As for who is behind the data centers, the company [Georgia Power] said it doesn’t publish lists of customers to protect safety and security.
America is not a democracy. You know who’s making the decisions in a democracy, and the populous can recall them. It’s one of the four required mechanisms for democracy. A democracy can certainly find legitimate uses for eminent domain (i.e. in natural monopolies like trains or utilities), but I’d hope they’d pay a premium and socialize the natural monopoly rather than allowing some private organization to take advantage of people. This just sounds like Georgia Power bullying people.
*populace
never has been; it’s been an empire since white men crossed the mississippi
Sure, but it’s something we can change from the bottom up. Whether in private organizations or single small-towns, we can and should start entrenching democracy and establishing norms and standards. Start with the mechanisms required for electoral democracy: Ranked Voting, Lottery Option, Recall Mechanism, Randomized Districting. Then, combat external forces by tax political donations and tax political advertising – even if the Supreme Court says we can’t ban political donations, it’d be very hard try justify a taxation exemption with breaking the whole economy. Move on to public information campaigns that inform citizens about democratic mechanisms. Start creating incentives and advantages for democratically run organizations and cooperation with other democracies.
There is a path to change, and we have a responsibility - to ourselves, our peers, and those who come after us - to pursue a more democratic society.
agreed across the board
I just saw a video from a local news channel about a different patch of land in Georgia where Georgia Power was given an easement across a bunch of people’s land, essentially cutting these people’s property in half, then they clear cut the forest at the back of their properties and installed some giant transmission line towers also to power datacenters. One young couple interviewed had just bought their property and were planning on using the land to grow food but now they can’t and they also can’t sell because only half their property is usable despite them having paid for the entire plot.
It’s sort of the risk you take when buying a property with an easement though. Their realtor should have disclosed that.
If it wasn’t there when they bought it the utility company should have had to at least pay market value for the land.
I think in this case they are actually using eminent domain for it.
Basically they are reaching out to families, asking for permission, and then when denied that permission going through the state/town and getting permission that way.
The easement taking up half their land was the “compromise” that the utility company gave them, because they already had a notice/permission from the town/state on the entire property. They were going to have the line no matter what, it was whether the current owners wanting to have part of the property, or none of the property. its pretty sickening.
They’re begging people start using that shit for target practice.
I believe they can sue though. Might depend on the law there but I was literally just watching a video of a lawyer going over what to do if your property is seized and or used in violation of your right to enjoy your property and there’s an avenue for land owners to sue.
Could also track down the CEO, trap them in their own dwellings, and set them on fire.
That requires slightly more work though
You never get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose.
The trick is to use a proper flamethrower. Then you don’t have to worry about being close enough to smell it.
Besides, it’s the skin hair and fat that smells bad, the muscle itself smells… Not good, but like… Not gross or anything.
Source of smell: accidents from my past.
I was expecting https://share.google/nvBs6e2HKv1muF8ZK
Aren’t situations like that precisely what the second amendment is for?
If only.
Seen similar videos the people are fucked.
Land of the free
It means the people are for free, they are worth nothing.
soon be land of enslaved by AI
Came to post EXACTLY that. 🤣 👍
When reached for comment the family said, “how could this happen to us? We’re not even trans?”
Have the day you voted for, know that you won’t be the last people in rural areas that this happens to, and that when the AI bubble pops you still won’t get the land back. It’s gone forever.
There is absolutely nothing in the article to indicate the family’s political leanings or how they voted.
Remember that feelings of compassion should be contingent on the question: “Who do you vote for?”
It’s deranged to create a class of people that it’s okay to steal houses from and pollute the place they live no matter how they voted, actually
Having a lack of compassion towards someone who voted for this getting their face eaten by leopards is not the same as approval of what’s happening. Are you able to discern the difference?
It’s wrong to steal people’s houses and to pollute the place they live, no matter who they voted for.
But I’ll be damned if I shed a single tear if these people happily voted in the regime which brazenly supports stealing people’s houses and polluting where they live.
You can still empathize with people who were uninformed and subsequently exploited / harmed.
Giving into the “me vs them” team mentality is giving the oligarchs exactly what they want: divide and conquer.
They were informed. They were warned. They were told about “project 2025” and how bad it would be. They’ve been through one trump presidency. They knew what they signed up for.
My stance on trump voters:
If you voted for him the first time, you made a foolish/uninformed decision. But forgivable.
If you voted for him the second time, you’re a dumb person and I don’t trust you.
If you voted for him this third time, after the insurrection, after how horrible he has proven to be, fuck you. You’re evil. No pity from me.
Straight-up. I really don’t care who these people voted for. If they’re pissed that datacenters are stealing their family home, that’s actually a perfect opportunity to win right-wing votes that doesn’t compromise values. At the minimum, It’s an opportunity to fight back against big tech and data centers. Punishing them for who they presumably voted for is deranged on multiple levels, but unfortunately normalized among liberals.
Liberals will insist on adopting centrist and right wing policies in the hope of winning over jetski dads in the suburbs. They’ll do anything they can to win over these voters. They do it every election. It leads to a cynicism among voters that nothing can ever change for the better (and they’re fucking right). So people stay home or vote for someone else. The jetski dads predictably vote for the most fascist politician possible, because that’s what they want. They don’t want fascism lite, they want fascism done right. The centrist eats shit and blames the left (who often work tirelessly to elect their dumbass as a harm reduction measure, but whatever).
Then, when the Republican wins and starts doing Republican shit, liberals offer only condascending quips about a process that never works out for people. They insist that suffering is payment to them from the poorest and least educated people in the USA for not playing their little game correctly. And in the same fucking breath, they’ll propose more dead-end centrist garbage to the same jetski dads as last time.
Stop conceding to the right. Run on populist left policies that improve the material lives of everyone, and you’ll naturally win over voters. That includes saving rural Georgian families from data centers even if they don’t like you or vote for you. If you do enough for them you will eventually win them over. Fighting data centers is a net win for environmentalism and labor.
everything is “deranged” in this country, to be frank
I doubt who you voted for would have stopped this. AI is the new .com / housing bubble that every big company has to jump on board for.
On a federal basis, you are likely correct. On a local basis, I highly disagree. Many politicians in areas that are left-leaning are putting in place data center bans. Local elections matter.
