It must be tough being part of the big oil oligopoly today. Power is slipping away from the Bush administration, the scientific community is closing ranks ever tighter in saying with one voice that global warming may lead to disaster, and uppity oil producing nations are nationalizing “your” oil.
And now Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” is about to come out. What to do, what to do? Well, after that second martini, you decide to fall back to the tried and true. You decide to get sleazy, and let facts be damned.
(Wade into the slime after the fold.)
[Hey, y’all know I haven’t had a good rant in a while, so here we go!]
A little girl blows away dandelion fluff as an announcer says, “Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution; we call it life…”
Yes, if it worked for Johnson against Goldwater, it can work again – bring out the little girl with the flower and try to scare the bejeezus out of everyone…
This latest gem of television ad propaganda was screened for the press yesterday, and is set to air in 14 U.S. cities starting today, as reported here. It’s part of a campaign by the Competitive Enterprise Institute to fog the media spotlight that’s about to be put on threat posed by climate change with next week’s theatrical release of “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore’s documentary film on global warming. But there are more propaganda arrows in their quiver:
Against backdrops of a park, a beach and a forest, one celebrates the benefits of greenhouse gas-producing fuels.
“The fuels that produce CO2 (carbon dioxide) have freed us from a world of back-breaking labor, lighting up our lives, allowing us to create and move the things we need, the people we love,” the ad runs. “Now some politicians want to label carbon dioxide a pollutant. Imagine if they succeed — what would our lives be like then?”
Yeah, I can imagine – I read yesterday’s diary by Jerome a Paris on just what a nation and planet not addicted to fossil fuel might be like. And I liked it a lot (which I’m sure is the kind of thinking that has the oil barons losing sleep). And so will others, if the Democrats have the common sense and balls to run with it. [If you’ve not read his diaries – the second, today, will give more details of the proposals – you must do so]
The other ad questions media reports of the threat of climate change, especially a Time magazine issue devoted to the topic, and shows film of a glacier melting and then runs in reverse to show the glacier reconstituting itself.
“We had started work on this several months back, but we sort of changed course once the flood of glacier-melting stories began,” said Sam Kazman, an institute lawyer who worked on the ads. “So we did want to get out there before the Al Gore film got into national opening.”
Yeah, it’s kinda inconvenient when the media starts reporting on the scientific facts regarding glacier melting – but hey, Sam’s a lawyer, not a scientist, so we can’t necessarily hold him to sticking to scientific facts if his client’s needs demand obfuscation [Hey Sam, you got any kids? Glad you’ve got your priorities straight.]
Fred Smith, president of the institute, a nonprofit that advocates free enterprise and limited government regulation, said he had seen the film and found it “very alarmist,” although well-produced.
“There’s a lot of pictures of Al Gore pensively looking into the sunset,” Smith said. “I don’t think he’s running for president, but he might be running for arch-druid.”
Oh, aren’t you cute? Time for a gratuitous slam against pagans while you’re at it. The self-righteous base just eats up that kind of thing. Well, you tell me whose F$%&ing worldview has brought the planet to this sorry state, you and your Manichean apocalyptic Christianity and Ayn Rand social darwinist capitalism and your corporate neo-fascism.
[Must. Take. Deep. Breath. Blood pressure medication is valiantly trying to do its job…]
“They fly in the face of most of the science,” Charlie Miller of Environmental Defense said of the institute ads. “The good news is that there’s not a trade-off here between prosperity, jobs, growth and protecting the Earth. We can do both.”
Yes, we can – that’s the point of Jerome’s diaries, and the hopeful note at the end of Gore’s movie. (Not much point in making the movie if global disaster is a fait accompli, is there?) There is an opportunity for America to lead the world to a cleaner, more peaceful future (locally generated energy removed a big incentive for wars). But to do so we must consign the fossil fuel oligopolies to the dustbin of history. They know it and they’re running scared. The tide has started to turn on their scheme; their designated hitters in the political baseball game are collecting strikes…
And companies like BP are even getting into solar power, the turncoats to the oily faith!
Environmental Defense and the Ad Council released public service announcements in March featuring children as future victims of global warming, and these were mentioned critically at the briefing where the new ads were released.
I bet they were “mentioned critically,” and I’m sure it was taken as a compliment. If there’s anyone out there from the ad council or Environmental Defense, time to run those ads again – these bastards are sinking; let’s all keep throwing them anchors!
[Full disclosure: Mrs. K.P. is doing her part – she just bought a hybrid (on eBay, no less!) and has to fly up to Providence, R.I. to get it this weekend.
Chew on that, Sam and Fred. You’re done. Toast. Turn your clients over and stick a fork in them, they’re done. Better get paid while the gettin’ is good; drink that champaign now and order the prime rib, the Titanic’s goin’ down. You just haven’t been up to the captain’s deck lately to see what we’ve seen, heh heh heh.]