An Inconvenient Truth: a lot of hot air bursts my bubble

[s0ma]

[music|jesus and mary chain/ the darklands]

Al Gore's new documentary about Global Warming is an ozone-thin-veiled ad for his next presidential campaign. However, this doesn't unnerve me as i believe once a politician, always a politician at the core. What makes this propaganda inadmissible as a minor laughable party-piece is that it directs many

Comments

[greendroll]

I thought your rant was a good one, but you lapsed a bit towards the end. The planet has warmed before and it will warm again, just as it will certainly cool again as it has in the past. Just as there is no demonstrated connection to the alleged warming of the planet (could be happening, or not, or maybe, no one knows) and human activity of any sort, linking it to capitalism is a stretch. On the whole planet there isn't a true capitalist country, the US and Canada are much closer to socialism or fascism as an economic system than they are to capitalism. Remember that the term fascism, while commonly used to describe unsavory political systems, is also an economic one, referring to a system where industry is privately owned, but government controlled. As opposed to socialism where industry is the property of the state.

The idea that money withheld had anything to do with the destruction in NO is a 180 degree error; it was the opposite. The flood of federal money that subsidized the construction of mass housing in areas well below sea level, and the misappropriation of many millions in federal funds that were supposed to be spent on the delta levee and canal systems, are not evils of capitalism. The problem was human greed and dishonesty. If the need to create voting blocks didn't require the massing of populations in unsuitable areas, no housing would of been built there at all. If politicians in LA were more accountable, they would of had a harder time stealing and miss-directing the money.

Another issue is the government allowing the construction of high density housing, not just below sea level in the New Orleans area, but wall to wall from the Texas/Mexican border to Maine on the oceanfront. When Camille blew through in the sixties, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi all had zoning restrictions that didn't allow expensive properties to be built on the shoreline except in port areas where it was inevitable. Camille still caused massive devastation. If another Camille takes place (and of course one will sooner or later) the loss of property alone will be in the trillions of dollars.

There is little capitalistic about the diversion of federal money to the benefit of a state or city. The Mississippi Port system, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the Panama Canal are examples of proper federal spending. Giving federal money to a state to provide housing is simply redistribution of wealth, and the inevitable result of redistribution of wealth is the elimination of wealth, and the expansion of poverty. This is socialism, not capitalism.

And Al Gore is just as creepy now as he was when he lost the 2000 election. Anyone willing to propagandize an ill-informed electorate to the extent he has. can not be trusted.

[s0ma]

I suppose i never learned the correct definitions for Capitalism and Fascism before i fucked out of school. What i was trying to say was that concerns about Global Warming usually are perpetuated by ulterior agendas held by individual silly people who want power and/or money. Our system of economics, whatever you label it, allows for this to replicate and in fact seems unstoppable, as it has grown to be a monster with a life of its own. I don't have the knowledge to describe this in exact or appropriate language, but i know innately how it works.

I didn't know that about New Orleans. At the time it happened i only remember watching newscasts with people blaming the federal government for lack of funding. Perhaps those people were city politicians covering up. But i also think "greed and dishonesty" is too broad of stroke with which to label them.

Your comment has encouraged my thinking more generally about the fallacy of democracy (and i don't know how this fits into "socialism"). A huge problem is that politicians need votes from the public, regardless of their good or bad intentions. In order to get people's votes and remain in power in order accomplish such (good or bad) aspirations they are often pressed to please in a round-about manner. If a misled populace is set on inappropriate housing, what should be done?

[greendroll]

'A huge problem is that politicians need votes from the public, regardless of their good or bad intentions. In order to get people's votes and remain in power in order accomplish such (good or bad) aspirations they are often pressed to please in a round-about manner. If a misled populace is set on inappropriate housing, what should be done?'

That is a well stated problem and question. One reason the American Government is not a democracy (it is a Federal Republic) is to hold the representatives of the people accountable to two other branches of government and to allow for their removal (quickly in the House, slower in the Senate) when they stray too far from the common good. The problem you describe (vote buying from the largest voting block) has come to dominate modern politics because the government has stepped in to roles it has no legal standing to perform. The taxing of the working population to give politicians money to provide programs for people that were not taxed to receive the programs is why America separated from England in the first place. The existence of Federally funded public housing to use just one of many examples, would cause any of the founding fathers to not recognize the government they created.
The Louisiana problem is a city and state government whose primary function was to receive the rest of the countries' money and distribute it to their supporters and cronies. You will not hear the Governor of Louisiana or the Mayor of New Orleans complain too much about FEMA as they are passing out the billions of dollars it has provided for their use in re-building their political base (I mean State and City).