Day 4: GOP Alternate Realities on Climate Change

A small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens.

Here’s part two of my climate change feature, where I describe some of the problems with the Republican stance on climate change. It boils down to two distinct categories: the true disbelievers and the people that are smart enough to know better. I suppose the second group would be a bit easier to control, from a donor-puppetmaster viewpoint. But it doesn’t matter, really, why they believe what they believe, or if they believe the bullshit they’re spewing at all. The only thing that matters is their “NO” votes on climate change action and other environmental issues. Let’s look at some of the worst offenders from this catastrophic “ideology.”

The Daily Show recently highlighted (lowlighted?) some of the people on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology that have an unbelievable lack of understanding of basic science. Here are some of the examples from that segment (pardon the extensive quoting, but it really goes to the heart of the matter). When Rep. Steve Stockman started in on “global wobbling,” Dr. John Holdren, the White House Science Advisor, had to explain to him about how that process is very slow and takes place over 10,000s of years. When Rep. Dana Rohrabacher asked, “When is CO2 harmful to human beings?,” Holdren was forced to reply, “We’re interested in its effect on the world’s climate,” not humans. When Rep. Larry Bucshon cited mixed reaction from the public, Holdren rightly said, “You should look at the scientific literature rather than the public comments.” These are two classic Republican arguments: you have your science wrong, and public sentiment differs.

Then it goes a bit more into crazy town. Bucshon’s reply you may have heard before, but the gall of it is stunning: “Of all the climatologists that depend on the climate changing to get keep themselves publishing articles, yes, I could read that, but I don’t believe it.” Jon Stewart translates this argument as: “I do not believe the scientists because it’s their profession, not their hobby,” and then of course points out the real reason for Bucshon’s obstinance: that his top three contributors from 2013 - 2014 are Murray Energy, Koch Enterprises, and Peabody Energy. “If scientists could be bought, these motherfuckers would’ve made it rain in nerdtown,” said Stewart.

Accusing scientists of only talking about climate change in order to save their jobs is such a  preposterous notion, you almost have to admire the trickery of it: the “deniers” take the very reason they’re so opposed to these measures -- profit -- and accuse the truth-tellers of being shells and sell-outs. So, scientists are in it for the money is Republican argument #3.

“Scare tactics like that are really appalling,” said Buschon, in my last transcribing from that Daily Show segment. That makes the fourth reply by these guys, You’re being hyperbolic or too frightening. And this is only the tip of the (melting) iceberg of astonishing methods the Republicans use to mock Democrats and scientists. One more: remember when Obama said we could try to “slow the rise of the oceans.” Republicans made it sound like he thought he was a Jesus-figure with that line. (There are entire websites devoted to making the science behind this sound like being part of a deranged religious cult.) Nevermind that the reality is we could definitely mitigate the effects of climate change if we put our minds to it.

One other thing: in Day 3’s post, I said: “Suddenly colonizing on space stations and other planets seems less whimsical and more urgent.” Turns out, one of the climate change “deniers” have that exact motive, too. Congressman Mo Brooks signed a letter that stated, “We can reorient NASA’s mission back toward human spaceflight by reducing funding for climate change research.” Unbelievable.

So whether it’s Louis Gohmert or Steve Stockman on the dipshit aisle, or Mitt Romney or Darrell Issa on the “evil and calculating side,” what matters is how they vote, how they act, what they do, not so much the false arguments. (And yes, I find deliberately doing nothing on climate change to be an evil act. Politics should be about morality.)

Florida is facing this share of nonsense. As the saying goes, we are the Sunshine State, yet we are not harnessing the power of that energy at all. (I have four interviews at FloridaProgressives.Com that either focused entirely on the environment or had sections devoted to it; I encourage you all to give them a listen or a read.) And the two highest-profile politicians that have pulled the “I’m not a scientist” card are Rick Scott and Marco Rubio. These deniers have no place in politics.

So, I’ve looked briefly at the media and Obama’s roles in the delayed climate change response, and the horrible actions of the GOP, right here. Tomorrow I’ll conclude this topic with what the environmentalists have been doing. Thanks for reading.

I encourage responses, debate, corrections, feedback, questions, criticism, and all that in the comments section below or on my Twitter. Relevant, substantive comments could make their way into future columns. Thanks for reading.

Second Blown Deadline in 4 days...

I'm fairly happy with the content of this writing-experiment blog so far, but I've discovered I'm not so good at the deadlines. Still working on the Day 4 post, when I should be at Day 6. Must... Get... Better...

Day 3: The Fierce Urgency of Sometime, Maybe (Climate Change Edition)

I’ve realized that a lot of my preliminary topics for this blog (including the ones not yet published) involve criticizing Obama. It’s not because it is a fun thing to do; on the contrary, I had great hopes for his presidency circa 2008-09. Instead, it’s that the progressive issues that are already getting some support from the Obama administration -- equal pay for equal work between men and women, the right of same-sex couples to marry, a raise in the minimum wage -- necessitate less attention from people that are trying to effect positive change. (Although Obama’s proposed minimum wage -- $10.10 -- is still way too low.) In other words, the issues that get the administration's focus create a void on other issues, including ones I believe they are trying to obfuscate and that not enough progressives are thinking about.

Therefore, we move on from Obama’s latest foreign policy blunder (see the previous two blog posts for info on the ISIS War) to climate change. On this topic, Obama talks tough. He is all about curbing the effects of this anthropological disaster. The problem is, talk is cheap, and his actions are lacking.

On Tuesday, the same day that he gave a speech about his recent air strikes in Syria, Obama spoke to the U.N. about the responsibility as one of the two major superpowers to lead on climate change, all the while chiding China for not doing more.

The truth is, China has been progressing faster than the US lately. Solar panel production there is skyrocketing. Forbes states that they are the leading investor in renewable energy. Perhaps Obama should look in the mirror before he starts in with the speech.

And there were other parts of the speech that were very questionable. Here’s a transcript; check it out for yourself. I find this line very curious:

...there should be no question that the United States of America is stepping up to the plate.

I get he’s speaking to other countries’ leaders and can’t exactly admit the truth there, but come on. The United States’ efforts have been painfully slow on this issue.

And the media couldn’t care less about covering this issue. They’d rather focus on the Latte Salute (no, I won’t link to it), perhaps the dumbest thing I’ve seen them fixate on since he was re-elected. So, in a week that began with Obama addressing the U.N. and the biggest climate change protest in history, what effect has it had now that this week is at its end?

300,000 people, folks.

I doubt it’s had much effect at all, and that can really cripple your spirit. The stakes have never been higher. Anybody that has children has to wonder exactly what shape we will be leaving the 21st century in. (Not to omit the childless, of course they can be equally concerned over the fate of humanity, too.) Suddenly colonizing on space stations and other planets seems less whimsical and more urgent.

As Leonardo DiCaprio* said in his fantastic speech at that very summit, we are past the point of the individual responsibility of replacing light bulbs. We can only do so much. We now need to do what governments do: massive interactive initiatives that address the greatest crisis since… ever. Yes, humankind has never faced a problem as great as dealing with the effects of climate change that we have created in the first place.

[*A digression: I was at a political event a few months ago where an attendee was opining, Why is it that we have celebrities in politics so much? Why do they get special privilege, just because they’ve acted or they’re famous?

This is a classic example of trying to wish the world was something other than it is. The reality is celebrities get shit done. Just look at The Angelina Jolie Effect on breast cancer awareness. I am glad DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, and other celebrities are locked into the biggest political fight of all time.]

No matter what the media says, the debate is over. As you’ve probably heard (but somehow always seems to bear repeating to some people), 97% of climatologists agree that climate change is real and that it’s man-made. Somehow, the 3% get an awful lot of air time (that’s a lie, we know exactly how: the monied interests that put them on screen).

So while Obama’s framing was less than truthful, I don’t blame him for the overall lack of action of the United States government. Sure, there are things he could be doing that he isn’t. He does not seem particularly interested in leading on the great idea of letting the EPA have more control over regulating carbon emissions. He is dithering over his Keystone XL decision. And he has fully embraced fracking, which is dangerous in its extraction and pumps large amounts of methane -- wait, I do blame him! I blame him very much! But, the reality is that Republicans love all that stuff and want to do even more damage.

So, tomorrow, it’s a trip to GOP-Land and their purported take on climate science.

Day 2: Six More Facts About ISIS, For Obamabots and Conservatives to Ignore

Yesterday, I scratched the surface on the lead-up to the new war against ISIS (despite Obama never using the word "war" in his speech to the American public, it’s a war) by pointing out how progressives get wrong the hypocrisy argument and the military/humanitarian argument, but mostly, they get things right, because (like some of our libertarian friends) they are naturally suspicious of proclamations about the security of the homeland, and of any kind of rush to war.

Now, not all progressives. There are some self-identified progressives that just go along with the party line, all the time. They tend to share images of Obama on Facebook with captions like “I Got This” or “Get the President’s Back.” I’m not terribly interested in appealing to their reason, because it doesn’t seem like they have any.

Nor am I interested in appealing to conservatives that naturally and instinctively hate everything about Obama. They must get majorly confused when Obama does something like this new war, and people like John Boehner are agreeing with him. Although, to them, John Boehner is also a liberal, so whatever.

These divisions in our politics are so wild that, the other day, I saw someone pointing out to the Obamabots that we don’t need to attack another Muslim country, when we’ve already struck Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Of course the Obamabots accused this reasonable person of watching too much Fox News, and they said we’ve never attacked Somalia or Yemen, which is false.

It’s a real problem when we are so divided (even within the same ideology) that we cannot agree on basic facts. I’m reminded of Florida’s own Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was famously ignorant about Obama’s entire kill-list program. This is explained fairly easily: as party-line Democrats, Obamabots look to the party to frame their world-thinking. The split in partisan news (Fox News for the right, MSNBC for the left) has everyone embracing their own “facts,” and anybody that challenges these facts are just shills for the other side.

When John Oliver started his new comedy program, he found he couldn’t use the cable news channels anymore (like The Daily Show does) for actual news, and he had to look beyond them to find the material he needs. I encourage everyone else to do the same. Maybe then, with a more educated public, we could start having meaningful discussions about actual facts, and the country could begin to heal. Hell, maybe we could even prevent the next war.

… Yeah, I’m not crossing my fingers, either.

So, here are some more facts about the West’s coalition against ISIS:

There is no legal rationale for this. It’s like the making of this was done by a Mad Libs fan. Obama describes having the executive authority. His team cites the 2001 AUMF that went after al Qaeda-tied groups. Since al Qaeda denounced ISIS, it’s obviously a stretch to use that (flawed) document for legal precedence. And even though they have had ties over the past several years, well, they certainly didn’t in 2001!

So, if that doesn’t fly with you, they argue we should use the 2002 AUMF for action in Iraq. Yes, the president whose candidacy was all about the opposition he had for war in Iraq is now using that war’s authorizing legal document for a new war.  

There is no legal authorization for this. Instead, we have what Obama calls the “buy-in” of having Congress on board with a power he says he already has as commander-in-chief. All this does is give plausible deniability to both branches. The president can say, “Congress is on my side with this,” and members of Congress can say, “Well, we never authorized this war.” In fact, none of the wars this country has started since World War II have been authorized. Each one is supposed to be up to a vote in Congress, creating an official declaration for war. Although this law is on the books, it’s been routinely ignored. That means every war has been illegal since 1942. It is a shame that the American people put up with this.

Funding the “moderate” rebels (which don’t exist) will mean we fund ISIS. I mentioned this yesterday, but here’s some more information. ISIS will steal the weapons. See this report from The New York Times and this quote from The Huffington Post:

“It may be too late to provide effective support, at least quickly,” Austin Long, a professor of security policy at Columbia University, told The WorldPost. “The worst situation would be to dump a lot of weapons on the rebels when they are weak. This would be a golden opportunity for the Islamic State to concentrate attacks on them in order to seize the weapons (as happened with the Iraqi Army).”

The mission has already crept. Ever heard of the Khorasan Group? I hadn’t. Hardly anybody had. Yet, on Monday, the US started bombing them, claiming they have been plotting attacks in the United States. So despite not having any true war power, we are now not even going after the enemy described, and are supposed to take the government at its word that the people bombed deserved it because they were going to attack over here. Anybody else alarmed over this?

Whose boots on the ground? Obama is adamant that it won’t be ours. But the US is leading this effort. If not us, who will volunteer? As stated above, it can’t be left up the rebels. And with ISIS being able to adapt to airstrikes (holding ground based on when to expect them, or hiding among the people), “boots on the ground” is a necessary component if this plan is to work. (I am not advocating for this or any other part of this plan, though.)

And, finally (for this blog entry, at least): There isn’t even a credible threat against the United States, made by ISIS, except for the beheadings. Nothing within our borders. It’s because ISIS is very busy trying to maintain and expand control of their stated goal: creating a caliphate. That hasn’t stopped numerous members of Congress trying to scare the public into conformity for this new war.

That’s all, this time. Tomorrow, a new topic.

I encourage responses, debate, corrections, feedback, questions, criticism, and all that in the comments section below or on my Twitter. Relevant, substantive comments could make their way into future columns. Thanks for reading.

Day 1: Our ISIS Strategy is Foolish

First, a little bit about me and what this blog is, and then the first topic: how the United States is starting a new war (even though it refuses to say that), and why we shouldn’t be.

I’m Mike Eidson. I’ve been doing some political organizing in Florida for a few years now, and I’ve interviewed some of the people I’ve met along the way at FloridaProgressives.Com, both as an audio podcast, and, if that’s not your thing, as transcripts. After 15 episodes, I thought it was time to try something new: this blog, 100 Days of Politics. I was inspired by Al Kennedy’s 100 Days of Comics and thought I could stand to have my own 100-day writing exercise as well.

From the start of the Jewish New Year (although here I am, a day late on my first blog entry; I’ll have to double-up soon) to January 1st, 2015, I’ll be blogging about my political interests, whether it’s my commentary on news, my advocacy for progressivism, or things happening here in Florida, around the country, or around the world. I’m sure there will be no shortage of things to discuss, but having a daily routine (at least for the next 99 days) will help my writing skills and keep me connected to politics. So that’s why I’m doing this.

I may keep going after January 1st; we’ll see how this experiment goes. And I’m by no means quitting FloridaProgressives.Com, although I’m not sure when I’ll resume. However, I plan on doing text-only interviews on this blog, and when I do those, I’ll cross-post them at that site.

So, without further introduction, the ISIS debacle:

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Caveats aside: ISIS are evil. There’s no denying that. And I (and I think a lot of anti-war progressives) am not isolationist, as the pro-intervention liberals are calling us. I also think the United States should get involved in a military capacity for humanitarian reasons, from time to time. I don’t think that’s an oxymoron, as Congressman Alan Grayson (whom I normally agree with) implies. Rwanda is a prime example of genocide that the United States ignored and should not have.

We should “do something” about ISIS. (And yes, “do something” is a really weak prescription; these things all rest on details and specifics.) However, let’s stop and think about what The Plan is, and then what The Situation After The Plan is.

The Plan is to do airstrikes and arm Syrian rebels. Airstrikes are problematic, but arming Syrian rebels is even more so. There are literally 1,000 opposition groups to Bashar al-Assad, and now we’re trying to find the ones there that are suddenly okay with not fighting him but are okay with fighting their (depending on the group) mutual enemy, ISIS.

The Situation After The Plan is that we expect the United States government and the Coalition to pick the “right” rebels, the ones that will do exactly what we want with the artillery we give them. Good luck with that. (And remember, ISIS has already started using some of our weapons from the Iraq War against us. That’s what they do.) The Situation is also that ISIS fighters will flee from the air strikes into civilian territory. What should the bombers do next? Well, we have a Coalition, folks, we can’t just pack it up. If that means we need some collateral damage (read: murder), then so be it. That would be the argument at least, and it is also the argument that keeps most progressives opposed to war. Because how can you look at photos like this (from Israel’s assault on Gaza) and say by any measure that the violence was necessary?

There’s also the obvious point that a bombing campaign by Westerners is absolutely great for ISIS recruitment and will motivate them to actually start planning attacks over here. Despite what Lindsey Graham says, all of us are not about to be killed, but some of us might be now, thanks to our actions.

And let’s remember, that just a year ago, Obama was trying to bomb Assad’s regime, the very people we are helping now by bombing ISIS. It’s almost as if there is no clear solution (other than bombing, apparently) to this ever-changing and complex region of the world. The recent approval to arm the rebels by the House and Senate has Obama praising the “bipartisanship” of Congress. In these polarized times, I feel like the “bipartisan” laws are the ones we really need to worry about!

There’s also the hypocrisy argument, which I don’t think goes as far as my anti-war friends think it does. Yes, it does mean that we are only picking certain atrocities to intervene on. When Saudi Arabia or Israel commits slaughter or abuses human rights, we do nothing, because of our long-standing ties with them. So, it’s true that we pick battles that parallel our supposed national interests. But that doesn’t negate “doing something.” In some ways, arguments about hypocrisy almost lead to the isolationist argument.

So, in terms in solutions, I’ve really got next to nothing. I think our current strategies of air strikes and arming Syrian rebels are mistakes, with the latter making us more entrenched and the Middle East even more deadly. And, as Glenn Greenwald argues, if ISIS were truly an existential threat (or, as Obama says, will be one), why are the pro-intervention advocates so opposed to American ground troops? Wouldn’t we need them to prevent an attack on the “homeland”?

This will be a topic I return to throughout 100 Days of Politics, and a war that probably won’t be over if this blog was called 1,000 Days of Politics. But that’s enough for Day 1. Long story short, helping save innocents trapped on a mountain from the terrors of ISIS? Good. Getting involved in a nation by perpetuating eight proxy wars? Bad.

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I encourage responses, debate, corrections, feedback, questions, criticism, and all that in the comments section below or on my Twitter. Relevant, substantive comments could make their way into future columns. Thanks for reading.