Letters to the Editor
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Inadeqate Information Is Usually the GOPs Call to Action
Given the track record of the Bush administration, one would think they would be motivated to act if there was just a 1% possibility that global warming could occur. The problem here is that scientists believe in research and facts. Unfortunately, the evidence is too adequate. If Osama bin Laden had attacked the National Weather Service or the scientific community has simply said that Saddam Hussien had weapons of mass warming, we would have attacked the problem when we still had a chance to do something. Still, I am sure that if we stop burning all those flags - four cases in the last year alone - that will significantly decrease global warming. And, if gay men and lesbians stop getting married, that should solve the problem completely.
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they're all nuts
An arch conservative friend of mine told me you get better gas mileage by using your air conditioning than driving with your windows rolled down. Where this information came from is beyond me. Apparently, as the theory goes, the drag from open windows uses more fuel than, well, rolling the windows up and cranking the AC. I'm no scientist or engineer, but I can tell you on those rare occassions when I do use the AC in my car (and it isn't very often even in a heatwave like we have now) I can see the fuel gauge go down, down, down. I get great gas mileage with the windows down.
Of course this is the same friend who told me when the big oil companies decide its time for us to drive hydrogen cars we'll get them, so we're in good hands. And this is the same person who goes insane if you mention global warming.
Blunt's antics will play very well with the Republican's conservative base. They're all nuts. All they have to do is ratchet up the terroism scare tactics and hope they can pick up enough independants and lilly-livered Democrats to keep Congress...but rest assured this anti-global warming bullshit will play very well with their screwy base.
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again, repeat after me, it's a stealth plutocracy
Blunt's comment is perfectly understandable in the true context of our political system.
If you study the Federalist Papers carefully, and I mean carefully, it becomes clear that the United States was designed to allow rich white men to do whatever they want. Period.
The country, and its system of laws and politics, was expressly conceived to allow rich white guys to make as much money as they want, keep as much of it as possible, exploit anyone they want to get that money, and have as much power as they can grab.
The founding-fathers wanted to make sure that neither an arbitrary aristocracy, nor an ignorant mob, would get in the way of their God-given right to be richer than Croesus. And they succeeded brilliantly in this. Beyond their wildest hopes, I imagine.
Our Civil War did throw a bit of sand in the works, but, if you think about it carefully, the rich white guys did triumph there, too.. the southern rich white guys who got too caught up in the mythic camouflage of Southern Nobility, they paid. But everyone else? They made out very, very nicely. There were no Rich White Guys dying at Shiloh or Gettysburg, I can assure you. Or, at least, none with any common-sense.
Even after the trust-busting 100 years ago, everything went right back to the way it was within a few years. Guys like Rockefeller just got a little TOO enthusiastic, and revealed too much of the real system. But once he and his fellow robber-barons realized that it made more sense to be a bit quieter as they butt-fucked the entire country, they did fine.
That is the PURPOSE of the United States. Everything else is just window-dressing, including our political system, which was intended from the start to be camouflage for the real system: a stealth-plutocracy.
I defy anyone to disprove this. The entire system is biased toward rich white guys (and the few minority guys who play by the rich-white-guy rules)...the clear evidence of history, of the present, confirms this thesis without exception.
This is, by the way, why the Democrats are having such a terrible time coming up with a program that makes sense. Too much of what they would do in opposition to the GOP is bad for business--or, at least, bad for business as greedy, short-sighted CEOs conceive it. No one said Rich White Guys were especially smart..just that they're generally ruthless in protecting what they have, and in desiring more...so, the Dems big-business contributors confuse the party so badly that no real opposition program can emerge.
Whatever you think of Ralph Nader, he had a point when he said that the only real difference between Al Gore and GW Bush was the speed with which their knees hit the ground when Corporate America came calling.
So, Blunt is merely protecting his god-given right to make a shitload of money in the Big Business of his choice when he leaves Capitol Hill. In the meantime, he's protecting his rich-white-guy patrons in the Fossil Fuel industry, the Defense Industry, the Auto Industry, and every other industry that profits from profligate use of fossil fuels.
This is how the country was designed to function. If we all accepted that, maybe we could have a useful conversation about the problems this system creates.
If you want to find a fault with guys like Blunt, I suppose you could say that they may have just a bit too much contempt for the Voters. Blunt and his ilk make the potential error of being a bit too obvious about where their interests lie. Although, that said, 50% of the voting public seems to deserve their contempt...the voters who voted for them.
{thanks to Jay Hansen for clarifying my thinking on these matters. Once you see how the system is designed to work, much makes perfect sense that was formerly nonsensical.}
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saintzak's arch-conservative friend
saintzak,
Your friend is actually right about the A/C vs. windows open thing. The difference is negligible but, on the highway at least, you get better mileage with the A/C on and the windows up than with the windows open.
http://www.cartalk.com/content/columns/Archive/1994/May/05.html
Your arch-conservative friend may be nuts, but he/she's right this time.