DENIAL OF GLOBAL WARMING

Someone who I have known for a long time and have only more recently distanced myself from commented on one of my pages about an article I posted in which a senator from Oklahoma claimed that polls show Americans aren't buying the propaganda on Global Warming. I had said in my post that I'd been hearing about global warming as an environmental issue since grade school. Only more recently has there seemed to be such a backlash to the evidences presented by climatologists. More specifically, I think that the current backlash is one involving rising fuel prices and justification for our current level of usage of fossil fuels. Those denying global warming as a fact don't want to take any responsibility for their participation in its destructive effects, and don't want to feel like they have to cut back on their lifestyles in order to help stop its continued escalation.

The person who is now more of a former friend, who had left comments was quoting facts and using numbers that, even if right, are weak attempts to counter the incontrovertible evidence of melting ice caps, rising temperatures, and the death of many species. Even more disturbing than their denial of the obvious evidence is their basic dismissal of the ideology behind attempts to preserve the environment, that of working to stave of extinctions and help create healthy habitats. These are important whether you believe in climate change or not and are philosophies that pro-gun, pro-death penalty and pro-War in Iraq conservatives can't come close to appreciating.

CANDIDATES/GAS PRICE PROMISES/ALTERNATIVE FUEL SOURCES

The article linked by pressing this post's title is about how the candidates are promising lower gas prices and their strategies to effectively cut those gas prices. Isn't this the same song and dance we've been getting for months? We keep hearing politicians talk about lower gas prices, but the best they've been able to offer is stabilizing prices so that they aren't continuing to rise $.25 a week.

What an accomplishment! I mean the same week that both Bush AND McCain called over and over again for off-shore drilling for oil as a solution to our energy crisis, Honda rolled out the first few dozen of its commercially available hydrogen/electric hybrid.

We have reached a period of critical mass with our energy consumption: Either we continue to follow the archaic political solutions and power plays of the Cold-War Era ideologies of Bush, McCain and their like, or we adapt NOW to this rapidly emerging technology, one which will become widely available very soon, and which will leave us in the dust in terms of our industrial market. While GM still struggles to get their version of this car ready for mass-production, our government leaders have yet to get the clue that gas, oil, and politics in the Arab states are over. US citizens are tired of it and even if they don't all see this new type of technology as the solution, as soon as it becomes more reasonably priced and gains mass appeal, even doubters will see it as a better solution and Big Oil as an industry will see its downfall.

Whoever is determined to vote for McCain: If you do, we'll continue to see delays in critical technology that will free us from all of these energy woes and dependency on foreign powers, that's on top of the environmental impact of further flooding the oceans with pollutants. Think VERY carefully before you cast your vote.

PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080622/pl_nm/usa_politics_evangelicals_dc

This Yahoo article is interesting because it makes me realize that the older conservative Christian Right has controlled the image of Evangelical Christians for decades and to this day they maintain that control. How true is their assertion that they represent the majority? How much of their conservative rhetoric really lies at the heart of those who would identify as the Right?

Perhaps it is a sign of the times that the majority of Gen X and younger people are so dissatisfied with the archaic political practices represented by the majority parties that many people on either side of the political line are identifying as independents. Perhaps it is a sign of our distrust and apathy for the older constructions that have kept us locked in a system where we are so easily controlled by the major corporations and money groups that own our leaders. Whatever the origin, young people with conservative views of big social issues such as gay marriage and abortion are finding themselves in line with progressives on issues like the environment. They identify their faith as being a major part of their political decisions and yet, despite continuing to asset that they represent the majority of religious conservatives, the Republican Party is starting to see an exodus of their younger conservative base over issues that they can't address due to their lack of ability to divorce themselves from big money.

TRY TO COUNTER THESE STATEMENT

I think the video explains itself, but most important, I think that general policy discussions and the positions of our current regime over the last eight years absolutely affirm these statements, or at least it doesn't offer evidence to refute them.

BIG OIL AND THE REPUBLICANS THAT LOVE THEM

Check out the Yahoo! article today about the Republicans in the Senate blocking legislation to impose a windfall profit tax on the oil industry. This windfall tax imposes a tax when the industry acquires suspiciously high profits for the market price of its product.

The oil industry reported a record setting $40 billion in profits this last year despite the skyrocketting prices at the gas pump and the insistence that it was coming from the price and availability of crude. The prices per barrel aren't going up in comparison to some shrinking demand, however, they're going up in comparison to the weakening US dollar.

Republicans argue that it would cause the lessening of domestic production and an increase in imports. We already import more than 2/3rds of our oil, what's the difference? They also blocked the passage of further tax breaks on alternative energy industries. Why? Because someone called them up and told them to hold on a little longer until they buy their next house in Spain before they impose an extra tax.

My proposal is this: We sued the tobacco industry for the long-term effects of their cigarettes, it's time to sue the major oil companies so that we can all benefit from a lowered fuel price. We are slowly being crippled by some of the most flagrant corporate manipulation of the market and control of the government, so much so that now that we are finally aware of how bad it's getting, it is already too late for millions to lose their jobs and homes, for our food costs to get too high to be able to eat, and for our "great nation" to be crushed under the stupidity of leaders owned by a corrupt industry.

The article is at:
http://http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080610/ap_on_go_co/congress_oil_profits

BUSH CAMPAIGNING FOR MCCAIN

The half-whit is hitting the fundraising trail for the AZ senator, which is funny as they were rivals a decade ago. I wonder what he can say aside from keeping the White House in Republican hands, anything else would point out that we probably would have been better with a McCain presidency than a Bush presidency. As a matter of policy the AZ senator will uphold the same military policy as the idiot, so what will make a McCain presidency any different from a third Bush term, something that Bush is basing his campaign strategies on.

I hope that Bush continues to campaign for McCain, and does so visibly so as to turn off conservative voters. This is critical to cause the country to realize its failure to envision and protect its own prosperity and future development. We cannot continue to operate under the assumption that there is the possibility of infinite expansion, as past imperialism led us to believe. That will be a danger as we move into the future and nations such as China, which have enormous growth potential, have already invaded and secured large portions of our own consumer markets.

All of these things are up for change in this election, but its our responsibility to realize exactly how much corporate interests and money are going to be filtered into the Republican campaign, and how much influence, or ownership, it'll have over our future president. McCain is the candidate of corporations, including those owned partly or wholly by foreign powers. If we don't want China and other countries who already work against our best interests owning our president, it's important for people to realize that voting for McCain is voting for George Bush's shadow.

ANN COULTER IS A FILTHY HYPOCRITE AND WHORE FOR THE RADICAL RIGHT

First and foremost I want to present my opinion in a way that is succinct, clear, and intellectually valid. Ann Coulter is a filthy hypocrite because she takes advantage of every opportunity she has had as a wealthy well-educated woman in the US and turns it into a contradictory, self-righteous shock pundit who panders to the conservative extremists she identifies with. Her opinions are based on broad and outdated generalities, and she puts to use all of the progress made by women to gain access to education, equal representation and civil rights while bearing none of the responsibilities for helping to uphold those rights and freedoms. She's an educated woman who does nothing to advance the discourse on women's rights here in the US or around the world and instead occupies the office of the angry golden daughter of the radical conservatives.

Also: while she demands attention for her ideas and expects to be taken seriously as a political pundit, when she appears on television she is often dressed in tight, revealing outfits with makeup and hair that looks like she just got home from the party, at 7am. Basically she dresses like a whore when she goes on television in an attempt, I can only assume, to sex up the image of her radical politics, and or give it an image of hip and sophisticated modernism. Her image is one of when she isn't on her back for the white men of the Republican Party, she's backing them up in the bar fight.