One of the more disturbing trends in U.S. politics that has arisen with the 'Tea Party' movement is the resurgence of angry anti-intellctualism.
'"Anti-intellectualism' has always been a character of the American political and cultural discourse ... at various times more or less vocal and/or influential. It can be offered that from the launch of Sputnik through the advent of personal computers that respect for science, technology and intellectual exploration was well accepted in everyday life in the nation. Notably, however, the rise in disdain for the results of scientific endeavors and what they mean began during the Reagan years (remember James Watt and the rise of the 'Christian right') and has proceeded apace as economic stress grow for the working/middle class.
To our great damage ... debating climate change, casting aspersions upon scientific outcomes, charging that 'leftwing' politics determines what science does, etc., have seriously diverted us from addressing difficult problems.
We are now confronted with this news:
An instrument near the summit of Mauna Loa in Hawaii has recorded a long-awaited climate milestone: the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere there has exceeded 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in 55 years of measurement—and probably more than 3 million years of Earth history.
(National Geographic-May 9, 2013)
In the final analysis, no matter how much money the Koch brothers or certain oil-energy corporations direct into political 'denier' committees and no matter how ofter Fox 'News' catapults the propaganda that climate science it just a communist plot, the truth and the facts are the reality that human beings on this planet will have to live with.
First, a link to a simple, direct and easily comprehensible article that takes the climate change deniers on:
The degeneracy of the Bush-Cheney presidential administration continues to haunt the United States of America.
Bush-Cheney condoned and approved of torture of detainees and prisoners-of-war during its supervision of the 'war on terror' and the two wars they conducted in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Constitution Project released a report on Monday that concludes that Bush-Cheney defied the Geneva Conventions and participated in war crimes. "The Constitution Project is a non-profit think tank in the United States that builds bipartisan consensus on significant constitutional and legal questions." (Wikipedia) Indeed, the Constitution Project's task force that issued this report was led by two former Congressmen, James Jones, Democrat of Oklahoma and Asa Hutchinson, Republican of Arkansas (who just last month presented the NRA's guns-in-the-schools plan).
From the New York Times news report:
A nonpartisan, independent review of interrogation and detention programs in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks concludes that “it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture” and that the nation’s highest officials bore ultimate responsibility for it. ...
The use of torture, the report concludes, has “no justification” and “damaged the standing of our nation, reduced our capacity to convey moral censure when necessary and potentially increased the danger to U.S. military personnel taken captive.” The task force found “no firm or persuasive evidence” that these interrogation methods produced valuable information that could not have been obtained by other means. While “a person subjected to torture might well divulge useful information,” much of the information obtained by force was not reliable, the report says. ...
While the Constitution Project report covers mainly the Bush years, it is critical of some Obama administration policies, especially what it calls excessive secrecy. It says that keeping the details of rendition and torture from the public “cannot continue to be justified on the basis of national security” and urges the administration to stop citing state secrets to block lawsuits by former detainees. ...
To President Obama's everlasting detriment, he and his administration have refused to prosecute or otherwise hold accountable those who sanctioned these war crimes during the Bush-Cheney years. This ultimately means, of course, that future presidents will see lack of consequences as license to again institute torture ... in my estimation, this along with Obama's refusal to prosecute the banksters is historically unforgivable.
As inadequate as the Obama administration is, there is no denying the baseline shame, irresponsibility, corruption and dreadfulness of the federal executive administration of George W. Bush and Richard Bruce Cheney, to wit:
the unconstitutional Supreme Court awarding of the 2000 election to Bush
leaving the U.S. unprotected on September 11, 2001
failure to competently conduct the war in Afghanistan allowing bin Laden to escape
manipulating intelligence and propagandizing the American people on Iraq
deceiving and lying to the American people and the world on non-existent Iraqi weapons-of-mass-destruction
ordering an unprovoked attack and invasion on the sovereign nation of Iraq
offering no plan to pay for (except through deficit spending) the 'war on terror' and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
supervision of the torture and abuses at Abu Graib prison in Iraq
sanctioning torture
the disappearance of billions of U.S. dollars in Iraq
the 'outing' of a CIA operative for political reasons
doubling the federal debt
warrantless spying and wiretapping in contravention of the Fourth Amendment
the list could go on and on ...
It is tempting to say as does the Obama administration that we must move forward and leave the past in the past ... but in reply, though the sentiment expressed is almost hackneyed these days, one cannot help but hear the echoes of the warning of American philosopher George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
For the future of this nation, since there will apparently not be a legal, formal prosecution of Bush, Cheney and their accomplices for their crimes -- especially by the hapless Obama administration -- it is up to us, the people of the United States, to continue our moral opprobrium and condemnation of torture and those of our 'leaders' who approved it.
Here is the hour long presentation and Q&A of the Constitution Project's 'Report on Detainee Treatment'.
George W. Bush and Richard Bruce Cheney never fooled me for an instant. Maybe because I grew up in Wyoming, was active in politics and knew a little about Cheney.
As we all know, within moments of the tragedy of September 11, 2001, neoconservative ideologues within the Bush administration were putting into operation their long desired schemes for the United States to go to war with Iraq.
By the end of December 2001, with the failure of the U.S. military to achieve its primary objective in the Battle of Tora Bora (the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden), Bush/Cheney were already beginning the process of downgrading the U.S. effort in Afghanistan and concocting their case against Iraq.
The Bush/Cheney case for war was an al Qaida-Iraqi connection and the fear of Iraq with Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Ultimately, there wasn't any connection between the government of Saddam Hussein and al Qaida and there weren't any WMD stockpiles or programs in Iraq. Importantly, we knew those things before Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq ten years ago. Still gripped in the aftermath of the 9/11 horrors, the corporate news media and many establishment Democrats assisted Bush/Cheney in their propaganda warmongering.
Never forget, the urgent casus belli for Bush/Cheney was the imminent threat of Iraq's WMD. By January 2003, from the UN weapons inspectors (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, we knew officially that Iraq was not a WMD threat. But since the beginning of the neocon drumbeat for war, reporting and research had made it obvious to those who really wanted the truth that Bush/Cheney were deceiving and lying to justify an unprovoked attack, invasion and occupation of the sovereign state of Iraq.
I personally felt so indignant and such disgruntlement that my country would even consider being a belligerent aggressor in the face of clear truths, that I followed the courage of my convictions and ran in 2002 as the Colorado Green Party's candidate for Congress in the 7th district so that the people might at least have a choice if they so desired not to vote for either the pro-war Republican or the pro-war Democrat.
Ten years ago many of those who now like to call themselves part of the so-called Tea Party were eager and bellicose cheerleaders for war.
It has now been a decade since the start of the war that directly and consequentially cost the lives of over 5,000 troops and wounded tens of thousands more; took the lives of and/or maimed several hundred thousand Iraqis; and will ultimately cost the United States as much as $6 trillion (all borrowed since Bush never sought to pay for this misadventure). All those precious lives and treasure lost because of Bush/Cheney deceit and lies -- a shameful episode in the history of the United States.
If you can bear it, read the letter below from a dying veteran to Bush and Cheney to understand that the outcome of the Iraq War has indeed been a true foreign policy calamity ... no, removing Saddam Hussein from power was not "worth it."
In the lengthening shadows of history what may even be more shameful for this country than the despicable act of our 'leaders' misleading the nation into an unnecessary war of aggression is that our democratic-republic has been incapable of holding accountable and responsible the individuals and institutions that perpetrated this strategic disaster. In my estimation, it will be the sorriest legacy of the Obama presidency that he refused to prosecute or otherwise hold accountable those in the Bush administration the perpetrated and/or participated in what may have been legally definitional war crimes. The consequences of President Barack Obama's inaction will certainly result in the political equivalent of 'moral hazard' ... indeed, Obama's war by drones is indicative of what happens when power is unchecked and malfeasance is unpunished.
It is up to us, therefore, the citizens of this republic to cast unrelenting, critical opprobrium upon Bush and Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice, their neocon supporters and the pusillanimous Democrats who enabled them --- if we are to stop the next 'war of choice' and restore a semblance of credibility to the most important decision this or any government ever makes: war or peace.
Upon this tenth anniversary of the beginning of the Bush ordered, unprovoked attack, invasion and occupation of Iraq, we must never forget and vow to never again let ourselves be willingly or unwillingly deceived about an action that costs so very many lives.
Find here links to essays and articles that expand upon the solemnity of this sad observance of the start of the Iraq War.
A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran
To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young
I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.
I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.
I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.
Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.
I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.
I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.
I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.
My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.
Because it is not a federal election year, the wagging fingers of blame are not generating similar gales of rhetoric as the last time we had a spike in the price per gallon.
But the accusations are still there ... too much regulation of energy exploration; anti-drilling attitudes in government and among 'environmentalist'; the affects of the global warming 'hoax'; energy company greed and manipulation; OPEC greed and manipulation; etc.
Okay. Fine.
Most of these charges are political distractions ... not far beneath the surface they are the plaintive wails of denial of our real energy situation and a forlorn appeal to somehow bring back a time that has clearly passed.
The evidence of the end of cheap, easy to find and easy to produce petroleum and natural gas are right in front of everyone's eyes -- if they will but look.
The high profile of the debates and discussions over 'fracking' for shale oil (tight oil) and natural gas, the controversy over the Keystone XL pipeline for transporting tar sands liquified bitumen from Alberta to the U.S. gulf coast, and off-shore deep water drilling could not make it more unmistakeable that the era of unconventional fossil fuels is upon us.
What this means is that we are emerging firmly into the generation of $100-plus per barrel petroleum and gyrating natural gas prices.
It's simple: it costs more to frack; it is expensive to mine, process, transport and refine tar sands bitumen; it is pricey to float drilling platforms two miles above the ocean bottom; it is not cheap to drill in the Arctic ... and, of course, there is also the depletion of the conventional 'elephant' oil fields in the Middle East, North Sea and Russia, and there is hot competition for product from India and China.
Or we can put it this way, financially the price of a barrel of oil has to be enough to make it worthwhile to produce, sell and make a profit.
And then ... there is the EROEI factor, or 'Energy Returned on Energy Invested' (sometimes just EROI: Energy Returned on Investment).
This consideration cannot be overemphasized -- it takes energy to get petroleum and natural gas and coal and uranium and wood and wind and sunlight, etc., into a form where it can be utilized. Especially with unconventional oil there are diminishing returns on the EROEI scale.
Last year Chris Nelder wrote this brief explanation of a very important topic that is key to understanding our present energy predicament: 'What EROI tells us about ROI'. Look at the graph -- in addition to the environmental damage the Alberta mining operation does to the earth, tar sands is ultimately a loser. The Keystone XL pipeline is simply not in the best interests of Canada (why they aren't letting it be built to their west coast?), the U.S. or planet.
And then there is the current mania over natural gas. Even Pres. Obama is in on the act proclaiming in this year's State of the Union speech that "We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years ..."
This web site and a lot of other folks (but a distinct minority) warned of the housing bubble and the derivatives schemes that became the Crash of 2008. I'm advising to keep a close watch on all this hype about 'fracking' and natural gas abundance -- it has the earmarks of a bubble. As noted by Steve Horn:
Together, the reports conclude that the hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") boom could lead to a "bubble burst" akin to the housing bubble burst of 2008.
... So, where does that leave the working stiffs who heat their homes with natural gas, the utilities who burn it to make electricity, and the chemical manufacturers who use it as a feedstock for many chemicals including nitrogen fertilizer? They all face an uncertain future in which natural gas prices are likely to rise significantly, perhaps even returning to the double-digit nosebleed levels of 2008 before gun-shy investors and drillers will dare to take the necessary steps to bring on significant new supply.
... Petroleum geologist Jeffrey Brown of Export Land Model fame offered a startling response in a conversation at a recent conference I attended. The production decline rates of the shale gas wells that are providing the bulk of new U.S. supplies are so high—60 percent in the first year and up to 85 percent by the end of the second year -— that we may never be able to return to today’s production level.
Despite these warnings and even in the face of this valuable information that is available for anyone and everyone to see if they so desire, there is an almost stubborn insistence among too many Americans that the solution to our energy problems is not a matter of science or basic economics, but is instead just about politics.There was a time when the United States was proud of the influence the Enlightenment and reason had upon the American Revolution and our founding documents; there was a time not even fifty years ago when this country excelled and was touted for its scientific endeavors such as the space program and medical research. In recent years, however, reactionary, corporatized politics and the crushing dogmatism of the Christian religious right have sought to undercut American intellectualism and bold scientific progress. It is a sign of cultural, historical decline and looming chaos that in the United States in the early 21st century facts and science are so often cast as bias, untrustworthy and strictly political (usually 'socialist').
Indeed, the dysfunction of our political system has actually made efforts to deal societally and governmentally with our fossil fuel dependence and global climate change woefully, perhaps disastrously, inadequate. Too many Americans are indeed clutching onto a comfort zone that is narrowing ever more because of the greed of mega-transnational corporations, banking interests and the politicians they 'own'; too many are yet in denial about geological and atmospheric realities hovering over us ... economic changes are surely eating away at our once prosperous middle class lifestyle and causing sometimes irrational and angry resistance to forces that seemingly cannot be controlled.
So, we can act individually and attempt to persuade others to proceed with appropriate decisions that will deal realistically with the difficult quandaries that face us -- perhaps this avenue of behavior will hasten the cultural, economic, environmental and governmental changes that we need, but time is quickly running out.
The internet and your local library are a tremendous resources for information and ideas on how to shift methods of living for a world of expensive gasoline and electricity, and for a planet already in the phase of man-made global warming. (I just have to note ... that anthropogenic climate change is reality is demonstrated as common sensical by this simple rhetorical question: how can human beings in less than a 150 years burn-up at least half of the solar energy stored in a hundred million years of hydrocarbon 'fuels' and not expect that our actions would have a major effect on the planet's climate?)
I recommend these books for a full overview and exposition on why and where we are today:
This evening is the 'State of the Union' speech delivered by Presidents of the United States as required by the Constitution.
I don't watch these much anymore.
The 'State of the Union Speech' (SOTUS) is another event that especially the corporate media have ruined. Although the politicians regardless of party also seem to revel in the over-the-top pageantry of the affair.
These are the kinds of things that have led to the degeneration of the State of the Union Speech: the 'pre-speech' blather that is more like the hours of pre-Super Bowl commentary; who shakes the President's hand as he walks down the aisle; who will be there, who will not; who will applaud, who will not applaud; who will sit with whom; who will be most likely to cat call this year; who will be the 'guest star' sitting with the First Lady; who will be the other 'guest stars' in the gallery; how does the President look; what is the first Lady wearing ... on and on.
Frankly, even the President's speech is an exercise in avoidance of the real problems we are facing -- because to tell the truth would be to face accusations of being negative or too critical of the greatest nation that ever existed on this or any other planet.
So, nothing much will be learned from this evening's display of federal pomp and splendor. Because ... what we will hear from this President (just as we did from Bush) are excuses and rationalizations for the 'State of the Illusion' that they want us to accept.
The illusion is what you will hear: that though we have problems, somehow with the right programs or policies, we can get back on track and be prosperous and powerful just like we were in the 1990s or the 1960s or the 1950s.
Now, here is the truth: the game is over. There are many places to look to see where and how the way of life that we thought would never end is over, but I'm going to focus just briefly on and provide links to information and analysis about the reality of our energy and environment situation.
Second, here in eight paragraphs are James Howard Kunslter's essay on the SOTUS and our present predicament: State of the Union (February 11, 2013).
Next, an excellent article by Michael T. Klare about the importance of the Keystone pipeline. I include this as a marker for Pres. Obama's speech this evening. The President in his Inaugural speech alluded to the seriousness of addressing global climate change. We will soon know if this is politics or if Obama is willing to actually practice what he appears to be preaching. Either tonight (or by this coming June) we will learn whether or not he is approving or disapproving the construction of this pipeline that would carry tars sands sludge from Alberta, Canada to the U.S. gulf coast.
The Keystone pipeline is an environmental disaster -- not just so much for the dangers it may pose to the land and water over which it would run -- but because of the impact of the activity that produces the gloop oozing through the continental conduit.
Obama will give construction on the Keystone XL a definitive thumbs up or thumbs down, and the decision he makes could prove far more important than anyone imagines -- here's why.
Finally, here is an article that exposes one of the most loved illusions that Americans so fervently want to believe: that there is a renewed abundance of fossil fuels -- in this article, natural gas -- that will shortly bring a return to those halcyon days of unlimited affluence and white middle class dominance over the world.
The 'powers that be' ... on display tonight, Republicans and Democrats, are deceiving you. They are not telling you the truth because there is still a lot of profit to be wrung out of the American middle class, and a lot more control over your economic existence that they want to institutionalize -- before too many folks get wise to them and finally threaten revolution.
The 'State of the Illusion' ... on a television or computer screen tonight.
Here are links to more articles that further describe the 'end of growth' and the precariousness of our current circumstances. Knowledge is power; to understand is to be prepared and to survive.
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