Obama’s lump of coal
Another blast from the Obama past has been dropped, a bombshell interview from last January with the San Francisco Chronicle in which Obama said that the environmental policies he proposes would cause builders of new coal plants to go bankrupt. And he didn’t sound the least bit sad about the prospect.
Republicans are pushing the quote, especially in swing states that figure heavily in the coal industry. But Obama’s supporters are claiming it’s a mere excerpt taken out of context and being used to mislead. Fortunately, Jake Tapper of ABC has obliged by offering a longer transcript that contains Obama’s complete remarks, so we can judge for ourselves.
After having read the entire quote (as I suggest you do, immediately), I think it’s easy to see what Obama was saying. First, a little background.
There is a continuum on which a politician can position him/herself on energy policy. At one extreme end of the spectrum would be a hands-off pro-industry stance with no environmental controls at all. The opposite extreme would be to advocate banning a particular type of energy entirely because it is so environmentally toxic. And then there’s everything in between, various points at which the relative weights given to protecting the industry vs. protecting the economy would be different, but there would be some sort of a balance between the two.
The Clear Skies Bill to which Obama refers in the first sentence of the quote (“I voted against the Clear Skies Bill”) was a proposal by the Bush administration back in 2005 that came down more or less in the middle of this continuum. The bill was an attempt to phase in a series of environmental protections that the coal industry would be required to implement, but it would be done at a calibrated rate intended to protect the industry from the economic ruin that would result from requiring too much too soon. Naturally, there was disagreement about whether the act went far enough, or whether it was even an improvement in laws already on the books:
Environmentalists have attacked the Bush administration’s Clear Skies Act, saying it would grant some of the nation’s biggest producers of acid rain, mercury and smog too much time to meet new emissions standards while failing to address global warming.
Bush has said his approach would reduce air pollution without unduly curbing economic expansion.
Obama was on the committee that killed the bill, with a final tally of 9-9, making the vote he cast against extremely important.
That is the background for the interview in question that he gave to the Chronicle almost three years later, in which he discusses his proposals for the coal industry.
What he is saying is fairly clear if one looks at the entire quote, although certain sentences and phrases may be murky (such as, for example, “What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as an ideological matter, as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it, that I think is the right approach”).
Obama is placing himself on this continuum, saying he is not taking the most extreme pro-environmentalist position, which would be to ban new coal plants outright. But he is advocating an extreme pro-environmental and anti-industry position nonetheless. Rather than banning new coal plants de jure, he plans to drive them out of business de facto, because the environmental requirements of his policies would be so stringent that new plants would be unable to comply and the penalties for noncompliance would be catastrophic. In other words,, any new plants would have to pay penalties so Draconian that they would be bankrupted—and the listener is left to wonder whether even older plants might be required to retrofit in order to comply, and be forced out of business as well.
Obama’s plan is that market forces would dictate that, as new coal production would become impossible, people would be forced to quickly fill in for the lack of power by developing the wonderfully clean alternative sources of energy that he is so sure would be available if only the will were there. We have no way of knowing whether it would work out that way, of course. But in the meantime we could be sure that the economic costs would be very high, as Obama unapologetically states.
This is his position on nuclear power as well, which he makes clear in the next to last paragraph of the quoted interview. He would set safety and environmental standards so high for that industry as well that he would be appearing to be in favor of nuclear power while simultaneously guaranteeing its non-development.
In this way, Obama manages to position himself as nominally in favor of a certain type of power—the more popular mainstream position—and yet actually against it by setting environmental regulations at so high a level that current technology could not meet them in a timely fashion. Clever, isn’t it? He has found a way to appear to be in favor of something and yet to actually make it impossible to implement in the practical sense. This is exactly the opposite of the more gradualist approach of acts such as Clear Skies, which attempt to find a compromise position that serves the needs of both the environment and the industry by taking a middle way. By ratcheting up the time frame and making the reforms extremely strict, he is sacrificing industry to the claims of the environment.
Obama’s position is that it would be fine and good if the coal or nuclear industries were to somehow manage to magically come up with solutions to these knotty problems immediately. But if it takes time, then that’s just too bad—the industries will suffer and so will the consumer, as Obama makes clear in another part of the Chronicle interview, in which he states:
…under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket…whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.
Obama goes on to say that this skyrocketing of energy prices will be the incentive for the development of newer and cleaner sources of energy. This was already a very extreme and even radical position back in January of 2008 when he offered it. But in the current economy it would be even more catastrophic.
In this way, Obama manages to position himself as nominally in favor of [something]–and yet actually against it by setting […] regulations at so high a level…
Which, I predict, is the exact same way he will treat the 1st and 2nd amendments.
Sounds like he wants to apply the same logic used in refineries, which makes oil a big plus for manipulators… to be applied to coal…
BOTH these situations favor large encumbents from competition, and BOTH prevent expansion by anyone else…
so ultimately its protectionism for fat cats..
and progress halting (stagnation, dark age) polices which will stagnate the US in favor of social justice world wide..
but hey… chavez just grabbed the retirement accoutns of the country… how long before such comes here.
scarier is that obama has said he wants to make an internal security force with more power than the military..
i guess socialists, to prevent a reverse revolution and insure perpetual war… have to have a internal national police force..
the germans had the SA, who were murdered and repalced by the SS…
the russians had the NKVD, which was replaced by the KGB, which is replaced by the FSB..
the germans had the stasi
“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
this time, if you know hegelian dialectics, the idea is to combine the two prior things that ALMOST succeeded.. (since hitler and stalin were working together)
germany wanted to exterminate based on race lines… the purist communists thought extermination should be only by class lines.
hegel would say that the two need to be combined before being tested against the west again, so in obama you ahve race and class combined… perfect hegel… (who was wrong).
get ready people…
and pray that what you wrote before he was in office will not count for your end after he gets into office.
there are a lot of fringe groups chomping at the bit that they will be able to exterminate the oppressor classes.
coal and air targets after all can be reached in a way that we are not contemplating… and new constructing will not be needed if one realizes that there will be a lot fewer people arouind eventually.
[we dont contemplate what is immoral, but the socialist leaders ideology is based in an immoral point, so you cant figure that they would have morals taht would prevent an action. history bears out that they dont]
to put a bit of perspective on this… and remember not one person was punished for this, and many recieved medals and awards, and now apologists make light of it.
ever been to ny? ny has around 7 or 8 million people in the city… manhatten decidedly less than that on any given day..
now… next time you see a picture of NY… the crowds, the stadiums… the streets full of people..
note that stalin starved an equivalent amount of people in one winter.
its pretty easy to have a controlled outcome if one makes certain things illegal, then has ones “civilian national security force” do the job they did in the other countries.
how much of a footprint if you can get rid of the oppressor class?
one could make the current coal and oil situation just fine… and get rid of the smartest and most competitive capitalists… (its how it goes in each country tht this happens in).
Like I said, you can learn a lot from watching peoples’ reactions carefully.
For example, consider the previously-linked “debunking”:
I smelled a rat from the beginning, and now I have been proved right. KXAN News36 in Austin, TX, has just debunked the whole thing, and for good measure has posted a 20-minute unedited interview with Pianka which everyone must watch to realize the full depravity of what the wingnuts have done here.
Yet, I followed the supplied link, and found it was not quite the “debunking” the man above identifies it as. The reporter says Pianka wouldn’t advocate such views, but Pianka neatly skates around the question with implications:
“I don’t bear any ill will towards anybody,” Pianka said….
Pianka says he would never advocate genocide or extermination like some suggest he does. “I’ve got two granddaughters, man. I’m putting money in a college fund for my granddaughters. I’m worried about them,” Pianka said.
Of course, if he loves his grandchildren, then he couldn’t possibly advocate such a thing, right? Think again! The following are excerpts from an essay Pianka posted on his own web site:
I have two grandchildren and I want them to inherit a stable Earth. But I fear for them. Humans have overpopulated the Earth… I do not bear any ill will toward humanity. However, I am convinced that the world WOULD clearly be much better off without so many of us.
Furthermore, when read carefully, even the aforementioned interview confirms, not refutes, the idea that Pianka thinks humanity needs to killed off, and that microbes will be the likely culprits. The only difference — even if we believe Pianka — is the says he’s ‘advocating’ it. But Mims never said he advocated it, per se, just that he was gleeful at the idea.
“If we don’t control our population, microbes will. Why do we have these lethal microbes that kill us in the first place? The answer is, there’s too many of us,” …. “We’re taking over this Earth and not leaving anything for anything else on this Earth,” Pianka said.
and so what was this thing that planka said that the left doctors all cheered for?
Professor Pianka said the Earth as we know it will not survive without drastic measures… he asserted that the only feasible solution to saving the Earth is to reduce the population to 10 percent of the present number.
He then showed solutions for reducing the world’s population in the form of a slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. War and famine would not do, he explained. Instead, disease offered the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved.
Pianka then displayed a slide showing rows of human skulls, one of which had red lights flashing from its eye sockets…
… but also, and particularly, the alleged response from the audience:
When Pianka finished his remarks, the audience applauded. It wasn’t merely a smattering of polite clapping that audiences diplomatically reserve for poor or boring speakers. It was a loud, vigorous and enthusiastic applause.
so if the idea is to have huge conflict, desease, starvation… then the coal issue has a solution that isnt a problem for the planners, is it?
here is a bit more
For example, there this letter from another biology professor who attended Pianka’s speech, which corroborates Mims’ reports:
My overall impression of Dr. Pianka’s presentation was a “doomsday” message that life on earth is about to end, and the sooner the human population crashes the better. I hope he was joking or being sarcastic when he stated that a pandemic of ebola virus would be great for the earth — no sane person would really believe that.
Forrest Mims did not misrepresent anything regarding the presentation. I heard these statements myself, and would be willing to bet that most of the audience attending the presentation got the same impression that I did.
More troublingly, there’s this creepy ‘defense’ of Pianka from one of his own students (emphases mine, as usual):
Dr. Pianka’s talk at the TAS meeting was mostly of the problems humans are causing as we rapidly proliferate around the globe. While what he had to say is way too vast to remember it all, moreover to relay it here in this blog, the bulk of his talk was that he’s waiting for the virus that will eventually arise and kill off 90% of human population. In fact, his hope, if you can call it that, is that the ebola virus which attacks humans currently (but only through blood transmission) will mutate with the ebola virus that attacks monkeys airborne to create an airborne ebola virus that attacks humans. He’s a radical thinker, that one! I mean, he’s basically advocating for the death of all but 10% of the current population! And at the risk of sounding just as radical, I think he’s right.
Carlson noted:
The student went on to question whether her own grandparents should be allowed to live considering the amount of the resources it took to keep them alive. At this point, Forrest realized the tremendous danger of the Piankian worldview…
Even creepier, you can see his on-line student evaluations (which he himself posted!), some of which are worshipful, and some which mention his apparent desire for microbially-motivated human extermination (see especially those from 2004, long before this controversy erupted):
:: Pianka is so weird. I counldn’t stand him at first. I thought he was arrogant and racist but then I learned that he’s just upset at us Homo sapiens and he’s equally predjudiced to all classes of people.
:: Eric [Pianka], you really changed my way of thinking about ecology. It’s great to have an evolutionary perspective! And, of course, you increased my knowledge of lizards! Thanks a TON!
:: Your class has opened my mind and made me aware of the evil that is anthropocentrism.
:: I don’t root for ebola, but maybe a ban on having more than one child. I agree . . . too many people ruining this planet.
:: Though I agree that convervation [sic] biology is of utmost importance to the world, I do not think that preaching that 90% of the human population should die of ebola is the most effective means of encouraging conservation awareness.
lets see… forced sterilizaiotn of the oppressor class… like china… that would reduce the population by how much?
deprivation, would ahve us self exterminating like the russian people… who hav emore abortions than births and have 59 as their average age of death.
euthanasia of the old and less productive.. that would also lower coal demand.
we didnt even notice the language change..
that when we talk about cigarette addiction we talk interms of lost productivity… how is that so? the state cant talk about the peoples lost productivity unless the state sees that each should be producing a certain admoutn for the collective.
after all, the state has no right to my labor… but in a socailist state, the stae has all rights to everything… so they would see spending money on the old, as a waste… they would see your choice to do something for yourself as less produxtive to the collective.
so maybe these things arent a problem because in the conflcts and games to come, social justice will allow the oppressor class to be removed, and so the carbon footprint will shrink.
after all, what kind of coal usage reduction did 6 million jews cause? how about the other 6 million? how abotu stalins and russias 51 million… or perhaops chinas millions? cambodias?
maybe the group seeking to take control, has a plan to make the world a better place for those that run it… by removing the rest of the population that they compete with..
they arent going to make the same mistake again… the lords before let the people get educated so that they could use them. but taht made capitalism, and the power shift to the peopel over the feudal rulers…
they will not make that mistake again… from now on, the educated will only come from the priveledged classes… kind of like what centralized school has been accomplishing for 40 years here.
i guess it will be interesting…
though i would prefer not ot have a rerun…
‘
Basing economic and energy policy on a faulty scientific premise, with all the attendant damage that will ensue, is criminal.
AGW is bad science. It’s junk science. Global warming stopped in 1998, which is a decade ago. Gore’s film presents the case that correlation = causation, which is a serious scientific mistake.
Even if there was some veracity to this “consensus” hypothesis, what China and India do or do not do completely dwarfs and obviates everything we attempt to do.
The utter insanity of it all just beggars belief. It’s as if one is living in an alternate universe watching derangement unfold in a set-piece way. No one will stop this kabuki dance on auto pilot. No one questions it.
The world really is upside down. AGW is a farce, but to question it, you’re looked at like a freak. Mention “Liberal Bias” in the news media and some consider you a conspiracy theorist.
Something some of you might find interesting. I live just across the border from Tijuana. Married to a woman who grew up in TJ and Mexico City but commuted to private schools every day on this side of the border. Her aunt and uncle who live in TJ are very well to do and respected in their community. Her aunt considers me a heathen because I will not be voting for Obama.
The funny thing is, they had a presidential election in Mexico in 2006. It pitted the right of center Calderon against (among others) the leftist Obrador. Take one guess on who my wife’s aunt and uncle voted for in their election. The right of center candidate, of course, because he is not going to redistribute any of their three homes or businesses. Ah, the hypocrisy.
But, in our election I’ve got to vote for the leftist or I’m a neanderthal. The thing that sucks is that her aunt has dual citizenship and is driving over to vote tomorrow. She’s going to cancel me out.
Neo,
Great analysis of this issue, by the way. Thanks for all you do. I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts on Wednesday. – Barry
Barry, I hate to tell you, but living in California her canceling out your vote isn’t going to make a whit of difference – sorry
You’re missing the point, Dane. Thank you for the lesson on election demographics, however.
I was just being facetious – didn’t mean to ruffle any feathers – and though I am Polish I actually didn’t miss the point.
Artfidger paints an apocryphal picture. It would be easy to shrug it off, except for the massive Civilian Security Force that Obama has postulated.
I haven’t seen a single journalist(?) question what he means by this proposal. What is the purpose of this force? Who is it going to target? Who will control it? What safeguards are to be placed on it? Frankly, it sounds eerily like a ploy to circumvent the Constitution.
When you see statements like that. When you hear him blithely state that electricity will sky rocket in cost. When he advocates re-distributing wealth. When his agents are already digging into the life of a person who asks an innocent question. Then you can imagine most anything.
Sorry. A little testy and on edge, I guess.
This bankrupting of the coal industry for the “good of the environment” looks very similar to something that was happening to our business in CA with regards to regulations being passed down from Sacramento. Basically, we were going to have to retrofit $30,000 two year old equipment with a $23,000 “solution” to satisfy some 23 year old Sacramento intern’s arbitrary idea about what threshold of X was appropriate to protect the environment. We would have gone out of business if it was leveled against us. Businesses and families be damned.
Because I’ve seen this stuff as it relates to real people it scares me to think that we might vote him in. The especially sad thing is I’m equally scared of what might happen if he doesn’t win. Either way it’s a lose/lose. Aside from, I hope, if he does win it will put people like Jessie Jackson, Jeremiah Wright and Al Sharpton out of business. There’s the silver lining.
I’m sure with you being from Poland you can see the writing on the wall too. Depending on how old you are, I guess. No hard feelings, eh?
No hard feelings at all – actually not from Poland – just my ancestry but I have done all the extensive and requisite reading. I actually had an ancestor in the Polish cavalry that died doing battle with German tanks (the Poles were on horseback). You have to give it to them in the bravery department. Anyway back to the thread. When I heard Biden’s warning about Obama being tested and that it may seem at first the response wasn’t what his supporters would have expected so they would need to hang in there and stand behind him – I had the odd vision that after another attack on our shores we would see troops in the street and martial law.
Dane,
I hadn’t taken it that far. But, liberals tend to project quite a bit and their beliefs about what Bushitler has done to our civil liberties leads me to believe that if the cause is correct, the ends justifies the means.
How else does one explain Acorn and Mickey Mouse, forcing Nuclear and Coal to not grow or go out of business, shouting down Gibson and Steph at the one debate where they asked Obama some tough questions, intimidating anyone else from asking questions a la Joe TP, disabling credit card security measures to accept illegal contributions, etc. etc.?
Am I exaggerating and being hyperbolic as I always thought the BDS sufferers were being? Is it just because I fear I’ll be in the minority that I’m getting paranoid? Or, is this stuff for real?
Neo, you’re the professional. Help me (us) out.
People need to suffer before the New Utopia will come about, Neo. He will make you work for it.
Biden never said what major power it would be who would test Obama. Who knows, it might be the other half of the USA who didn’t vote for him.
Why do we need a civilian security force? We ALL know we do not. We already have one. It’s called friends and neighbors exercising the 2nd amendment. Backed up by the National Guard (civilian), backed up by our full time Military. Obama means to dismantle the above, and replace it with a force of his own making. Listen to what little he has said about his plans. It will completely dismantle this nation as it is.
Obama is a very dangerous man, in my opinion. He has no business in the white house. There is an ever growing class of people (being purposely created) via open borders, by racial divide, by class divide. It is not designed to flow into the current melting pot.
I realize the above sounds “Michael Savage.” But I do not have to care, and do not care, what others think. I do, however, care deeply for my children and my grandson. Then my home state, then my nation. In that order.
By the way, who has the cleanest air? Democracies.
The highest standard of living? Democracies.
The best medical care? Democracies.
Grocery stores loaded with food? Democracies.
Clothes falling off racks in stores everywhere?
The greatest chance for one to improve his lot in life, if he rolls up his sleeves and has at it?
Where is it up to YOU to “become”?
What type of country, government, allows you to pursue that? Encourages it? Protects it?
Who in their right mind would vote for Obama, besides a Canadian? (Sorry, Sappe. Hell, you’ve got your work cut out for you in the great white north)
Artfldgr,
The Oobomination idea of a National Civilian Security Force is very disturbing. Even more disturbing is the lack of journalistic curiosity about what he means by it. No one asks.
But I will tell you this, if you don’t already know it: if Oobomanation’s NKVD thugs want to begin trampling on the Constitution and our rights, they had better be prepared for both swarms of armed civilian veterans like me and most of our military coalescing into a force that wipes them out. If their job is to make sure that we obey The State, disarm us, make sure we behave and speak in politically correct manner, have a reduced carbon footprint, and do not voice protest against the government, they are in very deep trouble, as would be their Leader.
Those kids just out of high school and college who want to join this new force, carry a gun and a truncheon, and go around making sure we are slowly morphing into good little Communists have got another thing coming. They will all be dead men walking.
I’m not afraid of these kids. If these guys were diving out the windows at V-Tech, afraid to creatively confront and stop a lone gunman while a seventy-something professor, survivor of the Death Camps, was the only one to resist, then I am not at all afraid of these kids. I know how to use a range of weapons. I can shoot; I am armed. I still have military discipline imprinted within me despite over three decades since I was honorably discharged. And there are hundreds of thousands of guys like me in the country who do not go seeking a fight. But if the fight is brought to us, we’ll take it on and we will, if we have to, butcher the enemy. Even if the enemy is the flower of our nation’s youth. If the nation’s youth is given over to a loyalty to socialism, then they sign their own death warrants.
We will not suffer tyrants or tyranny.
Amen.
Whoa. Guess I’m not the only paranoid one. Neo- please let us know if we are early sufferers of ODS.
I think what we’re all upset about is the failure of the media to report any of this stuff that is so easy for us to see. That’s what angers me most.
What percentage of our populous knows about Doodad Pro, Bill Ayer’s idea of Social Justice in our schools, Gore’s claims of 20 feet in ocean rising vs. IPCC’s max of two feet, no correlation between rise in CO2 and rise in temperature (CO2 follows temp), Obama’s statements that he’d like nuclear “If only we could dispose of the waste safely,” and on and on?
Our media bites and it is infuriating.
Lenin, as cited by Saul Alinsky:
They have the guns and therefore we are for peace and reformation through the ballot. When we have the guns, then it will be through the bullet.
At the risk of sounding woefully naive and as devil’s advocate, could the Civilian Security? Force suggested by Obama be nothing more than requiring all graduating HS students to participate in some form of service to the country as is required elsewhere? Either military or civilian, in the model of the CCC?
Whoa..seems like there is some form of post-election stress disorder going on here and it’s only Nov.3
While I’m not neo I will say I think there is a little bit of ODS going on, but there is also a “wait and see” attitude that should hopefully temper it. As long as we are armed and our military is structured the way it is and its constituents are drawn the way they are then things can only go so far without a massive will of the people. If that ends up being the case then it isn’t the elected person as much as the elected person is an extension of that will. Same thing is said to those BDS people who think he is going to be a dictator and all that other nice stuff.
If he does push for this it will not be the firs time such an idea has been brought up or used. It is an “easy” way to get around pesky laws you do not like but can not get removed from the books (say, the second amendment). One can still *technically* do anything you want – after all there is no guarantee of success in the law. It just says you have to be able to pursue/own them – nothing about it costing 4 times our GDP or obtaining a license from the govt first (and, of course, it never says they *have* to give those licenses out).
Sometimes, as in the DC gun ban, a court gets its collective head out of it’s ass and does the right thing, sometimes not.
Maybe Obama is totally off base. America without electricity for a year might just straighten things out. The betrayal by our main media souces to do their job has me furious. This is truly unprecendented in America.
Besides…Aren’t there laws against not crying fire in a crowded and burning theater? I say we need a class action lawsuit against the whole lot of the bastards.
I’ve said it elsewhere, and perhaps here.
There are a whole lot of things Obama voters are going to have to pretend to like swallowing in order to defend their brainless votes.
On the other hand, some of his supporters will be getting exactly what they planned and hoped for.
Too bad all of the Class Action lawyers are Democrats.
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Richard Aubrey makes a good point. I’m just as petrified — no exaggeration — as anyone of an Obama win but as tight as the race might be, at LEAST a little under half don’t want anything to do with that.
Add to that a good part of the “brainless” when they realize that this guy is a figment of David Axelrod’s, David Plouffe, George Soros’ et al. imaginations and he ain’t gonna deliver on all those promises…. and we quickly swing back into the majority.
I think a lot of Obama votes are “fair weather” votes — that is, they’re for you if their life is good, but the minute they have problems you’re on their sh_t list. This is why so many were so easily persuadable. (That is not to say there aren’t a good no. of ignorant voters — there are). Hopefully, however, enough of those who expect Barack Obama the Pied Piper to lead them to Utopia, will realize that he’s headed off a cliff — before he takes the rest of us along with them.
(The only way we can do anything at this point, is to make sure to vote, and make sure anybody you know who leans our way does, as well. Look, I live in NYC. Reality says my vote isn’t going to make a bit of difference. But I wouldn’t have a right to gripe, no matter what happens, if I didn’t use my vote).
Note the exact wording (if accurate) at the end of the xecerpt Neo posts:
That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.
What a wordweasel. He manages to avoid saying “They will pass that cost along…” — he makes it sound like consumers will get treats!
Does this guy even listen to what comes out of his mouth?
Lil’ green olives:
“At the risk of sounding woefully naive and as devil’s advocate, could the Civilian Security? Force suggested by Obama be nothing more than requiring all graduating HS students to participate in some form of service to the country as is required elsewhere?”
What? Are we coming of as some black-helicopter conspiracy crew?
Maybe.
I am just kind of wondering though, why we need a civilian security force. What would they do other than vie for federal tax dollars? Dont we already have a National Guard? At the very least, it sounds like a government “make work” program. Maybe you can shine some light on that.
Know what I need right now? A lefty Canadian to come tell me Americans don’t pay enough for electricity.
Trolling for trolls Gray?
(Comment does not include John Sprague)
csimon.
I am thinking of a certain demographic of Obama voters. Self-righteous. Suffer in various degrees from BDS. Can fool themselves easily. Buy into AGW. Think voting O is proof of their moral superiority.
Wish away any idea that O will bring some very bad stuff.
But also lack the point that has been made before. Mechanisms for screwing the people you don’t like will work just fine when the people you don’t like accidentally happen to get control. Thinking of anything from the Fairness Doctrine to leaking of personal information. And then the screwer–for the greater good or the chilrun or whatever–becomes the screwee. Oooo. Not fair.
There are two epochal moments that are competing with each other for hegemony of Western Civilization, quite apart from the injection of Islam into the mix of conflicts. The first is the essentially conservative American Revolution, founded upon the natural rights of humanity endowed by the Creator.
The second is the French Revolution, inspired by Rousseau and his vision of what the good life means. The State defines your rights, and you have no natural right given by God to your property. Obama and the people in and around the nexus of his side are inspired by the French Revolution.
Our kids are being taught an understanding of their heritage that is a revision. Rousseau has been substituted for Jefferson. The switch happened with great subtlety.
Part of the stupidity of it all is that we can stop using coal, shoot our economy in the head, and raise our misery index, but China is going to keep on using coal to fuel its economy and bury us. And it won’t change the total carbon footprint of the earth one damn bit.
God Almighty, these people are f*****g stupid!
Neo, you’re getting at the heart of Obama’s claim that we can be “energy independent in 10 years”. Politicians love this 10 year crap because it makes them sound like Kennedy’s edict of “go to the moon in the next decade”. The big difference is that Kennedy consulted with the scientists of the day to understand if the 10 year goal was even feasible. The clincher being that we could probably afford it, but it would almost surely bankrupt the Russians. (As it was, the Russians might have made it first if they hadn’t suffered an explosion of their launch vehicle on the pad, but I digress.) Going to the moon did not fundamentally require new technologies, only the refinement of existing technologies. The V2 rocket provided working references for both the propulsion system and the electronics and guidance systems. Yes, technologies were invented along the way — because necessity is indeed the mother of invention — but no fundamental breakthroughs were required.
However, Obama and other politicians since that have used the “do it in 10 years” cliche have never consulted with the scientists in the fields for which they propose these massive advances. Energy independent in 10 years? Who says so? As someone who works in science and technology, it is offensive to me to have these politicians come in and lay down some absurd promise to achieve a scientific breakthrough within X years. Any proposal to radically alter our sources of energy — and short of a major oil discovery on US soil, that’s what it would take to become independent — requires a lot more than a trip to the moon. Its not just the new energy sources that must be found, its retooling all the infrastructure of our current energy supply. About the only way you could reasonably assert that we would be energy independent in 10 years is if we started immediately building large numbers of nuclear power plants. And by “large numbers” I don’t mean 5, 10 or even 50 power plants, I mean more like hundreds. Doing that wouldn’t require inventing any new technologies or spending any money to figure out how to pull it off, it would only require inventing the necessary political will. Which is, of course, why it won’t happen.
Just have a great day!
Nortius Maximus:
“Does this guy even listen to what comes out of his mouth?”
No. That’s below his paygrade.
(Having to listen is reserved for us peons!)
Richard Aubrey:
“I am thinking of a certain demographic of Obama voters. Self-righteous. Suffer in various degrees from BDS. Can fool themselves easily. Buy into AGW. Think voting O is proof of their moral superiority.”
LOL…..You just described my brother to a “T”.
(And yes, he is for Obama)
(And thank you Gray and Harry McH. — You gave me the laugh that I so sorely needed tonight! But don’t tell , J. Spragge, please — altho’ somehow I escaped his scolding…)
“The big difference is that Kennedy consulted with the scientists of the day to understand if the 10 year goal was even feasible. … Going to the moon did not fundamentally require new technologies, only the refinement of existing technologies.”
Here I do disagree – while Kennedy did consult with the scientists their answer was “maybe” because it *did* fundamentally require new technologies (if one were to argue the needs were only “refinements” then there have only been a VERY small handful of breakthroughs in the history of the world).
The real difference is in two places. One is the scientists in question had a pretty good idea of where they needed to go and had enough research to know it was possible. Tens years was just considered a short amount of time (and, at the time, outside of their budget – though a stroke of a pen changed all that). It wasn’t as radical a change as the moment someone discovered fire, but it was one the fastest (if not the fastest over a ten year period of time) that we humans have ever seen. It took a vision, a knowledge of where to go, *and* commitment that we are pretty much lacking today.
Second was one of scope – NASA is a pretty small bunch. If we were to have the know how to put a man in close orbit to our nearest star today we could be be launching in a couple of years (of course, that knowledge is mostly decades away at best, but stay with the exaggeration for a moment). So from that point of view the main obstacle is really knowing how to do it and, for the most part, it is fairly basic science (even for that level of movement today).
On the other hand lets take energy independence (especially with alternative fuels). We are sitting now where we have to violate basic laws of science (thermodynamics being a biggie there), no idea where/how to over come that, and little money/will to throw at it. This plan seems to figure they can manipulate free markets to be controlled ones and that, well, always results in massive failure. You wither have a free or command economy and you have to be *real* careful in mixing it up by much.
Even given that, lets assume that we now know things like the third law are not really laws and we can fool around with it – now how many of us can go out and purchase all new cars? What about the necessary infrastructure to supply the new vehicles? How many power distribution companies are going to replace *all* their current power generators in ten years? Impossible for energy independence from that angle. Alternative energy is *at least* 20 years out even once the technology is there.
Then, that’s not to mention that this stuff doesn’t happen in a vacuum. That is fossil fuels are where they are now because they have the best cost per unit energy. Nuclear is in that mix too if regulations are sane enough. To artificially regulate ourselves into obsolescence isn’t going to help.
As far as the “ten year promise” we see it in many other places too. In my opinion this is more because ten years a good in between time (it isn’t hard to find it before Kennedy’s man on the moon mission too). That is it is long enough away that most will have forgotten the promise at the time, yet close enough that it will happen in most of our lifetimes so we need to worry over it. We see it also in the doom and gloom industry too – we are all going to die ten years from today from whatever it is they want funding to study.
How many can think back to promises (from the late 80’s) of 1999 having so thin an Ozone that we couldn’t go out in the sun? Few do unless reminded, yet at the time it seemed so short an amount of time to live. We are now in a time that the mid 90’s projected Florida to be underwater and Siberia be the bread basket of the world due to global warming. We now project that time to be … wait for it … Ten Years From Now (in the late 2010’s). Not to mention that at that time the hole in the Ozone will also become large enough that we will not be able to go outside too (well, if you are still into that whole Ozone thing, that was *soo* 1980’s). There is good reason to worry over some of it, but really the “ten years from now” thing should be about as silly as the “for the children” thing was a few years back.
So. We’re looking at a cruel megalomaniac. This is the mindset that leads to Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” tactics. Gettin’ the job done by any means necessary, folks!
Willing to bankrupt an entire indispensable, and innocent, industry, throw its workers out, kick off cascading effects through Every Industry in the country that uses power!! all in service of his stinking ideology.
This guy is dangerous. My father (82) said, “I feel like I’ve lost my country.”
Our best hope is that the Blue Dog Democrats allied with the minority status Republicans will hold the line against the really wacko stuff for a year while people discover the real Obama. Then the run up to the mid term elections can put the brakes on.
Three points. One, why are we only hearing now about Obama’s remarks on coal? He made them in January. What was the rush in publicizing them?
Two, I think the left’s penchant for “ten year plans” comes from the fact that “Five Year Plan” now has a unfortunate cachet, and they don’t want to tip their hands (also the reason lefties continually prepend “new” to everything, e.g., “New Democrat). In addition, pushing the time horizon out to ten years guarantees (we hope) that the poltroon babbling this stuff will be out of office by then, and hence unaccountable.
Third, notice how all the lefties who been caterwauling about the Bush junta, subversion of democracy, etc. now all obviously expect him to leave office in January? So clearly all their posturing over the last eight years was just that: they never actually believed anything of the kind.
Voting for Obama betrays underlying political naivete and reality-blindness. When the sh!t h!ts the fan Obama backers are going to have to find themselves a scapegoat, or start a war, or do something drastic to keep people from focusing on the root of the problem–Obama, Pelosi, Boxer, Schumer, Reid, Dodd, Frank, Waters . . . .
Alice, Liberalism can breed more liberalism for the following reasons:
1) News people do what they do. Homelessness wasn’t solved during the Clinton years but the press sure had almost no stories as compared to when Bush senior was in office. The press here in CA laments that the budget can’t be passed here in CA because they don’t have a veto proof Democrat majority. Instead of cooperating and making a budget with no tax increases the press blames Republicans in CA. etc.
2) As people vote for more and more goodies – you can never take those goodies away. Let me be clear! The goodies are not free but they are free to a certain segment of the population. To suggest reforms is to suggest you don’t ‘care’. For the good of the country and this country’s prosperity it is imperative that people know that they should have a stake in ‘costs’ in ‘market forces’ and stupid decisions should hurt so that stupid decisions aren’t made anymore.
As energy costs skyrocket because of liberal leadership policies, they will simply give energy assistance to the bottom fifth of America and the middle class will suffer and the top fifth will be penalized even more.
On every issue – energy, education, health we are living off the backs of productive entrepreneurs and for this reason there are countries that have higher increases in GDP than us over the last decade and our GDP growth is retarded.
This country isn’t OVER because Obama wins. It simply makes things harder for responsible families and business owners to prosper. We are then LESS able to defend ourselves. National security suffers.
In 1960 the defense budget was 50% of the budget. It has gone down to 19% of the budget today and Barney Frank talks about a 25% cut. That would bring Defense spending to 14% of our budget.
We will FIND a way to defend ourselves for sure.
Because we all ‘care’ about this country living on in greatness. It’ll just be harder.
br549,
the soviet union called themselves a democracy, and they still do now… (i think they are now referring to it as a sovereign democracy, but i could be wrong. they choose words for their impact not their meaning… meaning is almost meaningless once they play with it… kind of like humpty dumpty).
in case you didnt know, the us is not a democracy… its a democratic republic…
it was always the communists who claimed a democracy…
Fredhjr,
Always a pleasure to talk with you…
they had better be prepared for both swarms of armed civilian veterans like me and most of our military coalescing into a force that wipes them out.
This is the mistake everyone makes. This actually colors everyone’s choices, in that if it doesn’t work out, you can go back. However ask your military friends. I got my heads up from someone in the air force. The force has been giving psych profiles for years and years, and a few of the questions were whether you would fire against Americans. Those that were willing to accept orders to attack Americans on American soil got promoted, those that didn’t, got sidelined.
So the military has for a while, been skewing the system to insure that the mix that you are dependent on, will not be there. Its very easy to sort military forces to keep those who would do something in another location, and those that wont protest move forward.
They have had 100 years of practice and have spent billions playing games with us and we have not taken them seriously for a long time.
Let me give you an example of how it works from my families experience.
Basically its done block by block… the first block sets the tone for the rest.
They pull up in the earliest hours, so that the public isnt ready. They are very very noisy, nasty, violent, and fast. people are given seconds to take what they need, which will be taken from them. but by telling them to get what they need, you distract them and keep them busy and help them think its temporary, when its not. if they don’t let you take something you more quickly realize that your never coming back.
On the street the games begin. The first person to ask a question is shot in mid question.
Fredhjr… if you were on that block, you would be trapped. You’re not prepared. You can have all the weapons you want. They will level the building. You have no cover, and you cant contact anyone else… your dreams of resistance were dead before you ever started. Mostly because people wait till things are committed. They are not willing to act upon the situation till they know the situation is committed. They are not willing to burn their better future if they are wrong. So they wait too long, and they are snagged.
Care to hear another way? Remember, your morals prevent you from considering the options that those with no morals would consider pragmatic.
NY has 8 million people… if you seal the bridges off, and the land routes, ny is bottled up. now you only have to starve the population into compliance…
The same is true in the sticks where you might think your tactics have a chance. they will starve you out, and pummel the area… If you have any family or others who are not with you, they will be tapped and tortured to get your compliance.
Most of us have never ever really looked at what happens. Most of us never asked the question: why weren’t the others prepared and stopped it? And that’s because he ones making the change know the schedule, and you don’t. Everything is on their time, their plan, their field, their property, etc.
Stalin starved 7 million to death… you never noticed that almost none escaped.
The gulags worked to death more than 21 million… you never noticed that almost none escaped… (Those that did brought along a sandwich. Three people go, one of them is a meal to get you out).
There is no escape AFTER the fact… only escape before the fact, or when things are between changing…
If their job is to make sure that we obey The State, disarm us, make sure we behave and speak in politically correct manner, have a reduced carbon footprint, and do not voice protest against the government, they are in very deep trouble, as would be their Leader.
How so? This is all predicated on a false premise. You imagine them going house to house… while they imagine using fire bombs to level the whole area.
You, like the others, haven’t analyzed the reality of it.
Basically when Americans and others do so, they tend to imagine things along the line of movies, and one thing in movies is that there is always a way out. even in saw… however, reality is different…
A way out is rare…
Those kids just out of high school and college who want to join this new force, carry a gun and a truncheon, and go around making sure we are slowly morphing into good little Communists have got another thing coming. They will all be dead men walking.
Really?
Let’s see how the socialists of the past fixed this problem.
First, for every one of theirs that is killed, they slowly torture 1000 people publicly.
If they were like the Germans, Russians, and Africans, they would do things like slice off ears, noses and genitalia, and then make the victims fry them up and eat them.
The Russians would put a small slit in the belly, and nail the intestines to a tree, then force the person to walk around the tree till they wrapped their intestines around it.
In Latvia, they drove nails into peoples skulls… they tortured the men so badly, then let the women try to figure out who they were.
PEASANTS TORTURE REDS.; Soviet Troops Retaliate by Destroying Rebellious Villages.
November 5th 1920
query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B01EEDA1E30E433A25756C0A9679D946195D6CF
the biggest thing you forget is that it was the US that prevented countries from doing this. in the absence of the US and its power to limit the other states, such limitations will not exist. In the absence of outside help where weapons, property, papers and such is supplied, there is little hope.
Basically, one person of theirs dies; a whole city is tortured to death.
Still willing to retaliate against them?
In 100 years, the Russian people have never been able to even come close to changing the rulers or effecting the state… what makes you think that a more efficient, more powerful, technologically savvy American version would be easier?
The Russians would also set up false movements and oppositions. In Afghanistan they would create a hero of the insurgents. They would send a trained person out, and then let that person murder their own people. this would legitimize the person, and so the person would eventually be a hero and gather a movement under him. the cost in lives doestn matter since they are nothings… and in one fail swoop, the whole other side is caught…
Read this about an underground…
Her recruitment in June 1945 had been handled by the star and principal innovator of Soviet spetsgruppy tactics in West Ukraine, Major A. M. Sokolov, based in Ternopil oblast´ . Sokolov was so good at his job – transforming diehard anti-Soviet Ukrainian nationalists into members of his own force to destroy the rebel underground – that he had written the standard primer for Soviet MVD/MGB field officers on spetsgruppy tactics against anti-Soviet rebel groups.
/\/\/\/\/
According to his personnel file at GUBB, Major A. M. Sokolov, Chief of the
Ukrainian MVD-GUBB in Ternopil oblast´ in early 1946, was later that year transferred for special duty in Lithuania, “as a person having practical experience regarding the organization and work of the spetsgruppy ” – the GUBB clandestine units that specialized in domestic black operations. Sokolov’s specialty was disorganization.6
On Sokolov’s preeminent role leading Soviet spetsgruppy disguised as underground anti-Soviet partisans in the postwar suppression of anti-Soviet rebels in Lithuania, see: Juozas Daumantas [alias for Juozas Luksa], Fighters for freedom: Lithuanian partisans versus the USSR (1944-1947)
The hubris of knowing little about how they operate and assuming something as if they are stupid, is a bad way to proceed into the future.
we are fortunate because Major Sokolov left a detailed
handwritten account of his successful turning of agent Natalka in a top secret report
to Major-General A. P. Gorshkov, the chief of the First Department of the elite
Soviet police unit, the Main Directorate for the Struggle Against Banditry (GUBB
NKVD).
8
They play with reality… till you cant trust reality any more…
On our return to Berezhany, I decided to act as if [I believed] she had been
successfully recruited. And so I gave her her first assignment: to murder [her
commanding officer in the rebel underground] ‘Nestor.’ I was confident that she
would run, and had set a plan wherein during the time she was trying to escape
us she would be captured by [one of my units operating] under the guise of the
[rebel] SB, who would interrogate her as a siksot . One could do nothing else
with her.
On the road to Berezhany, we made sure she did not see the entire unit. We
treated her well. In Berezhany I formally recorded her recruitment, gave her the
assignment to murder ‘Nestor,’ issued her a pistol (with the firing pin removed),
and dispatched her to carry out the assignment.”
11
/\/\/\/\/
“Just as I suspected, so it happened: Natalka went into the cottage for a few
minutes, then exited through the rear door, and hid herself in the cornfield
behind the cottage. My agent Horodetskyi saw everything, but let her sit a while
in the corn. Then, as if by accident, [and masquerading as an SB officer] he
detained her, found her pistol and immediately accused her of being a
siksotka
.”
Continuing the meticulously planned and executed masquerade, Horodetskyi
resisted, called Natalka a liar and provocateur desperate to save her own skin.
Following standard SB procedure, Natalka was blindfolded and led to a hideout in
Berezhany, where she was interrogated at length. More and more desperate, only
then did Natalka pass the point of no return and become an unwitting accomplice of
the NKVD: she confessed to know the location of a liaison point in village
Avgustovka where she could connect with the leadership of the rebel unit Belyi.
You have no idea how that side of them operates… you are making assumptions based loosly on movies… not on the reality of how they operate.
The reading of the facts of such are very interesting…
I hope you have no families, friends, or anyone of note… for if you do act, you act to sentence them to be punished for your actions
Punishing family members in insurgent areas was a vital and intrinsic part of
Soviet police methods. As early as January 1945, the Soviets were keenly aware of
distinct gaps in their methods. At a conference of raion chiefs and NKVD-NKGB
officers in L´viv oblast´, these principal agents of the Soviet pacification were
openly critical of the failure to do more about rebel families. “In our work there is
one mistake,” argued the commanding officer of the 88th NKVD Border patrol.
“We kill rebels, we see the rebel lying dead, but each [dead] rebel leaves behind a
wife, a brother, a sister, and so on” – family members whose shared sense of
victimization would generate incalculable future resistance. When, he asked, will
Soviet forces begin to punish families?47
Among Soviet officials in West Ukraine, there was a dawning recognition that it
was not enough to remove the active rebels alone: rather, the cancer of opposition
had to be torn out by the roots – by harassing, arresting, imprisoning, torturing,
and deporting family members as well.
unlimited by morals… you have no out once they are in…
tPunishing family members in insurgent areas was a vital and intrinsic part of
Soviet police methods. As early as January 1945, the Soviets were keenly aware of
distinct gaps in their methods. At a conference of raion chiefs and NKVD-NKGB
officers in L´viv oblast´, these principal agents of the Soviet pacification were
openly critical of the failure to do more about rebel families. “In our work there is
one mistake,” argued the commanding officer of the 88th NKVD Border patrol.
“We kill rebels, we see the rebel lying dead, but each [dead] rebel leaves behind a
wife, a brother, a sister, and so on” – family members whose shared sense of
victimization would generate incalculable future resistance. When, he asked, will
Soviet forces begin to punish families?47
Among Soviet officials in West Ukraine, there was a dawning recognition that it
was not enough to remove the active rebels alone: rather, the cancer of opposition
had to be torn out by the roots – by harassing, arresting, imprisoning, torturing,
and deporting family members as well.
this is how they operate… on a scale of waste and misery that their victims are not prepared to deal with. unless your as ruthless and don’t care about your people, you cant oppose them.
read this next carefully…
Within weeks, Khrushchev gave his formal approval for expanded operations,
and the mass deportations of rebel families from West Ukraine expanded
dramatically. As of June 1945, 10,139 Ukrainian families (26,093 persons) of
suspected anti-Soviet rebels had already been deported to Siberia.49 Initially,
“Many believed that we [Soviet officials] would not actually deport them, but were
only trying to scare them.”50 The bitter truth came as the pace of deportations
accelerated. By the end of 1947, a total of 26,644 “rebel families” – 76,192
persons – had been deported from the seven oblasti of West Ukraine to the Soviet
Far East: 18,866 men; 35,152 women; and 22,174 children – meaning that women
and children dependents outnumbered their adult male counterparts by more than
three to one. In a resolution dated 10 September 1947, 21,380 families – 61,814
persons – from West Ukrainian oblasti were assigned work in coal-mining
operations in the Soviet Far East.51 Deportation meant intrinsically that Soviet law
would punish not just suspected rebels, but also their families as well.52
so they start to torture and work to death women and children…
if that don’t work… they genocide everyone in the area that is alive, and replace them with their own people who want new lands and homes and things.
this is why there are such large enclaved in all the satellite states… some of them rivaling the natural population.
The blackout on soviet and Russian history keeps us from realizing that we have to prevent the change to a new state, not let it happen then recover from it.
Like death, there is no recovery from it.
fredhjr,
And it won’t change the total carbon footprint of the earth one damn bit.
God Almighty, these people are f*****g stupid!
they only seem that way if you consider that they are on our side, and want a good outcome..
if they are for the soviets, chinese, and anyone else but the coutnry they subvert, then they are wolved in sheeps clothing and their actions make perfect sense.
it all depends on your schema… do you trust them, and thereby give them the excuse of stupid, or do you not trust them, and accept that theya re subversive…
the first allows you to go back to sleep.
the second then requires you to either act, or to accept what is not acceptable. cognitive dissonance gets you back to the sleepy place where you can just assert stupid.
thats how it works. 🙂
Richard, your post described the difference between empirical knowledge and class based knowlege…
the average who think they are not average tend to pick the latter. since it touts to let them ;know’ and sound smart by understanding the premises… (so vampires dont eat garlic pizza), and not actually have to know the reality of it.
makes the world seem nice, neat and predictable… this when the world is indifferent, messy, and counterintuitive (forcing those who dont learn imperically to being wrong).
read this
Among the Inept, Researchers Discover, Ignorance Is Bliss
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/health/011800hth-behavior-incompetents.html
if you can put two and two together… you might see that psychologically their programs dovetail nicely with the resutls talked about in this article.
that what they are making is ignorant incompetent people who naturally feel that theya re much more competent than they are… they have no lack of hubris, because of the way liberals have changed the school system.
just think about the facts from this psych thing… and then think about how they changed school systems… and how that all creates teh kind of person that is sure the right answer is socialism.
scary… eh
whats scarier is that there is a huge number of people who are of neos profession, and yet, they are complicit with using psychology to change man. many dont even know that their science is based on false ideas, or views, and so they dont even know that they are soldiers in this battle..
how many psychs consider adornos authoritarian personality to be valid science? you woudl be surprised. the soviet union used such science and got real good at faking it for political ends. after all, a simple psych test could then condemn someone to a institution to which they cant convince others that they are sane.
the political problem of such practices is that these wards and areas have no real measure of psychological health, so there is no set of proofs that can get you out once your in.
all of this is literally worked on by litterally more than a million people ticking away at it. from 1950 to now once school could turn out 4k per year…
there are hundreds of such training schools. so how many people and termites and tagged termites could there be?
thats the reality of it.
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