The author, Grant Ennis, covers a lot of important ground in this book. Most of it is dedicated to showing the reader exactly how we have got into multiple crises and why it feels like we can’t get out of any of them.

Much of this can be traced back to Margaret Thatcher and her assertions “There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women”
This of course is not a statement of fact, but more of a statement of how Corporations & Billionaires want things to be. Once people see themselves as individuals then they are less likely to organise into groups and to fight inequality and injustice. As individuals we see problems like the obesity crisis as personal ones, that can be fixed by exercise and good habits. We see the climate crisis as something that can be fixed by reducing our individual carbon footprint. We see a plastics crisis that can be fixed by individuals recycling. As we all know, this doesn’t solve the underlying problems.

Grant points out “We have an over production problem, not over consumption problem” If we were not overproducing stuff then we would not be consuming this intensely. We have to stop the over production, if we want to solve the multiple problems that our planet is facing. This can only happen if people come together organise and call out the Corporations & Billionaires and the Politicians they have put in power. These Politicians write rules and laws that result in us subsidising over production. This over production is not the result of “Free Markets” and “Competition”, it’s the result of Tax payers subsidising it.

Corporations, Billionaires and their paid Politicians have us running round thinking we can, as individuals, pressure corporations into change through consumer campaigns. However, researchers at Florida Atlantic University published a paper in the Joural of Business Research examining 502 consumer campaigns and discovered that they have no long-term financial effects, concluding that they “do not, on average, inflict any financial loss on the target.” They don’t work!

We have been lead to believe that “just voting” is enough for a healthy democracy. This has been a convenient boon for authoritarians and anti-change corporate interests. Viewing democratic participation strictly through the lens of electoral politics narrowly frames citizenship around the ballot box while crowding out attention to association and petition. Voting and other forms of participation in electoral politics comprise only a fraction of citizens’ duties. Corporations gain when we frame the individual act of voting as the only criterion for citizen action. Voter turnout is a poor indicator of democratic health; all North Koreans vote but no one would argue that North Korea is a beacon of democracy.

In the book Grant talks about the other many tools and ways that Corporations, Billionaires and their Politicians keep us distracted and confused. Concepts like
Multistakeholderism. The idea that it’s not one entity that is to blame, but a coalition of many. Global Warming Organiser and Nobel Prize nominee Greta Thunberg observed how assigning shared blame and problem-solving responsibility undermines our ability to assign genuine blame and seek genuine solutions: “Some people say that the climate crisis is something that we have all created, but that is not true. Because if everyone is guilty then no one is to blame, and someone is to blame. “ The idea that we have all created the problem, and therefore all must solve it, is a con.

The “It’s complicated” and “we need to do all of the above to fix this,” narrative has been hugely successful in fragmenting our efforts to stop these global problems. When in truth what we need to do is go after the biggest problem first. We need to go after the biggest issue, the worst perpetrators. And in most cases that means, we get our politicians to stop us subsidising the problems and make the Corporations responsible for them solving them.

With The Nine Devious Frames Grant splits the many techniques that Corporations, Billionaires and their Politicians continue to use to prevent real productive action. Denalism, Post-denialism, Normalisation, Silverlinings… Anyone who has been holding truth to power for a while will instantly recognise them. When you read these frames you will no doubt recall the many, many times Conservative Media & Politicians have used them. These frames highlight just how much lying, misinformation, deviousness has been used to perpetuate all these problems for so long.

Grant finishes up talking about the many ways we can come together. Examples of what’s been done before and who is doing stuff right now. It’s important because not all protest and organisation is productive. Grant points out “Protests are not meaningless but we often mistakenly view them, rather than the organized movements behind them, as harbingers of change. Like focusing on the hammer and disregarding the arm that swings it, we too often fail to nurture the organized movements critical to protests’ success. We too often witness, and accept the notion of, individuals protesting without the backing of a cohesive organized movement. Long-term movements made up of numerous, close-knit, tiered organizations are capable of staging results-generating political demonstrations. Protests alone are not those movements.“

In my opinion, what all this should result in, is fast food companies being made responsible for obesity and they should have to pay for all the health impacts. As well as ending subsidies, companies that make plastic and sell plastic should be responsible for its recycling and clearing up of our oceans. Fossil Fuels Companies are most responsible for Climate Change and must pay for the impacts as well as be responsible for reducing their emissions, year on year, in line with scientists recommendation. Road builders, operators, petrol and car companies are responsible for road accidents, environmental & health impacts and should be fixing the problems.
I don’t expect any of these wishes to be implemented over night but unless we start in the right place, with the right understanding, real change will not happen. Unless we start with 5% reduction year on year. A 5% contribution year on year to impacts and externalities, these problems will continue to get worse. Nothing else is actual progress. For 50 years we have known all these problems about obesity, traffic deaths, climate change, plastic pollution and they have all gotten worse, because we don’t go after the root cause. The corporations responsible and their subsidies.

This change will never happen unless we organise and work together. We are fighting a bunch of Corporations, Billionaires and their paid Politicians with unimaginable wealth and power. More than we have seen in all history. But change can happen. Who would have thought that Gods & Kings could ever be toppled, but they were. We have to understand how we are being fooled. How to come together and how to force genuine change. And if we learn to organise an overcome these problems, who knows what we can achieve, social justice? world peace?

I highly recommend you read the book and recommend it to your fiends. You can find Grant in the #Fediverse @grantennis@mastodon.social