Tuesday, September 29th, 2015
Stephan: I know that about 11-12% of my readers are conservatives and probably Republicans. And I know, because they tell me so, that they think I am against the Republican Party. I write everyone who tells me this that they are wrong. My interest is very simple: Social values and the social outcomes those values translated into policies produce. If Republican policies produced life-affirming wellness from the individual to the planetary I would be a passionate Republican. But they don't. Republican policies produce, on the basis of facts, notably inferior social outcomes.
That does not mean I am a passionate Democrat, far from it. Many Democratic policies are little better than their Republican counterparts. To cite but one example I think Bill Clinton's administration was responsible for laying the groundwork for the collapse of 2008. George Bush triggered it, but the Clinton policies put in place the framework to make it happen.
On the issue of climate change, which I consider the most important challenge facing the world in my lifetime, Democrats have been weak and wimpy. But the Republicans. Well, the Republicans have been willfully ignorant and criminally negligent. What is not widely understood is that in this the Republicans are unique as a political organization. Here's the story.
Credit: www.niu.edu
On Tuesday, Jeb Bush proposed to eliminate the Obama administration’s regulation of carbon pollution, and, in keeping with his self-styled goal of “growth at all cost,” proposes to make any further climate regulation essentially impossible. In any other democracy in the world, a Jeb Bush would be an isolated loon, operating outside the major parties, perhaps carrying on at conferences with fellow cranks, but having no prospects of seeing his vision carried out in government. But the United States is different. Here in America, ideas like Bush’s fit comfortably within one of the two major political parties. Indeed, the greatest barrier to Bush claiming his party’s nomination is the quite possibly justified sense that he is too sober and moderate to suit the GOP.
Of all the major conservative parties in the democratic world, the Republican Party stands alone in its denial of the legitimacy of climate science. Indeed, the Republican Party stands alone in its conviction that no national or international […]
This is the propaganda technique of name calling. It is very similar to what the Nazis did with the Jews- marginalizing your opponents. There are people who are not Republicans, including real scientists with peer-reviewed papers, who do not accept the supposedly mainstream account of man-made climate change.
Whoa, thanks for the news flash about propaganda!
“There are people who are not Republicans, including real scientists with peer-reviewed papers, who do not accept the supposedly mainstream account of man-made climate change.”
Yes there are. In fact, there are 3 of them in the entire world. And they are shills for fossil fuel interests. These people are self-marginalizing and their bias’ are obvious for all those not filled with propaganda.