Al Gore has attracted lightning from Republicans of all stripes for his recent comments before an Arab audience in Saudi Arabia. Gore was one of many featured speakers from around the world at the recent Jeddah Economic Forum.
Gore told the largely Saudi audience, many of them educated at US universities, that Arabs in the United States had been "indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable."
"The thoughtless way in which visas are now handled, that is a mistake," Gore said during the Jeddah Economic Forum. "The worst thing we can possibly do is to cut off the channels of friendship and mutual understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States."
"Unfortunately there have been terrible abuses and it's wrong," Gore said. "I do want you to know that it does not represent the desires or wishes or feelings of the majority of the citizens of my country."
All these things said by Gore are true. That can't be denied.
And as for Gore's statement that those actions don't represent the majority of Americans, I hope it's true that the majority of people in this nation do not feel hatred for and suspicion of all Arabs and are in support of these abuses. Even those who are attacking Gore admit that, yes, we did these things, we rounded up perhaps as many as a thousand but it was only a small number who were detained indefinitely (a month or more) without charges - just a couple dozen - and it was understandable after the 9/11 terrorist attack.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported "Normally, immigrants with minor visa violations aren't arrested. But in the wake of Sept. 11, the Justice Department tried to deny the men bond and adopted a 'hold until cleared' policy." Charges of some physical abuse was acknowledged by the inspector general's office but said, as for alleged harassment and abuse of detainees, "we did not find evidence of a pattern of physical abuse of September 11 detainees" at one of two facilities investigated. At one other, 12 of 19 detainees claimed they were subjected to "some form of physical abuse." There was at least one brutish guard who acted unjustly and that some detainees experienced uncomfortable conditions while in confinement. But none of the allegations of either physical or verbal abuse of detainees was sufficient to press criminal charges the inspector general's office claimed. Of course that was their judgment and not the detainees.
The statements made by Al Gore are considered over the top by many of the right wing who are avowed enemies of Gore or anyone who criticizes Bush and his administration calling those criticisms "anti-American" and "treasonous". In fact, columnist Cal Thomas actually charged Gore with treason posting this definition of treason in his column: Violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one's country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.
He even went as far to compare Gore to Nazi's saying, "For Gore to make his anti-American remarks in Saudi Arabia is at least as bad as what Nazi sympathizers said in this country and abroad leading up to and during World War II."
Thomas is hatemongering, divisive and disgusting! But then, he has books to sell and readers who expect him to be irrational and rabid.
C'mon, Cal, even you are bright enough to see that Al Gore's remarks fall extremely short of treason. You are aren't you?
First of all, according to this definition, Cal Thomas seems to consider Saudi Arabia, an enemy. I didn't know Saudi Arabia was a declared an enemy of the US - are we at war with them? Are they part of the expanding axis of evil? Is this more classified information leaked from Chaney's office?
I'm confused. Is this the same Saudi Arabia of which the Bush family holds the royal family in such high esteem? The same country whose Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador in Washington, and his wife are very close to the entire Bush family, Prince Bandar coming and going into the Oval Office as he wishes, a guest of Bush Senior at Kennebunkport, the Prince's wife inviting a lonely Bush daughter over for Thanksgiving dinner, and so on? And, if so, why would Thomas and the others pile on Gore for "pandering" to the Saudi's when the Bush family have whored themselves to the Saudi royal family for many years and have close business ties with them that helps feed both family's huge fortunes? Is the president's father, ex-president George H Walker Bush, guilty of treason because of business dealings with Saudi Arabia? If Saudi Arabia is the enemy wouldn't weapons and oil deals with the Saudis constitute "aiding the enemy"?
Is the event where Gore spoke recently the same as the annual Saudi event held in 2002 where Neil Bush, Dubya's brother spoke? The same "enemy" that Neil Bush pandered to for money to support a private business venture when he spoke before an audience that included the Saudi Bin Ladin Construction Group and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal?
On the other hand, Al Gore was scheduled to speak at this same event where Neil Bush spoke but pulled out because he thought it was improper to speak to them considering the fact that most of the terrorists that committed the 9/11 terrorist act were Saudi's and an investigation into Saudi Arabia's involvement was in progress.
But that didn't stop Neil Bush. Is he and the entire Bush family, including Cheney and all the other war profiteers who are in bed with the Saudi royal family, more guilty of treason by Thomas's standard of aiding the enemy? Why would these crimes be any less than the few words of apology that Al Gore spoke in an attempt to relieve tensions between the mid-east and the US. ?
What a conundrum for those who oppose the policies of the current administration. If you criticize the president "during a time of war" you are guilty of treason.
Even though terrorists have existed since the beginning of civilization, by declaring a continuing war with a group of multinational "terrorists" of unspecified identity and of various or unknown countries of origin, we are at war in perpetuity. Therefore, the office of the president has unlimited powers and can breach the law and our constitution as he or she sees fit in the interests of "national security". Congress now has no say in the matter. How does that differ from a police state, a dictatorship?
George W Bush says he will do whatever he deems necessary to protect our nation, that this is the job of the president. Is it possible this could mean putting future national elections on hold since undoubtedly, the office of the president will naturally come under severe criticism from the opposition parties? Since the president has unlimited powers in time of war and he has declared we are at war for the foreseeable future, criticism of the president which reaches fever pitch during an election would distract the president and embolden the enemy - therefore no more elections until we have conquered all terrorists. Make sense to you?
Let me once again thank Ralph Nader for what he did for our country in 2000. Or I should say - to our country.
Gary
Al Gore's Diminished Capacity by Cal Thomas
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/calthomas/2006/02/16/186908.html
Bush Advisers Cashed in on Saudi Gravy Train
by Jonathan Wells, Jack Meyers and Maggie Mulvihill
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1211-05.htm
For much, much more on Bush and the Saudi royal family simply Google Bush and Saudi royal family.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Hackett Feels Democratic Hatchet
The Democratic leadership has decided that Paul Hackett, Democratic candidate for the Ohio senate seat now held by Republican Mike DeWine should step aside in favor of their handpicked candidate, Ohio Congressman Sherrod Brown. There are Democrats who agree that Congressman Brown is a better candidate than Iraq veteran Paul Hackett because Brown has the experience, has better financing, the full support of party leadership (he's an insider) and has a better shot at winning.
David Sirota, a noted Democratic political consultant, has been championing Brown for some time and also thinks Hackett should step aside. Although I like Sirota a lot - I disagree with him. The Democratic leadership thinks Hackett should be a good boy and do as they say. If he doesn't he will be crushed like they crushed Dean. In effect, they would gang up on him and run against him rather than run against the Republican opponent - and that would be distracting, damaging to Brown and cost campaign dollars that could be more effectively spent fighting DeWine. So, in the interest of party unity they would like Hackett to bow out.
I question their wisdom and their tactics. Who are they to say what choice the voters are given? The idea that we let those in office, or those in power in the Democratic party pick our candidates is antithetical to the democratic process.
Consider what they did to Howard Dean in Iowa in 2004. They ganged up on him because he was an outsider, an upstart governor who was not a dues paying member of the club, he was a Washington outsider, and he was also someone who had spoken out against the Democratic leadership's poor performance, their caving to Republicans, their weak opposition to a premptive, unjustified war, tax cuts for the wealthy, and on and on. How dare he critcize us? We'll show him who's in charge. So they organized a huge anti-Dean campaign, locked arms and torpedoed him in favor of their fair-haired puppet-boy, John Kerry. And we know what a wonderful decision that was.
The Democratic leadership has consistently failed us by kow-towing to the right wing Republicans and to special interests including their own. They have consistently made poor decisions, like running Kerry (a huge embarrassment), waffling on the issues, kissing corporate ass for campaign contributions, embarrassing our party over and over while allowing themselves to be bullied by the Republicans. No balls!
It's not that I think Brown isn't a good choice for this nomination, he probably would have won the nomination even had Hackett stayed in the race, but I don't think Reid, Schumer or anyone else in the party has the right to decide for the voters who the candidates should be. The leadership has consistently attempted "clearing the field" in the past and it didn't work. If you recall Democratic leadership didn't want Bill Clinton either.They said he couldn't win. It's true, the party leadership was against Clinton in 1992. But even so, he won and served two terms. Now in their infinite wisdom instead of staying neutral they are championing Hillary Clinton. As Bill Maher said last night, if the Democrats nominate Hillary they will walk right off a cliff with her.
Yesterday Daily KOS posted this regarding the leadership's intrusion into the Ohio Senate race: "This obsession with clearing fields really is counterproductive, generating a great deal of hostility and ill-will. And really, what better place to work on message and build the campaign machinery than in a primary? The primary election, at worse, becomes a test run to make sure the machine is firing on all cylinders. And the money used on media and whatnot during a primary is not wasted money -- it's a way to build up early name recognition to the electorate. It worked wonders for Republicans in 2004."
Paul Hackett has said things progressives have been dying to hear. He used off-color words to describe Bush. He is a big critic of Bush' and this administration's imperialistic political war-for-profit in Iraq. I have read Hackett interviews and agree with nearly everything he has said. And he's a veteran of the Iraq war - not just a critic who has never even served in the military.
So the Democratic Party leadership is saying Paul Hackett can't win. Why?
They say he hasn't the power to attract "big" (read "corporate") contributors to his campaign like Brown who has already raised $2.7 MM against Hackett's paltry $25,000. Campaign financing by corporate interests is part of the problem. Have they forgotten their promise to reform campaign finance laws?
They say he's too much a novice and is too outspoken. I like that! We need more fresh thinking, straight talking candidates speaking truth to lies, saying what they mean and meaning what they say.
And Hackett frightened them when he said the Republican party had been hijacked by religious extremists who "aren't a whole lot different than Osama bin Laden." Ooooooo! We don't want to make the religious right-wing or the Republicans who pander to them mad at us do we? Our fantasizing Democratic leadership still thinks they can get some of these extremists to change their minds and vote for a Democrat.
Instead of strong-arming Hackett to leave the race they should allow democracy to function as it was intended. Let the voters decide.
Party leaders charged Paul Hackett with bad taste for using indecent language to describe George W Bush (Who among us doesn't?) . Using this and the above criteria to judge a candidate's worth or qualification for office I guess they would never have given a chance to the guy who declared the following:
" Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in." ~ Harry S. Truman
David Sirota, a noted Democratic political consultant, has been championing Brown for some time and also thinks Hackett should step aside. Although I like Sirota a lot - I disagree with him. The Democratic leadership thinks Hackett should be a good boy and do as they say. If he doesn't he will be crushed like they crushed Dean. In effect, they would gang up on him and run against him rather than run against the Republican opponent - and that would be distracting, damaging to Brown and cost campaign dollars that could be more effectively spent fighting DeWine. So, in the interest of party unity they would like Hackett to bow out.
I question their wisdom and their tactics. Who are they to say what choice the voters are given? The idea that we let those in office, or those in power in the Democratic party pick our candidates is antithetical to the democratic process.
Consider what they did to Howard Dean in Iowa in 2004. They ganged up on him because he was an outsider, an upstart governor who was not a dues paying member of the club, he was a Washington outsider, and he was also someone who had spoken out against the Democratic leadership's poor performance, their caving to Republicans, their weak opposition to a premptive, unjustified war, tax cuts for the wealthy, and on and on. How dare he critcize us? We'll show him who's in charge. So they organized a huge anti-Dean campaign, locked arms and torpedoed him in favor of their fair-haired puppet-boy, John Kerry. And we know what a wonderful decision that was.
The Democratic leadership has consistently failed us by kow-towing to the right wing Republicans and to special interests including their own. They have consistently made poor decisions, like running Kerry (a huge embarrassment), waffling on the issues, kissing corporate ass for campaign contributions, embarrassing our party over and over while allowing themselves to be bullied by the Republicans. No balls!
It's not that I think Brown isn't a good choice for this nomination, he probably would have won the nomination even had Hackett stayed in the race, but I don't think Reid, Schumer or anyone else in the party has the right to decide for the voters who the candidates should be. The leadership has consistently attempted "clearing the field" in the past and it didn't work. If you recall Democratic leadership didn't want Bill Clinton either.They said he couldn't win. It's true, the party leadership was against Clinton in 1992. But even so, he won and served two terms. Now in their infinite wisdom instead of staying neutral they are championing Hillary Clinton. As Bill Maher said last night, if the Democrats nominate Hillary they will walk right off a cliff with her.
Yesterday Daily KOS posted this regarding the leadership's intrusion into the Ohio Senate race: "This obsession with clearing fields really is counterproductive, generating a great deal of hostility and ill-will. And really, what better place to work on message and build the campaign machinery than in a primary? The primary election, at worse, becomes a test run to make sure the machine is firing on all cylinders. And the money used on media and whatnot during a primary is not wasted money -- it's a way to build up early name recognition to the electorate. It worked wonders for Republicans in 2004."
Paul Hackett has said things progressives have been dying to hear. He used off-color words to describe Bush. He is a big critic of Bush' and this administration's imperialistic political war-for-profit in Iraq. I have read Hackett interviews and agree with nearly everything he has said. And he's a veteran of the Iraq war - not just a critic who has never even served in the military.
So the Democratic Party leadership is saying Paul Hackett can't win. Why?
They say he hasn't the power to attract "big" (read "corporate") contributors to his campaign like Brown who has already raised $2.7 MM against Hackett's paltry $25,000. Campaign financing by corporate interests is part of the problem. Have they forgotten their promise to reform campaign finance laws?
They say he's too much a novice and is too outspoken. I like that! We need more fresh thinking, straight talking candidates speaking truth to lies, saying what they mean and meaning what they say.
And Hackett frightened them when he said the Republican party had been hijacked by religious extremists who "aren't a whole lot different than Osama bin Laden." Ooooooo! We don't want to make the religious right-wing or the Republicans who pander to them mad at us do we? Our fantasizing Democratic leadership still thinks they can get some of these extremists to change their minds and vote for a Democrat.
Instead of strong-arming Hackett to leave the race they should allow democracy to function as it was intended. Let the voters decide.
Party leaders charged Paul Hackett with bad taste for using indecent language to describe George W Bush (Who among us doesn't?) . Using this and the above criteria to judge a candidate's worth or qualification for office I guess they would never have given a chance to the guy who declared the following:
" Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in." ~ Harry S. Truman
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Harry S.Truman's Wisdom
Truman was not perfect and knew it was immpossible to be so. He was extremely confidant of who he was and he never stuttered or parsed his words. He was intelligent, compassionate and practical.
Campare Truman to George W Bush and the neo-cons.
When Harry Truman assumed the presidency upon Roosevelt's death he addressed congress for the first time as president. He spoke of the necessity for a "strong and lasting" United Nations organization. Isolation, he said, was a thing of the past. There could be no safety behind geographical barriers ever again he said prophetically.
"The responsibility of a great state is to serve and not to dominate the world".
Regarding domestic spying he said, "I've said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most un-American thing in America!"
Understanding the dangers of religious and patriotic fervor he said, "Intense feelings too often obscures the truth."
Understanding the need to moderate responsive action he said, "It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow's viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences."
Concerning government intrusion on our freedoms he said, "Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination."
And on freedom of speech and protest he said, "When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth - then all Americans are in peril."
Concerning the failings of government he clearly understood, "When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship. "
And here's the balls that present Democrats lack. This very thing Truman said about Nixon could be said about George W Bush, " Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in."
They say the inital S. in Harry's name did not stand for anything, it was just an inital. I think it stood for salty - or maybe salt of the earth.
Gary
Campare Truman to George W Bush and the neo-cons.
When Harry Truman assumed the presidency upon Roosevelt's death he addressed congress for the first time as president. He spoke of the necessity for a "strong and lasting" United Nations organization. Isolation, he said, was a thing of the past. There could be no safety behind geographical barriers ever again he said prophetically.
"The responsibility of a great state is to serve and not to dominate the world".
Regarding domestic spying he said, "I've said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most un-American thing in America!"
Understanding the dangers of religious and patriotic fervor he said, "Intense feelings too often obscures the truth."
Understanding the need to moderate responsive action he said, "It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow's viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences."
Concerning government intrusion on our freedoms he said, "Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination."
And on freedom of speech and protest he said, "When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth - then all Americans are in peril."
Concerning the failings of government he clearly understood, "When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship. "
And here's the balls that present Democrats lack. This very thing Truman said about Nixon could be said about George W Bush, " Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in."
They say the inital S. in Harry's name did not stand for anything, it was just an inital. I think it stood for salty - or maybe salt of the earth.
Gary
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Will Rogers Wisdom
These are some quotes by Will Rogers regarding The US military, war and our government. As a country do we still resemble these remarks? Rogers wasn't a peacnik or a pacifist, he was just full of common sense. Everyone listened to him and was entertained by his comments but apparently no one took him seriously or gave a whit for his advice.
Gary
"It had become almost impossible for a country to have a nice home talent little revolution without us butting in. Everywhere an American went to invest dome money in the hope of making 100 percent, why, here would be a gunboat to see he had all the comforts to which he had been accustomed."
"Did you know that we sent marines into Vera Cruz, Mexico, one time? Oh, we were in Nicaragua, Haiti, San Domingo, China, Mexico. Anywhere in the world we could find a place where we had no business, why, there we were. It was just during our adolescent period in our life as a nation., when we thought it was up to us to regulate the affairs of everybody."
"If we could just let other people alone and do their own fighting. When you get into trouble 5000 miles from home, we've got to have been looking for it."
"If we are out, upholding downtrodden nations, it will take a bookkeeper to keep track of our wars."
"Lord knows how many men we lost. Finally we got out. It's wonderful now to go to sleep at night and to know that we haven't got scouts out, looking for wars or private revolutions for us to get mixed up in. Just think of being a spectator once again!"
"Did you ever notice how much more peaceful it is all around when our marines are at home, instead of prowling around? Why, if we keep 'em at home a while, why we are liable to get out of the habit of wanting to send 'em away off, every time we heard of some little nation about to pull off a local amateur revolution."
" I told our secretary that I wished we had the biggest navy in the world, the biggest army, and by all means the biggest airforce, but to have it understood with the taxpayers that they are only to be used to defend the home grounds. Be ready for it and then just stay at home."
" These big wars over commerce are pretty bad. They kill more people, but one over religion is really the most bitter."
"Us letting the veterans entirely alone, and not caring, now that we don't need them - or think that we don't - is like lots of people we have who allow their parents, or their grandparents, to be sent to a sanatorium because they were getting to be too much trouble and too much in the way for them to take care of at home. I am not so sure myself of "No More Wars", and there is a bare possibility that we might want to use these boys again. The best insurance in the world against another war is to take care of the ones that fought the last one."
"There were bands playing, soldiers marching, orators orating, telling you it's your duty to buy Liberty Bonds . . . and now, years later, no bands, no marching, no orators, just a patriotic girl, or a broken piece of human frame, trying to sell a poppy for a few cents, made by even a more unfortunate brother in one of our veteran's hospitals. There is only one sure way of stopping war, that is to see that every "statesman" has the same chance to reflect after it is over that these boys making those poppies have had."
Gary
"It had become almost impossible for a country to have a nice home talent little revolution without us butting in. Everywhere an American went to invest dome money in the hope of making 100 percent, why, here would be a gunboat to see he had all the comforts to which he had been accustomed."
"Did you know that we sent marines into Vera Cruz, Mexico, one time? Oh, we were in Nicaragua, Haiti, San Domingo, China, Mexico. Anywhere in the world we could find a place where we had no business, why, there we were. It was just during our adolescent period in our life as a nation., when we thought it was up to us to regulate the affairs of everybody."
"If we could just let other people alone and do their own fighting. When you get into trouble 5000 miles from home, we've got to have been looking for it."
"If we are out, upholding downtrodden nations, it will take a bookkeeper to keep track of our wars."
"Lord knows how many men we lost. Finally we got out. It's wonderful now to go to sleep at night and to know that we haven't got scouts out, looking for wars or private revolutions for us to get mixed up in. Just think of being a spectator once again!"
"Did you ever notice how much more peaceful it is all around when our marines are at home, instead of prowling around? Why, if we keep 'em at home a while, why we are liable to get out of the habit of wanting to send 'em away off, every time we heard of some little nation about to pull off a local amateur revolution."
" I told our secretary that I wished we had the biggest navy in the world, the biggest army, and by all means the biggest airforce, but to have it understood with the taxpayers that they are only to be used to defend the home grounds. Be ready for it and then just stay at home."
" These big wars over commerce are pretty bad. They kill more people, but one over religion is really the most bitter."
"Us letting the veterans entirely alone, and not caring, now that we don't need them - or think that we don't - is like lots of people we have who allow their parents, or their grandparents, to be sent to a sanatorium because they were getting to be too much trouble and too much in the way for them to take care of at home. I am not so sure myself of "No More Wars", and there is a bare possibility that we might want to use these boys again. The best insurance in the world against another war is to take care of the ones that fought the last one."
"There were bands playing, soldiers marching, orators orating, telling you it's your duty to buy Liberty Bonds . . . and now, years later, no bands, no marching, no orators, just a patriotic girl, or a broken piece of human frame, trying to sell a poppy for a few cents, made by even a more unfortunate brother in one of our veteran's hospitals. There is only one sure way of stopping war, that is to see that every "statesman" has the same chance to reflect after it is over that these boys making those poppies have had."
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Society's Death Wish
"It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing." ~ Elizabeth Kolbert
The failure of the United States to get serious about climate change is unforgivable, a human folly beyond imagining. The soon to be released documentary on Al Gore and his crusade to save the world from global warming will hopefully cause the people of this nation and all the world's nations, particularly our own, to focus on this catasthophe in progress. I worry that the stubbornness, lack of intellectual curiosity and misdirected religious faith of the corporate worshipping conservative right will continue to deny, cloud and obfuscate the evidence of global warming, the most critical issue facing the earth's people since the beginning of civilization. This head in the sand, don't worry, addle headed, God has it all in his hands and he will save us attitude is endangering all of God's creation and if I were the supreme being most people claim to worship it would piss me off.
Additionally, Christians, particularly Americans, are not the only worthy creatures on this planet and I would argue are NOT God's favorites because any right-minded person knows a true supreme entity, creator of the universe, would not make that judgement.
Please give your attention to this life or death matter and circulate all information regarding Global Warming.
Gary
Is It Warm in Here?
By David Ignatius
The Washington Post
Wednesday 18 January 2006
We could be ignoring the biggest story in our history.
One of the puzzles if you're in the news business is figuring out what's "news." The fate of your local football team certainly fits the definition. So does a plane crash or a brutal murder. But how about changes in the migratory patterns of butterflies?
Scientists believe that new habitats for butterflies are early effects of global climate change - but that isn't news, by most people's measure. Neither is declining rainfall in the Amazon, or thinner ice in the Arctic. We can't see these changes in our personal lives, and in that sense, they are abstractions. So they don't grab us the way a plane crash would - even though they may be harbingers of a catastrophe that could, quite literally, alter the fundamentals of life on the planet. And because they're not "news," the environmental changes don't prompt action, at least not in the United States.
What got me thinking about the recondite life rhythms of the planet, and not the 24-hour news cycle, was a recent conversation with a scientist named Thomas E. Lovejoy, who heads the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. When I first met Lovejoy nearly 20 years ago, he was trying to get journalists like me to pay attention to the changes in the climate and biological diversity of the Amazon. He is still trying, but he's beginning to wonder if it's too late.
Lovejoy fears that changes in the Amazon's ecosystem may be irreversible. Scientists reported last month that there is an Amazonian drought apparently caused by new patterns in Atlantic currents that, in turn, are similar to projected climate change. With less rainfall, the tropical forests are beginning to dry out. They burn more easily, and, in the continuous feedback loops of their ecosystem, these drier forests return less moisture to the atmosphere, which means even less rain. When the forest trees are deprived of rain, their mortality can increase by a factor of six, and similar devastation affects other species, too.
"When do you wreck it as a system?" Lovejoy wonders. "It's like going up to the edge of a cliff, not really knowing where it is. Common sense says you shouldn't discover where the edge is by passing over it, but that's what we're doing with deforestation and climate change."
Lovejoy first went to the Amazon 40 years ago as a young scientist of 23. It was a boundless wilderness, the size of the continental United States, but at that time it had just 2 million people and one main road. He has returned more than a hundred times, assembling over the years a mental time-lapse photograph of how this forest primeval has been affected by man. The population has increased tenfold, and the wilderness is now laced with roads, new settlements and economic progress. The forest itself, impossibly rich and lush when Lovejoy first saw it, is changing.
For Lovejoy, who co-edited a pioneering 1992 book, "Global Warming and Biological Diversity," there is a deep sense of frustration. A crisis he and other scientists first sensed more than two decades ago is drifting toward us in what seems like slow motion, but fast enough that it may be impossible to mitigate the damage.
The best reporting of the non-news of climate change has come from Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker. Her three-part series last spring lucidly explained the harbingers of potential disaster: a shrinking of Arctic sea ice by 250 million acres since 1979; a thawing of the permafrost for what appears to be the first time in 120,000 years; a steady warming of Earth's surface temperature; changes in rainfall patterns that could presage severe droughts of the sort that destroyed ancient civilizations. This month she published a new piece, "Butterfly Lessons," that looked at how these delicate creatures are moving into new habitats as the planet warms. Her real point was that all life, from microorganisms to human beings, will have to adapt, and in ways that could be dangerous and destabilizing.
So many of the things that pass for news don't matter in any ultimate sense. But if people such as Lovejoy and Kolbert are right, we are all but ignoring the biggest story in the history of humankind. Kolbert concluded her series last year with this shattering thought: "It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing." She's right. The failure of the United States to get serious about climate change is unforgivable, a human folly beyond imagining.
The failure of the United States to get serious about climate change is unforgivable, a human folly beyond imagining. The soon to be released documentary on Al Gore and his crusade to save the world from global warming will hopefully cause the people of this nation and all the world's nations, particularly our own, to focus on this catasthophe in progress. I worry that the stubbornness, lack of intellectual curiosity and misdirected religious faith of the corporate worshipping conservative right will continue to deny, cloud and obfuscate the evidence of global warming, the most critical issue facing the earth's people since the beginning of civilization. This head in the sand, don't worry, addle headed, God has it all in his hands and he will save us attitude is endangering all of God's creation and if I were the supreme being most people claim to worship it would piss me off.
Additionally, Christians, particularly Americans, are not the only worthy creatures on this planet and I would argue are NOT God's favorites because any right-minded person knows a true supreme entity, creator of the universe, would not make that judgement.
Please give your attention to this life or death matter and circulate all information regarding Global Warming.
Gary
Is It Warm in Here?
By David Ignatius
The Washington Post
Wednesday 18 January 2006
We could be ignoring the biggest story in our history.
One of the puzzles if you're in the news business is figuring out what's "news." The fate of your local football team certainly fits the definition. So does a plane crash or a brutal murder. But how about changes in the migratory patterns of butterflies?
Scientists believe that new habitats for butterflies are early effects of global climate change - but that isn't news, by most people's measure. Neither is declining rainfall in the Amazon, or thinner ice in the Arctic. We can't see these changes in our personal lives, and in that sense, they are abstractions. So they don't grab us the way a plane crash would - even though they may be harbingers of a catastrophe that could, quite literally, alter the fundamentals of life on the planet. And because they're not "news," the environmental changes don't prompt action, at least not in the United States.
What got me thinking about the recondite life rhythms of the planet, and not the 24-hour news cycle, was a recent conversation with a scientist named Thomas E. Lovejoy, who heads the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. When I first met Lovejoy nearly 20 years ago, he was trying to get journalists like me to pay attention to the changes in the climate and biological diversity of the Amazon. He is still trying, but he's beginning to wonder if it's too late.
Lovejoy fears that changes in the Amazon's ecosystem may be irreversible. Scientists reported last month that there is an Amazonian drought apparently caused by new patterns in Atlantic currents that, in turn, are similar to projected climate change. With less rainfall, the tropical forests are beginning to dry out. They burn more easily, and, in the continuous feedback loops of their ecosystem, these drier forests return less moisture to the atmosphere, which means even less rain. When the forest trees are deprived of rain, their mortality can increase by a factor of six, and similar devastation affects other species, too.
"When do you wreck it as a system?" Lovejoy wonders. "It's like going up to the edge of a cliff, not really knowing where it is. Common sense says you shouldn't discover where the edge is by passing over it, but that's what we're doing with deforestation and climate change."
Lovejoy first went to the Amazon 40 years ago as a young scientist of 23. It was a boundless wilderness, the size of the continental United States, but at that time it had just 2 million people and one main road. He has returned more than a hundred times, assembling over the years a mental time-lapse photograph of how this forest primeval has been affected by man. The population has increased tenfold, and the wilderness is now laced with roads, new settlements and economic progress. The forest itself, impossibly rich and lush when Lovejoy first saw it, is changing.
For Lovejoy, who co-edited a pioneering 1992 book, "Global Warming and Biological Diversity," there is a deep sense of frustration. A crisis he and other scientists first sensed more than two decades ago is drifting toward us in what seems like slow motion, but fast enough that it may be impossible to mitigate the damage.
The best reporting of the non-news of climate change has come from Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker. Her three-part series last spring lucidly explained the harbingers of potential disaster: a shrinking of Arctic sea ice by 250 million acres since 1979; a thawing of the permafrost for what appears to be the first time in 120,000 years; a steady warming of Earth's surface temperature; changes in rainfall patterns that could presage severe droughts of the sort that destroyed ancient civilizations. This month she published a new piece, "Butterfly Lessons," that looked at how these delicate creatures are moving into new habitats as the planet warms. Her real point was that all life, from microorganisms to human beings, will have to adapt, and in ways that could be dangerous and destabilizing.
So many of the things that pass for news don't matter in any ultimate sense. But if people such as Lovejoy and Kolbert are right, we are all but ignoring the biggest story in the history of humankind. Kolbert concluded her series last year with this shattering thought: "It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing." She's right. The failure of the United States to get serious about climate change is unforgivable, a human folly beyond imagining.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)