O
ne of the frustrating thing about Bacon’s Rebellion is how quickly important discussions decompose to the usual dogmatic lines of the AEI or Cato Institute or what Glenn Beck or some other conservative radio jokey just said.
A case in point is global warming.
This red flag issue immediately draws skeptics who claim it is not a problem or that it is a fraud proven by some nefarious and obscure emails among scientists involving East Anglia University. I have yet to see the emails and the supposed evidence of fraud (Groveton, I am still waiting).
Or if you talk about how not all of Corporate America believes that carbon capping is a superfluous expense demanded by Greeniacs and note that some top CEOs see the need for restricting carbon dioxide, dear ‘ole Jim Bacon trots out his latest, favorite wonk word and paints them as “rent seeking.”
This is a short post and I’ll get to it. I want to share with you two things.
First, in The New York Review of Books, is a speech by Paul Volcker, the guy who pounded the silver nail into the heart of inflation back in the 1980s when he was Fed chief. He writes:
“Restoring our fiscal position, dealing with Social Security and health care obligations in a responsible way, sorting out a reasonable approach toward limiting carbon emissions, and producing domestic energy without unacceptable environmental risks all take time. We’d better get started. That will require a greater sense of common purpose and political consensus than has been evident in Washington or the country at large”
Or take this Bloomberg Businessweek profile of James E. Rogers, CEO of utility Duke Energy:
“We’re the third-largest emitter of CO2 among corporations in American because we generate 70 percent of our electricity at 20-coal-fired plants.”
My point is that BR needs to raise the level of debate to what these guys are saying. We can’t be Sarah Palin-ing each other with East Anglia, which hasn’t changed global scientific consensus about the dangers of global warming one iota. And we need to get beyond the political antics of Ken “the Cooch” Cuccinelli is obviously plays in a lesser league than the likes of the two men I have quoted.
The politics of division are the result of the new “Party of No” — the GOP which seems intent on smashing everything to wing a comeback in Congress this fall. The other divisions are the hard right and the Tea Baggers who somehow can’t get over the idea that an African-American is president. And when they complain about the “gov’mint” taking over private industry, they neatly forget that the companies ASKED to be taken over and that it was a REPUBLICAN, George. W. Bush, who did it. They also don’t understand that in most advanced countries, temporary government bailouts or takeovers do occur, are necessary and are temporary.
Too bad, my message will fall on deaf ears. Let the rent-seeking begin!
Peter Galuszka