“Whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, the people, if well informed, may be relied on to set them to rights.” -- Thomas Jefferson
“In our country, learned ignorance is on the rise.” – Paul Krugman
The misinformation disseminated by right wing radio, television, and internet platforms is massive. In 2009 it was well underway. My letters and documentary presentations at the local library were my naive attempts to educate. The following letter had two critical purposes: emphasize the mind-control the Right has over its supporters and infer that ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS were attempting to be neutral more than being accurately critical in their presentation of the news.
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“Woof Blitzer here for Mainstream Media Corporation. We have in the studio representatives of two conflicting points of view regarding existing conditions on George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
“Paul Klugman, noted Nobel Prize winning economist, what say you about what has happened on the farm?”
“Well, Woof, the animals expelled their owner, Farmer Jones, and set up an economic system where the pigs exploit the rest of the farm animals worse than Jones did.”
“Sheep #23, what do you have to say about this allegation?”
“Four legs good, two legs bad! Four legs good, two legs bad!”
“Professor Klugman, what sources of energy are being used on the farm?”
“Physical labor. Horses work until they drop and then get sent to the ‘glue factory.’ They need to develop wind and solar power.”
“Sheep #23, what is your solution?”
“Drill here, drill now! Drill here, drill now!”
“Professor, you alleged that workers’ health is regarded as unimportant.”
“Yes, Woof. Every animal should be guaranteed equal health care benefits paid for out of the profits of the farm. What’s more, I believe …”
“Rationing! Rationing! Socialism! Just say ‘no!’ Just say ‘no!’”
“Well, there you have it. An even-handed, in-depth analysis of a very complicated situation. This is Woof Blitzer signing off. Remember, if it isn’t MMC, it isn’t news.”
Printed August 28, 2009, in The World
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Of course, the true believers have their letter writers. I tried to answer three of them with this letter.
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Three Republican letter writers sounded off August 26: Susan Berman about the specter of socialism, Martin Cable with a kitchen sink list of health care scare complaints, and Jimmie L. Moe about liberal “scams” perpetrated on the public.
Berman: “This country (even the Democrats) prefer liberty and freedom over socialism, which not only will dictate their health care but will be involved in their bank accounts.” [my response] Conservatives always invoke liberty and the threat of economic ruin to convince the unwashed masses that their freedom to be exploited by soulless corporations should not be interfered with by a protective government.
Cable: “Health care will not get cheaper until you get the government regulations off the insurance companies, the drug companies and the doctors.” [my response] Indeed, remove all these non-existent regulations and these abused insurance companies will cut CEO pay, cover all applicants, uncap and pay all medical expenses, and reduce insurance premiums.
Moe: Global warming scam, oil shortage scam, sugar scam, contaminated groundwater scam. “Is the next scam going to be health insurance?” [my response] Waitressing single moms supporting young children and 55-year-old couples losing life savings because of serious illness and dropped coverage must not be tricked into believing that health care is a humanitarian right! To be forewarned is to be forearmed! Unfettered capitalism is our deliverance. Government, stay back. Maintain the status-quo. All engines, full speed dead ahead.
Printed September 2, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
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I asked Florence Area Democratic Club members if anyone would submit the following letter in their name to the local paper. One person did. Here is the letter.
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R. Giannola (Letters, Sept. 23) asserted that Democratic Party House and Senate members voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act in greater numbers than Republican Party members. Therefore, Democrats today do not have just cause to criticize Republicans as being “racist.”
Wikipedia confirms the accuracy of Mr. Giannola’s numbers. What Giannola did not mention is that virtually all of the Democratic representatives and senators that voted against the Civil Rights Act were from the former Confederate states. The granting of civil rights protections to African-Americans caused most of these Southern Democrats to become Republicans. Long-time segregationist Republican Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, originally a Democrat, was a famous example.
Also in need of correction: Mr. Giannola listed Richard Nixon as a notable Republican that voted for the Act. Nixon ceased being a senator in 1952. In 1964 he held no public office.
Racial animosity remains strongest in our Southern states. It is where we find the preponderance of Republican Party office holders and President Obama’s fiercest critics.
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The club member added the following to the end of the letter: “When all think alike, no one thinks very much.”
Printed September 26, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
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Here in the following letter are what clear-eyed, knowledgeable commentators have said that support Paul Krugman’s “learned ignorance” statement and at the end what I fancy regular Fox News watchers probably believe.
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“The American public is intolerant, and too many know little more than what they are told by talk radio, which means that they haven’t a clue as to what really is going on in the world.” – William Pfaff
“This decline in civility, the emergence of mob behavior and the utter blurring in the media between a truth and a lie suggest … that we have become one of the most illiterate nations on the planet.” -- Henry A. Giroux
If “tea party” protesters’ signs accurately revealed what their holders (one would hope, unwittingly) believed/supported, we would be reading the following:
Facts Lie; Rush Knows
Medicare, Yes; Socialism, No
Preserve Corporate Greed
Nuke Muslims, Torture ACORN
War and Tax Cuts, Yes; Health Care, No!
Boot Straps! Boot Straps! What’s Mine Is Mine!
The Earth Is Cooling
In God and Sean Hannity We Trust
White Male Culture!
Bottom line, Obama’s Black!
I Enable Fascism
Limbaugh and Beck 2012
“A middle class that has lost a decade. Two wars. The Great Recession. Gilded Age inequality. Catastrophic climate change accelerating faster than most predictions. … We are witnessing a harrowing test of our democracy.” – Robert Borosage
Printed September 30, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
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I suppose that the documentaries our club screened in the public library were not attended by my imaginary sign holders or like-minded, deluded Republicans. But you have to try. Here were announcements we put in the Siuslaw News for two upcoming screenings.
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The Florence Area Democratic Club will screen Robert Greenwald’s new documentary, “Rethink Afghanistan,” Sunday, Oct. 11, at 2:00 p.m. in the Siuslaw Public Library’s Bromley Room. Admission is free.
President Obama is re-evaluating our nation’s commitment of waging war in Afghanistan. Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal has recommended a substantial increase in troop deployment. A majority of Americans oppose escalation; many believe we should leave the country.
One side of the political spectrum argues that increased troop involvement is essential.
John McCain: “We need additional troops and the longer we wait and delay the more Americans will be put at risk unnecessarily.”
Condolessa Rice: “If you want another terrorist attack in the United States, abandon Afghanistan.”
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty: “The rule needs to be, when the United States goes to war, the United States wins. … That includes putting more troops into Afghanistan if needed.”
Many print commentators disagree.
Norman Solomon: “The real myth is that this war is about helping people in Afghanistan. I see no appreciable evidence of that.”
Bob Herbert: “If we had a draft – or merely the threat of a draft – we would not be in Iraq or Afghanistan.”
Nicholas Kristof: “A group of former intelligence officials and other experts are now reluctantly going public to warn that more troops would be a historic mistake.”
Ex-CIA agent Ray McGovern: “I’ve seen this Afghanistan movie before. The first time, Vietnam was in the title.”
“Rethink Afghanistan” advocates a major change in current policy. Interviewed September 23 on MSNBC’s The Ed Show, Robert Greenwald made these statements:
“They need jobs, they need schools, they need doctors, they need teachers. We could supply all those things, but we’re not going to supply them and we’re not going to make ourselves safer by going to a military solution.”
“You can argue it’s going to make us less safe by encouraging terrorism and alienating the population.”
“The reality is that al-Qaeda is around the world in different places. … Finding them, hunting them, capturing them: the way you do that is with international co-operation across countries. They don’t stop at a border.”
“The notion that you go in and you occupy a country and then people are going to co-operate with you – it makes no fundamental sense.”
The screening begins promptly at 2:00 p.m. A general discussion will follow.
Press reviews and trailers of the film are available at rethinkafghanistan.com.
Printed October 7, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
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The practice of mountain-top removal coal mining is the subject of the Sierra Club’s 40-minute documentary, “Coal Country.” Hosted by the Florence Area Democratic Club, it will be screened in the Siuslaw Public Library’s Bromley Room Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 6:30 p.m.
Mountaintop removal coal mining blasts apart the tops of mountains to reach thin seams of coal buried below and then, to minimize waste disposal costs, dumps millions of tons of waste rock into the valleys and streams below, causing permanent damage to the ecosystem and landscape. This destructive practice has damaged or destroyed approximately 1,200 miles of streams, disrupted drinking water supplies, flooded communities, and damaged homes.
Investigating whether the benefits of mountain-top removal justify its particular damage, “Coal Country” probes the dilemma faced by Appalachian coal miners and their family members – work, leave, stay and die early. The film touches upon other deleterious coal energy outcomes: water pollution -- caused by coal preparation slurry, stored in large waste pits, leaking into local water supplies and mercury raining down into streams and lakes; carbon dioxide – 40 percent of our nation’s entire CO2 emissions; dust, soot, smog, arsenic, and lead.
Because the coal industry is presently lobbying the federal government for permits to build new coal-fired power plants and it expects to be excluded from newly legislated pollution regulations, the general public should understand better the particulars of whether coal should continue to be one of America’s major energy sources.
View the trailer of this documentary at www.coalcountrythemovie.com/trailer_page.html.
Printed November 4, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
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I had the paper print another announcement three days before the screening.
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“When the strategic interest of the nation and the world is so clear, can a few gluttons with a few bucks really drive our policy? Does this great nation not have better leadership than that?” -- Climate Scientist Jim Hansen
Given what we have seen regarding health care reform bills and the absence of meaningful regulation of financial institutions, the answers appear to be “yes” and “no.” Author/Environmentalist Bill McKibbon puts things succinctly. “The most carbon we can safely have in the atmosphere is 350 parts per million. … We’re already … at 390 parts per million. The bill making its way through Congress explicitly aims for a world with 450 parts per million carbon.”
One corporate glutton is the coal industry. Coal provides about half of our country’s electricity. Its power plants account for 40% of the nation’s carbon dioxide, about 2/3 of its sulfur dioxide, 22% of its nitrogen oxides, and roughly a third of its mercury pollution. Nearly 40% of Oregon’s power comes from coal.
Health consequences are enormous.
“We are going to have to phase out emissions from coal in the next 20 years,” writes Dr. Hansen. Bill McKibbon has pushed for an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050.
Power plant emissions is the second villain of coal’s terrible story. Extraction of coal also wrecks havoc. “President Obama should go to Appalachia and see mountain top removal,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has written. “When will the Obama administration stop this Appalachian apocalypse?”
When grass roots pressure forces him to.
We start with public awareness. See for yourself mountain-top removal and its detrimental effects on the Appalachian populace by viewing the 40-minute documentary, “Coal Country,” which the Florence Area Democratic Club will screen in the Siuslaw Public Library’s Bromley Room Tuesday, November 10, at 6:30 p.m. Statistics and factual statements instruct. Images and spoken testimony touch the heart.
Printed November 7, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
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