Going it alone is weakness.

Don't believe in cooperation? Study how the Roman army was organized. It was all about very tightly organized cooperation, starting with an individual soldier and those to his immediate left and right. This is how 8,000 Romans could take on 80,000 and methodically slaughter the 80,000 with zero losses.

thinking about electrike,,,