WMail ezine "Climate & Politics" Essay

CLIMATE
        Al Gore, Jr. is on a mission, and has been since his college days, when he helped with early studies of atmospheric CO2, under Prof. Roger Revelle [1909-91] at U.C.S.D. {Revelle coined the term ‘greenhouse effect’.) Those studies in the Fifties accurately predicted the serious eco-damage known as global warming.
        The new Al Gore-centered feature documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” finally reached Albuquerque and I drove up and saw it. The film is a clear and unvarnished case for emergency action by every citizen or resident of America – we who are causing the most damage (30%) – and by every other resident of Planet Earth.
        I will not repeat the statistics from the film here, because your homework assignment is to go see the film – and the visuals are an important part of the impact: charts, photos, video, etc. (Stay for the credit roll: there is further thought & information during the end credits.)
        The Working Minds website and the WMail ezine have been citing factual evidence for the problem of global warming from inception; you have but to use the Google® search box on the WM homepage to find what has been posted therein on the topic.
        (The primary location is www.working-minds.com/energy.htm, but other facts & quotations are scattered around the site.)
        Just this week, Associated Press polled 100 climate scientists; 19 had seen the film and all agreed with every fact presented by Al Gore. Small poll, but telling.

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        According to the film, Al Gore basically got into politics for the purpose of getting Congress to take proper & timely corrective action, to make corrections to our poisoning of the eco-systems. Some eco-legislation did get enacted, but most of that has recently been undone by the corporate lackeys in Congress.
        The movie begins with the phrase ‘moral imperative’, which puts Gore’s mission & stance absolutely in line with Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy: the purpose of Mankind is the survival of Mankind, which is threatened by the polluting practices of our corporate rulers (and also threatened by the ignorance of the sheep-ly majority). Then you also have the Progressive philosophy of making the world a better place for all, and Al Gore becomes the only American political leader to operate in both pro-humankind realms.
        Al Gore seems not to want another run for the U.S. presidency, but if he gets drafted, he will run on a platform centered on progressive ecological action. He will have my backing, since the Democrats have no one of equal integrity (and the G.O.P. is self-destructively corrupt).

POLITICS
The title of this essay came to me before seeing "An Inconvenient Truth" because I have been noticing the abject failure of the U.S. political system. Will Durant [1885-1981] said that “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.” The Constitution lately has such a fragile hold on the political system that many now foresee the neo-fascists declaring Constitutional law null & void and then instituting martial law on some pretext (i.e. a ‘Pearl Harbor III’ attack).
Such historical events will play out through and after the November 2006 general elections: If the G.O.P. saves their skins by well-managed propaganda campaigns and-or by theft of the elections, they will have a free hand to wreak further havoc. If the people do take back control of both houses of Congress, then the imminent expectation of impeachment proceedings will loom large, and like rats backed into a corner, the G.O.P. are stupid and valueless enough to fight to the death. Either option is quite frightening.

        Meanwhile, Congress does nothing but yell and snipe and waste time on gay marriage and ‘preventing’ flag-burning – both real non-issues. So why the hooferaw?
        The current Congress is scheduled for so few days in session that they will actually surpass the record for indolence set by the 80th Congress [1947-48]. President Harry Truman accused the Republican-dominated House of being a ‘Do-Nothing Congress’, and the Democrats won an additional 75 seats in November 1948.
        So what passes for political activity these days is a climate of hate and invective and name-calling and soap-opera bickering that would shame a first-grader. X happens and the (literal) G.O.P. talking points are repeated and passed & thrown around, from Ann ‘The Man’ Coulter to Faux News to Limp Rushbaugh and back again.
        A great noise signifying nothing.
        The intention of all the noise is to generate and maintain a climate of fear.
        We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and the Bush-Rove-Cheney Machine is the no-bid contract supplier of fear.

        F.D.R. organized America around the New deal, and then fought World War II to free Europe & the world from the evil designs of the Axis Powers.
        J.F.K. inspired America to be first on the moon, and we did that.
        L.B.J. pushed for a New Society, which included the civil rights laws recently undone by the neo-fascist Congress.
        Bill Clinton campaigned on fixing the economy, and fulfilled on it so well that he proved the lie of ‘conservative’ Republicans’ fiscal shenanigans.
        What we need is a vision FOR something that Americans (and perhaps the world) can rally behind.

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        The U.S. National Debt today stands at $8.5 TRILLION and is expected to reach $10 TRILLION by years’ end; the occupation of Iraq is falling apart (and will add another $2 trillion to the National Debt); real unemployment has reached 12%; the Federal Reserve can’t figure out why we are in stagflation; the West is in record drought and the East Coast is suffering killer floods; and the hurricane season has just begun.
        It seems that we have every reason to be afraid of the anti-American dastards who have control of federal (and many state) government offices, but that is only valid if we are indeed sheep.
        Individuals who understand the basis for America, for what it took to secure and maintain our Rights and Freedoms over 200-plus years are not likely to be afraid.
        We are angry.

        It is for the neo-fascists, for the intolerant Baptist Taliban, for the traitors in the White House and the crooks in Congress and on K Street to be afraid.
        Patriotism is when an Individual stands for the Constitution (the rule of law), stands for Freedom and Liberty and Justice and Equality. (And not for the Holy Bottom Line.)
        The sheep have reason to fear their oppressors, because the actions of oppressors are intended to destroy chances for Mankind’s survival. Yet the oppressors are beginning to fear the Fate that they have earned for themselves.
        The neo-fascists live in fear of Objective Reality, the climate where they can no longer steal your Power.
        In America, the People have the Power, it says so in the first line of the U.S. Constitution.
        And We The People are going to take this country back from them.

Al Gore "An Inconvenient Truth" movie official website: http://www.ClimateCrisis.net
ADDED Nov 2006: the DVD is now available at Amazon: Paramount color DVD with update [11/2006] for $16.87

‘Stop Global Warming’ website: http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/

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The WMail Newsletter EssaysVolume VII - Issue #60 - June 2006

"Climate & Politics"

The WMail Newsletter Essays
Volume VII - Issue #60 - June 2006