Thursday, August 11, 2005

The Green, Green Grass of the Kolkhoz

"G Dawg" is still batting 1000. This time, writing for the Adam Smith Institute’s online journal.

Discussing the greenie blame game, he points out that rational metrics which for political and personal reasons, activists like to bury in the small print, show that the US is a lower emitter of pollutants per person, per unit of GDP and per unit of productivity that virtually every nation state in Europe, and that doesn't even take into account the factor of carbon absorption and conversion to oxygen.

« It seems that for many in the environmental movement, the actual defense of Gaia has taken a back seat to a more important objective; specifically, to attack the capitalist economic system in general, and, in particular, its American exemplar.

With regard to air pollution, the US ranks 114th in the world (first being the worst) with respect to urban sulphur dioxide concentration (the UK figure is about 33% higher), 63rd in ozone-depleting CFC consumption, 45th in urban NO2 concentration, and 13th in NOx emissions per unit of populated land area (the UK value is more than twice as high).

Of course, the greatest concern at present has to do with emissions of so called greenhouse gases. Interestingly, according to recent figures from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the US is not the largest per capita offender here, either.»
His thesis is straightforward and persuasive. Ned Ricewriting in National Review Online takes a sharper attitude in pointing out the same disingenuousness found on the left. They are couching their anti-you-name-it ideology inside of contrived issues and ginned up studies and not surprisingly, blaming, say George Bush for (literally) the weather, and this time, the million and first time, it’s even MORE personal:
«It was only a matter of time before this happened: The Left is now blaming President Bush for the weather. Specifically they're claiming that the current heat wave is a result of the global warming President Bush just hasn't done enough to stop. Whereas the consensus in the scientific community seems to be leaning towards an alternate explanation: It's summertime
In other words, the hatred and childishness of these leftist haters leads
them to reduce themselves to peddling lies to an equally duplicitous press, knowing full well that the responsible people in the world will have to live with their endless stream of scarlet letters.
It has gotten to the point where the data they cite as scientific comes from Associated Press anonymous staff writers and Barbra Streisand, who we all know, are “noted scientists”, and not just washed up, B-list nobodies hoping for something to do on a Wednesday afternoon.

Brett Bozell, in his syndicated column points to similar leftist propaganda in the American press for contrived leftist pieties, gin-ups, and false-flag assaults:
« President Bush is spending some vacation time in Crawford, Texas, so the media, predictably, are once again glorifying his left-wing protesters with lavish coverage of their antics, while dutifully refusing to identify them in any way as left wing. Call it covering and covering up. Time and Newsweek both ran pictures of a tiny group holding MoveOn.org signs protesting the John Roberts nomination outside the White House. Neither magazine identified the group as liberals, nor even mentioned MoveOn; you had to squint at the photos to make out the group's name on the protest signs.

Can you imagine the networks ruining the Clinton vacation on Martha's Vineyard by making a big story out of a conservative protester there? I can't, because they didn't. In 1998, a few weeks after Clinton admitted sex with Monica Lewinsky, he went to his first partisan pep rally in Worcester, Mass. ABC and CBS did full stories, and the streets outside the hall were filled with protesters demanding Clinton resign, but ABC and CBS failed to interview them. Only Fox News brought up how a local Democratic city council member, Konstantina Lukes, refused to attend.

Late in the Monday program, they aired another seven minutes of pure propaganda on the "Raging Grannies" of Tucson, Ariz., who muster a whopping 15 to 20 protesters outside a military recruitment center every Wednesday.
What is it with these left-wing grannies, anyway? It was almost exactly like five years ago, when the publicity frenzy was for Doris "Granny D" Haddock, agitating for the liberal cause of "campaign finance reform."
After a syrupy story in which Alexander hailed them as "compassionate," but never described them as harsh or ultraliberal, even as they screeched against the "illegal, immoral war" and yelled, "No blood for oil," Morales interviewed four of the Tucson activists, dressed in stereotypical "granny" garb and praised them for their "witty lyrics" and their status as role models.

NBC never explained the "Raging Grannies" are a project of the local chapter of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, a 90-year-old "peace" group that despises any military spending and opposed even the Cold War. The grannies are loonies who pass out flyers stating that "The Iraq war has everything to do with U.S. controlling access to Middle Eastern Oil," and the war has nothing to do with terrorism, but "everything to do with U.S. world domination." Even so, NBC's [Peter] Alexander supinely claimed, "they say they're fighting for the men and women fighting for them."»
Peace lovers, indeed. Why do their campaigns always seem to lead to further physical and social decay? It seem like each measure the tip of the leftist sword takes has little, if anything to do with the goal itself, but about placing the public’s thoughts and feelings, and the sources of their information in their grasp in spite of the presence of any other view or of facts?

No comments: