RESPONSE TO A CLIMATE CHANGE DENYING FRIEND

By Ronald T. Fox

NOTE:  An old climate change denying friend forwarded me a statement by a person named Patrick Moore that appeared on conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager's website.  In the statement, Moore expresses skepticism about the validity of climate science.  (See: Patrick Moore on Climate Change). Moore bills himself as a scientist and co-founder of Greenpeace.  Listening to the statement, inspired me to write a response. Please understand, this friend and I have gone back and forth on the global warming question for years. This is just the latest salvo.  I've decided there will be no more.  Have you ever tried arguing with a climate change denier?  I don't need to say more.  Anyway, inspired by the Pope's visit, which my friend panned, I decided to post my response to the friend.  (I'm sending this while on vacation in Switzerland.)

Friend,

I listened to the statement.  Moore doesn’t deny the planet is warming, but since it has also warmed in other centuries, he questions whether the recent spike is a result of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions. OK, call him a climate change skeptic, not a denier. As this view conforms to what you have expressed over the years, I can understand why you forwarded the pronouncement. It’s also your bible, the Wall Street Journal’s position.

 

I won’t attempt to go into the evidence that disputes this position—done that before to no avail (facts don't seem to matter).  Instead I’ll touch on the credibility of Patrick Moore and what’s behind the anti-climate science campaign.

 

OUR WAR AGAINST ISIS: NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE FAILURE

NOTE:  The post below was written by Tom Engelhardt and  published on his web site: TomDispatch.com. I'm posting it on Phronesis because it offers a good update to my five-part series on the rise, military success, and expansion of the Islamic State:

• The Blame Game: Assigning Responsibility for the Rise and Growth of the Islamic State
• The Role of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki in the Rise and Growth of ISIS
• The Role of ISIS Leaders and Fighters in Its Rise and Growth
• The Role of President Obama in the Rise and Growth of ISIS
• Personal Reflections on the ISIS Mess

September 10, 2015

Tom Engelhardt

TOMGRAM: NICK TURSE, NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE FAILURE

Let’s take a moment to consider failure and its options in Washington. The U.S. has been warring with the Islamic State (IS) for more than a year now. The centerpiece of that war has been an ongoing campaign of bombings and air strikes in Syria and Iraq, thousands upon thousands of them.  The military claims that these have resulted in death tolls high enough to stagger any movement. In Iraq, the Obama administration has also launched a major effort, involving at least 3,400 military personnel, to retrain the American-created Iraqi army that essentially collapsed in June 2014. Impending offensives to retake key IS-held cities are regularly announced. In addition, in Syria there is an ongoing $500 million Pentagon effort to find and train a force of “moderate” Syrian rebels to battle IS militants.  Despite such efforts, reports now suggest that the Islamic State is at least as strong now as it was when the U.S. intervened in August 2014.  If anything, from Turkish border areas to al-Anbar Province in Iraq, it has expanded its holdings.  Only recently, its fighters even began to move into the suburbs of Damascus, the Syrian capital.
 

THE LEGACY OF THE HIROSHIMA MYTH

By Ronald T. Fox

NOTE: Part I (Scrutinizing the Hiroshima Myth and Legacy) and Part II (Why Did the U.S. Drop Atomic Bombs on Japan) of my three-part essay on Hiroshima examined distortions of truth surrounding the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These distortions formed a mythology about the bombings that has become deeply embedded in the collective American conscience. Part III, below, explores the legacy of the Hiroshima Myth.

Enduring American allegiance to the Hiroshima Myth—or, conversely, our collective failure to confront its truth—has had a profound impact on the United States, both at home and abroad. Perceiving the atomic bomb as a decisive war-winning weapon led most Americans to embrace it as the essential protector of our nation. To be safe, we needed to stockpile nuclear weapons and be prepared to use them, a belief that would spark a massive nuclear arms race in the ensuing decades. Accepting the Hiroshima Myth meant accepting nuclear weapons as a fact of national and international life.

 

The belief that the bomb killed thousands to save millions imparted a moral righteousness to the bomb that today translates into a collective American numbness to matters of mass destruction, even genocide. Almost anything is permissible if used to “save American lives.” This numbness, along with our belief in American exceptionalism and the decisiveness our military power, helps explain why the US is prone to deploying extensive force and using increasingly destructive weapons against perceived international enemies, however unthreatening they may appear to the reasoned mind.

 

AUGUST 2015 BONEHEAD ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH

 

1. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Donald Trump isn’t the only one saying outrageous things in a quest for headlines. In an apparent attempt to differentiate himself from Jeb Bush and the other GOP hopefuls, Walker said he would be prepared to bomb Iran on his first day in the Oval Office.

 

Speaking to reporters [in Iowa] this month after an appearance at the Family Leader Summit, Walker said the next president will need to be prepared to take aggressive action against Iran, "very possibly" including military strikes, on the day he or she is inaugurated. He went on to say he would not be comfortable with a commander- in-chief unwilling to act aggressively on day one of a new presidency.

 

With our recent war disasters, the Republican thirst for more war is mind-boggling. As absurd as is Walker’s boast, I expect other GOP hopefuls to up his anti. Who will be the first to call for a nuclear strike?

 

JULY 2015 BONEHEAD ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH

1. Rep Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). Like his fellow right-wing colleagues, Issa rarely misses an opportunity to evoke the image of Reagan the Great. In an award-worthy absurdity, Issa has proposed naming U.S. coastal waters after the former president. Issa’s bill would rename the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, which generally extends from three to 200 miles offshore, as the Ronald Wilson Reagan Exclusive Economic Zone, in honor of the man who first said “yeah, all that over there? That’s ours.”

What’s next? Adding Reagan’s head to Mount Rushmore? How about renaming the Hawaiian Islands the Reagan Islands? The real irony here is that most right-wingers despise the policies and actions Reagan undertook as President. No matter, the name works wonders with the uninformed.

 

JUNE 2015 BONEHEAD ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH

1. U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI). Johnson offered this pearl of wisdom for all the working single moms out there:  If she wants to "increase her take-home pay” instead of having yet "another child out of wedlock" to increase her welfare windfall, she should instead "find someone to support her."

Johnson is quick to admit that he stole this incredibly sexist riff from his uber-misogynist Wisconsin colleague, Rep. Glenn Grothman.  Variations of this single mom marrying the government instead of marrying a real man has become a central talking point of Johnson's stump speech as he gears up for his re-election in 2016.

Of course it doesn’t matter to Johnson and Grothman that there is no evidence to support the claim that a single mom working below the poverty line would intentionally have another child to get healthcare, food stamps and other forms of government assistance to, as Johnson put it, “increase your take-home pay.” As most people, and especially the poor, know, government assistance does not come close to covering the cost of having, feeding, clothing, and supporting another child. Moreover, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act limits how long a woman can stay on welfare. It is outrageous that the false and stigmatizing “welfare queen” label persists and continues to shape public perceptions. We have Johnson and Grothman and other insensitive ignoramuses to thank for this. They should be ashamed of themselves.

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S ROLE IN THE RISE AND GROWTH OF ISIS

By Ronald T. Fox

Maliki and Obama: A Green Light?

Claims that President Obama facilitated the ascent of the Islamic State have come from both right- and left-wings.  The right blames him for being late in recognizing the ISIS threat and excessively cautious in responding to it; liberal mainstream criticism has focused on his failure to constrain Maliki's repression of Sunnis.  Some observers to the left of the mainstream dismiss accusations that the President has been too cautious and instead claim he has actually pursued an interventionist agenda similar to the one promulgated by neoconservatives and liberal war-hawks during the Bush years.  This agenda, they say, has played into ISIS' hands.