I watched two documentaries on PBS last night (Tuesday, Oct.
23), and I was apoplectic after each one. The first, a doc about the Cuban
Missile Crisis, was an eye opener concerning the extent of the danger the world
faced. I knew the basics—Russian missiles placed on Cuba awaiting Russian ships
steaming to arm them with nuclear weapons, and an American blockade committed
to stopping the nuclear-loaded ships—but what I didn’t recall was that an
American U-2 flight over Cuba trying to get more precise photos was actually
shot down by a Russian missile. This could have been the ball game right there,
because the American military (especially the rabid Gen. Curtis LeMay) was
frothing at the mouth, even before the loss of an American pilot, to go in and wipe
Cuba off the map. With this American death, a hotheaded President could have
been steamrolled into ordering an immediate retaliatory strike. Fortunately,
John F. Kennedy was doing everything he could to keep things from getting out
of hand, so no strike was ordered. Nor were the American people told, much less
rallied to “remember the Alamo.”
Then
JFK, with the help of Russian Premier Khrushchev—also definitely frightened of
Armageddon after the U-2 shootdown—managed to forge a face-saving agreement.
The details were new to me. That is, Khrushchev had already demanded a quid pro
quo for removing his missiles: the United States would have to remove its missiles placed in Turkey on Russia’s border. ‘If
the U.S. can’t stand having missiles 90 miles from its shores in Cuba, then
Russia can’t tolerate U.S. missiles in Turkey either,’ was the point. Of course
Kennedy couldn’t agree to what everyone was calling “blackmail.” ‘Just bomb the
bastards’ was the prevailing opinion, both in the military and among most of
Kennedy’s advisers. But Kennedy, like any rational person, saw the logic of
Russia’s demand. Not only that, he knew that the missiles in Turkey were old
and outdated, and essentially useless. Should the world be plunged into nuclear
holocaust over useless missiles? That was the question he asked, and he
eventually answered “No.” He sent a secret message to Khrushchev saying that
the U.S. would promise to remove the missiles in Turkey in exchange for the
Russian removal of the missiles in Cuba—only the deal had to be kept
secret. Russia could not crow publicly about
having outmaneuvered the United States. Khrushchev agreed, the ships turned
back, and Russia began to dismantle its Cuban missiles, not mentioning Turkey.
Crisis averted.
But
just imagine if another president had been in the Oval Office. Imagine if it
had been Johnson, or George Bush, or Romney. Would one of them have been
willing to deal with the Russkies? Or would Curtis LeMay have prevailed, with nukes
flying both east and west? It’s a terrifying thought, but one we should all be
thinking about right now.
The
other documentary was even more disturbing because it referred to a crisis that’s
current. This one was a Frontline documentary, Climate of Doubt, by wheelchair journalist John Hockenberry, about
the anti-global warming machine that has, since 2008, turned the entire debate
around. When Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth came out, it seemed to convince large majorities of the American
people that Global Warming was indeed a threat that had to be dealt with. Right
now, though, less than 50% of the American people are convinced of the threat,
and the numbers are getting worse by the day. And it’s all due to a
money-is-no-object campaign by conservative think tanks to cast doubt on the
science. These people are not only relentless, not only callous in pursuit of
more money, they are, in my view, murderers. Because the result of their
campaign will eventually be weather-related catastrophes that will kill people
in numbers beyond our imagining.
Hockenberry
interviewed them on all sides. There are the heads of the Competitive
Enterprise Institute, who say flat out that man-made global warming science is
a myth and a hoax. It’s not man made and it’s not harmful. After all, carbon is
a valuable element, necessary for trees and plants. So putting more in the atmosphere
is a good thing! Myron Ebell, head of the Competitive Enterprise Institute is
typical: he calls it a David and Goliath debate, with the conservative doubters
being David and the government-sponsored scientists warning about global
warming as Goliath. Thus, what the conservatives do (and they’ve done it in
conflict after conflict) is turn the entire argument on its head, adopting the
stance of 60s radicals, and portraying themselves as the little guys putting
themselves on the line against the powers-that-be. Of course, the fact that
these so-called “think tanks” are funded by some of the wealthiest corporations
and individuals in America—like the infamous Koch Brothers—doesn’t seem to
enter the equation. They insist that they have won the battle for the hearts
and minds of Americans in the “heartland” (there’s a “think tank” named the
Heartland Institute), and they are proud and cocky and filled with the flush of
victory.
To
gauge whether they’ve won or not (I won’t even dignify the arguments of their
so-called scientists who cast doubt on global warming science), all you have to
do is look at what has happened in Congress and the presidential race. Have you
heard anything about carbon trading or global warming at all in this year’s
debate? No. All you hear, from both Obama and Romney is bragging about which
one can move faster to give coal companies more rights to blow off the tops of
mountains, or coal fired plants more license to burn dirtier coal, or states
more rights to drill, baby, drill off the coast. To give Obama credit, he
actually did try to get the carbon trading bill through Congress in 2009. He
was roundly defeated then, and the notion has been quietly but firmly laid to
rest ever since. Hockenberry tried, as he made his documentary, to interview most
Republican members of Congress to ask them if they believed global warming was
real, if it was mainly caused by humans, and if they believed anything should
be done about it. To a man (or woman), they simply refused to talk to him or
answer any of his questions. The debate over global warming, in short, has become
a non-issue, with no one feeling compelled to even address it any more.
To
be sure, there are further reasons why the global warming debate and measures
to remediate it, have disappeared since 2008—mainly the collapse of the
economy. People who fear losing their jobs (if they still have them) are easy
prey for think-tank pseudo-science; passing legislation that will make it
harder to get energy or make companies more responsible for putting carbon into
the atmosphere is easily translated into fewer jobs. But it’s even more disturbing
than that: scientists (98% of whom support the conclusions of global warming
science) are increasingly portrayed as government-supported elitists who are
probably socialists interested in expanding government power over the regular
guy. One interviewee said “Green is the new Red.” To be an advocate for the
environment is to be a freeloading commie and probably queer to boot. And to
hear the legislator from North Carolina who introduced a bill to outlaw global
warming in North Carolina (a state with a highly vulnerable coastline that
scientists have been urging should be shored up against a predicted sea rise
and massive destruction from hurricanes), is to listen to a man who thinks
science should make “sense” to him. If it doesn’t, if he can’t comprehend it
via his senses (I suppose he doesn’t believe in relativity or quantum theory
since he can’t see electrons with his naked eye), then it’s simply not real.
So
this is the situation we now have, folks, in huge swaths of this nation. Global
warming is a hoax promoted by a bunch of chicken littles. We need to produce
energy any way we can. And if the planet doesn’t like it, tough shit for the
planet. God is, after all, on our side. And he wouldn’t allow anything bad to
happen to our divinely-chosen exceptional nation, would he???? (Reminds me of
this latest Republican Yahoo, Richard Mourdock, running for Senate in Indiana,
who said that when a woman becomes pregnant as a result of rape “it is
something that God intended”—so who are we humans to interfere?)
Lawrence DiStasi
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