How To Attack Right Wingers Over Climate Change

The next major initiative on the agenda as far as I can tell after health care reform is climate change legislation. Now it is apparent that in order to be a right winger or a right wing candidate for public office and win the hearts and minds of the idiotic base of the Republican Party, you basically have to reject science and deny climate change. You also have to play up the bullshit non scandal email scandal dubbed "Climategate" that recently went down. But I want to focus on where the origin of this denialism comes from, and how progressive Democrats can attack right wing candidates without offending a certain segment of the population and still making them look like fools.

You see when you listen very closely to politicians who claim the climate change denialism mantle there is one central place where they are coming from in their opposition to any notion that global warming comes from man made sources. And that place is evangelical Christianity. Well rather a perverted version of evangelical Christianity whereby humans can not possibly do anything to affect the fate of the earth because everything is in God's hands. Now most regular Christians do not see the world this way. Yes we believe that Jesus will return one day to bring us all to heaven and yes I understand that lots of people think that is crazy talk. But there isn't anything anywhere in the Bible about human beings not being able to hasten the second coming of Christ. So that is the first principle to know but its actually the death blow best held onto until the end of the argument with a right wing climate change denialist.


The best way to engage them initially however is to go on the attack right away. Don't get caught trying to defend accepted science as it doesn't need defending and any effort to do so will only serve to make you look defensive. What you want to do right away is establish the aforementioned "why" this particular politician doesn't believe in climate change. If they won't come out and say it right away then you should pointedly ask them if it has to do with their religious beliefs. That will put them on the defensive and they will absolutely feel the need to over play their own religious faith and pimp their Jesus cred and pretty much try to hang you with it. You should allow this without interruption and just allow them to ramble on for a bit and then continue with your deconstruction.

Once you have made them admit that their denialism is grounded in their faith and the belief that God is in control then its time to hit them with the killer hypotheticals. Now not all hypotheticals and analogies are equal and some are better for right wingers than others, so let me offer a few up for you to use.

Oil Spills

There is a certain former governor of a certan northern state that just so happened to have been impacted by a major oil spill by Exxon. Well that was one of many oil spills but the one that made the most noise. And so the question when dealing with that person or another person who hails from a coastal state is this:

If you believe that human beings can not affect our environment because God is in control, then do you also believe that if there is an oil spill somewhere off the coast of your state that it should not be cleaned up? If the idea is that God will fix climate change or global warming then why not take the same tact when it comes to something like an oil spill?

Nuclear Waste

If you happen to be dealing with a politician who lives in an area where there is a nuclear plant somewhere nearby then your question should be phrased thusly:

Are you willing to open up your area/county/city/state to nuclear waste dumping so we can expand our nuclear capabilities? If not, why not? Surely you can't be worried about the damage to the environment. Won't God take care of that just like climate change?

Hunting/Endangered Species
If the politician denying climate change hails from a state with a lot of hunting and or is a big NRA person then you can hit them this way:

How do you feel about hunting seasons? Why exactly should we have hunting seasons? Why can't Americans go and kill whatever animals they want to kill whenever they want to? Surely there won't be any impact to their numbers. I mean we aren't powerful enough to make a have a major effect on our environment are we?

This would also be a good time to ask them about endangered species, specifically one endangered species in particular:

As you know one of our great American symbols, the bald eagle, has been on and off the endangered species list in years past. Are you in favor of allowing people to go hunting for bald eagles? If not, why not? Why should sportsmen be deprived the opportunity to bag something as beautiful as a bald eagle? Surely it can't be because of their numbers. Remember, you said human beings aren't powerful enough to affect our environment, so according to you no matter how many bald eagles are killed won't God just create more of them?

I would almost pay someone to use that line of attack just to see the right wing politician damn near burst a blood vessel with anger. You know how much they love linking a bald eagle to FREEDOM!!! My advice would be to be careful though because some of them might want to fight you over this line of attack lol

Now, obviously those statements could still backfire at least initially because they will come off as condescending toward's their faith. I say WILL instead of MIGHT because the proper way to deliver those lines are as condescending as possible. You want to piss them off and challenge them on their faith and get the on the defensive. You ESPECIALLY want them to attack you and your faith once you go there with them. Because then its time to pull out the death blow.

When instead of addressing your hypothetical analogies, which most of them won't, they instead pound their chest about their faith and then wag their fingers at you to accuse you of not having any, then its time to calmly and respectfully ask them to quote anywhere in the Bible where it says man can not affect the environment. Then ask them to quote anywhere in the Bible where it says man can not hasten the end of the earth. Remember, calmly and patiently.

Once they are done fuming and yelling and screaming you just calmly state that there is no where in the Bible where you will find such passages. And that the politician's stance on climate change is blatantly at odds with whichever hypothetical analogy you used previously. Then you bring it home by saying something to the effect that "We all agree that when" (earlier hypothetical) "happens then we should" earlier hypothetical "to make sure that our impact doesn't have terrible consequences to our environment, well addressing climate change is no different. If it makes sense to clean up an oil spill/be careful with nuclear waste/impose hunting seasons/prohibit hunting of animals on the endangered species list then it should be obvious to all that we should also address our impact on climate change. Just like there have been permanent reprecussions from oil spills/chernobyl/eradication of whole species of animals because we waited too long to act to protect the environment from man made harm, the same will be the case if we continue to put off addressing the effects of climate change which are now staring us in the face"

Now you don't want to get too preachy about it, but you do want to make those points. And here is how you bring it home. You profess your own faith, and you say that as you see it there is nothing contradictory about being a good Christian and also believing in climate change. On the one hand you have seen (insert beautiful scenes in nature that you have personally experienced, the more the better) which are evidence of God's amazing abilities. But on the other hand seeing those things give you even more determination to make sure that we do not ruin what God has provided for us. It is your solemn duty to as a Christian and as an American that we do not squander our God given natural resources, one of them being our climate which makes our world liveable.

What you have just done, in an understated manner, is basically accuse your right wing opponent of not being a good Christian because they don't care about the environment, but hey let the audience figure that part out.

Well, that is my political advice for the end of the year. Hopefully someone will see it somewhere and put it to good use. Or not.

Merry Christmas everyone, hope you have a great holiday season!

Full Flopping For The Base

I really wonder just how much Tim Pawlenty hates himself every night when he looks in the mirror and realizes how stupid he has to make himself look just to try to appease the Republican base. Here is a guy who just a few years ago was working to solve climate change who is now trying to push the idea that it either doesn't exist or isn't man made.

This isn't a true beliving dumbass like James Inhofe, Pawelenty actually KNOWS better. But if he wants to have any chance at a national political career in his own party then he has to reject his own knowledge. Man that has got to eat his ass up at night. He can't be happy about it, that's for sure.

And the worst thing about it is that the wingnut base doesn't even care if he flip flops just to appease them. As long as he denies climate change they won't give a damn if he used to work as Al Gore's publicist. They don't want integrity, instead they demand conformity and many instances will even reward it no matter what a politicians prior record is.

What has to scare any elected Republican with half a brain is that its actually getting worse. Even John McCain who trashed bills that he himself sponsored, didn't have to go around denying science just to get the nomination. I have a feeling that by the time 2012 rolls around Republican primary candidates will have to have Rush Limbaugh writing their speeches just to have a shot at winning. It will be interesting to see just how low someone like Pawlenty is really willing to go to try to be the wingnut champion.

Interesting, and sad....

Putting Climate Change Denialist On Blast

I guess these are the people that George Will gets his climate change information from.

And Al Gore let them have it today while testifying on climate change before Congress.

Well Lets Just Nuke Everybody Then...

I am a Christian and I make no apologies for that, but I have learned throughout my life that not all Christians are made equal. There is nothing in my bible that tells me to reject science, and yet fundamentalist/evangelical Christians routinely reject even the most basic scientific truths. Now its one thing to have those views as your personal views, its another thing ENTIRELY to govern that way as an elected official. Check out Congressman John Shimkus from Illinois and his views on global warming as influenced by......the Bible.





A few questions have to be asked, first and foremost how does THAT guy get to be on the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment? And if this is a guy who believes that humans can do NOTHING to end the world, is that really someone we want as an elected official? Think about what he is saying here and how it applies to his world view. In his world I would presume that a nuclear war wouldn't be so bad because surely the Lord wouldn't allow the world to end that way. Never mind the fact that many different species of animal have literally gone extinct and don't exist anymore anywhere on the planet, I am sure this guy thinks we should drill for oil everywhere because hell nothing that we do matters to the environment evidently. If God wants polar bears to live then they will live, right?

I am struggling to try to understand how some of the clowns who are in Congress got elected to their office. If this guy was on a street corner shouting the same things he said in that hearing he would be dismissed as a kook and possibly given a mental health evaluation by the cops. But because he is in Congress for some reason we have to take his views seriously. And its not like he is a special case, his esteemed colleague Michele Bachmann isn't any better and the list goes on and on. To be honest with you I don't see a difference between their version of Christianity and terrorists version of the Koran. They both are perverting a religion for their own means and gain. At some point we are going to have to point out this extremism for what it is and reject these people. We can't afford to have them in position to lead our country over a cliff all so they can up their fundamentalist/evangelical cred.

(h/t Benen)

The Myth Of George Will

I have never been a fan of George Will which is really only natural. He is a die hard conservative Republican propagandist in my opinion so there wouldn't be many topics that he and I would agree on. It didn't help that he has been factually challenged quite a few times recently. But I always thought that Will MUST have at some point been a "serious" writer to justify his continued employment in the journalism field. I guess I just figured that the Washington Post kept him around because of his reputation and because he has a reputation as a "great conservative mind". But after reading this MediaMatters profile of George Will it makes you wonder why this guy still has a job after all these years. It is now apparent that he has always been a hack and has always had problems with being truthful in his articles. Yet while genuinely qualified journalists are now finding themselves unemployed, Will continues to draw a generous salary for writing on the level of a petunlant 3rd grader. Here are a few nuggets about the many over the years from the article.

During the 1980 presidential campaign, for example, Will secretly helped coach Ronald Reagan for a debate, using a briefing book stolen from Jimmy Carter's campaign. After the debate, Will appeared on ABC's Nightline, where he praised Reagan's performance without disclosing his role in prepping the candidate. In 1996, Will defended a speech by GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole without noting that his wife, a top Dole aide, had helped write it.

During the 1988 presidential campaign, Will treated Jesse Jackson quite differently, ambushing him with an arcane question about "the G-7 measures of the Louvre Accords" -- a question interpreted by many as an effort to do little more than embarrass Jackson and compared by some to the literacy tests used to disenfranchise African-American voters until they were banned in the 1960s.

Whatever the reason for Will's treatment of Jackson, he behaved far differently toward George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign, when he penned a Washington Post column about Bush titled "He's No Intellectual -- And So What?" During that campaign, Will met privately with Bush shortly before the candidate appeared on ABC's This Week. Why? To go over a question in advance so he didn't "ambush" Bush with "unfamiliar material." Will even went so far as to give Bush an index card containing a portion of the question he would ask.

snip

Will's pattern of global warming falsehoods has been well-documented in recent days. It's a pattern that goes back at least 16 years:

Will confronted Gore on the issue of global warming: "Gore knows, or should know before pontificating, that a recent Gallup Poll of scientists concerned with global climate research shows that 53 percent do not believe warming has occurred, and another 30 percent are uncertain."
It was Will, however, who should have read the poll more carefully "before pontificating." Gallup actually reported that 66 percent of the scientists said that human-induced global warming was occurring, with only 10 percent disagreeing and the rest undecided. Gallup took the unusual step of issuing a written correction to Will's column (San Francisco Chronicle, 9/27/92): "Most scientists involved in research in this area believe that human-induced global warming is occurring now." Will never noted the error in his column.

snip

In more recent years, Will has made false claims about the Voting Rights Act and the New Deal. He made a claim about China drilling off the coast of Florida that was so wrong, even then-Vice President Cheney -- who cited Will in repeating the claim -- acknowledged it wasn't true. When even Dick Cheney thinks you've gone too far in spouting pro-drilling falsehoods, you have a problem. But neither Will nor the Post corrected the error.

Last year, Will claimed in his Newsweek column and on ABC that Social Security taxes are levied based on household income. Not true. He claimed that McCain won more votes from independents during the primaries than Obama did. Wrong. He claimed most minimum-wage earners are students or part-time employees. False. Will has even lied about Hillary Clinton's Yankees fandom.

Now in return for spreading obviously false propaganda as well as never EVER correcting himself George Will gets to be a requenct guest on several talking head shows on cable news programs as well as having a platform to continue disseminating false information. Isn't it about time that we demand better from our mainstream media sources? I don't know that it will do any good but I believe that we should not let the latest controversy over his column denying global warming by using bogus quotes and statistics die. Perhaps if we continue to put pressure on the Washington Post to correct George Will that for once people will have to take notice of the fact that this man doesn't come close to living up to the reputation that the Village has created for him. We deserve better from our media outlets and we should demand better. Its time to take a stand.

Update: Wouldn't you know it, just so happens that today the ombudsman for the WaPo, you know the guy whose ass hilzoy broker her foot off in, put up his information in the Washington Post website. I think he should hear from all of us to let him know that his explanation of why George Will got by without a correction is totally unacceptable. Perhaps we could even include hilzoy's article. For those who are so inclined here is his information.

You can communicate with me in three ways. E-mail me at ombudsman@washpost.com. Leave a message on the ombudsman's line at 202-334-7582. Or write to me, care of The Post, at 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071.