Friday, June 30, 2006

Go Ahead. Try To Impress Me.

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" We welcome any and all gods and goddesses of the past and present to this site with open arms and a red rubber bathmat! Carpeting is beyond our means, and do you see how fast it gets stained?

There's a certain maxim in the Appalachians. If you haven't grown up there, you might not find it convincing.

That maxim is: No politician can be trusted.

Yup, sorry.

Your average braces-clad teenager will swear by God Above that she won't eat gummi bears, they're so bad for her teeth, and she wants to look great when these metal horrors come off. But when you send her into the candy shop to find out what time it is, she'll come out unable to tell you because of all the gummi bears bonding to her braces.

Politicians are like that. And if I can remember Eisenhower, and tell you all about the Three Edwards of England, do you want to disagree with me?

Now to the point that may lose me my legions of readers.

That would be Al Gore.

No one stands ahead of me in concern about global warming. I don't need a fancy movie or a famous politician to tell me that we've put the earth on the stove to simmer like a pot of bean soup. I'm concerned to the point of altering my lifestyle.

Please forgive me, kind readers, for thinking that Al Gore's sudden plea to pay attention to this problem rings hollow.

"Well, Anne, why would you feel that way? He's calling attention to a major problem! (And paving the way to a presidential nomination, of course.)"

In 1997 the United Nations convened an international forum to deal with the threat of global warming. From that forum sprang the Kyoto Protocol, a bold document that called for drastic reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, worldwide.

At that time, as now, the United States led the world in CO2 emissions.

The United States did not sign the Kyoto Protocol.

Quick, kids! Who was the sitting vice president when the UN drafted the Kyoto Protocol?

Emmmmm ... Spiro T. Agnew?

Sorry. It was Al Gore.

And what was Al Gore doing in those years when he could have been crusading boldly against Big Business and Big Government and Fat Cat Lobbyists on behalf of our steamy little planet?

He was the headliner at Democratic Party fundraisers.

If memory serves me, he did attend Princess Diana's funeral.

It's not that I don't applaud Mr. Gore for his film and his genuine worry about the future of the earth. But from where this hillbilly is sitting, he's standing in the barnyard with a key in his pocket, and the horse is galloping away into the steamy sunset.

So you say, "Well, if he had become a national spokesman for reducing CO2 emissions, he might not have been the Democratic nominee in 2000." So? The election got stolen anyway, it would have been stolen from any Democrat who ran, and Mr. Gore's credibility would be a lot higher, at least in this goat pasture.

So let's add to the list of Inconvenient Truths the sad fact that the Clinton Administration ignored global warming and then turned the reins of power over to a horde of barbarous cretins who ignore everything except stuffing their pockets with cash.

So, hate me if you want to, but this hillbilly says "An Inconvenient Truth" is coming to a theatre near you ten years after it should have been made by the same dude.

Ah, but he did generate a lot of cash for all those Demopublican candidates, now, din he?

Now watch this, I'll show you how smart I am:

"Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me."

(If you give me another chance, we'll return to religion tomorrow.)

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
STAR 14 APPALACHIAN

1 comment:

omelas said...

Al Gore campaigned hard to put the Kyoto Protocols together (he was there and not at a fundraiser, he and Japanese Prime Minister Hashimoto co-organized the negotiations), and Clinton signed Kyoto in 1998. Gore also symbolically signed it. You can read Gore’s statement as Vice-President on Clinton’s signing of Kyoto here: http://www.commondreams.org/pressreleases/Nov%2098/111298c.htm

The Republican Senate refused to ratify Kyoto, citing fears that it would economically disadvantage American businesses who had contributed to their campaign war chests. On July 25, 1997 before the Kyoto Protocol was even negotiated, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95–0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98)[2], which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory.

After gaining the Presidency, one of Bush’s first acts was to formally withdraw the U.S. from the Kyoto Protocol. In response, Al Gore said “The evidence of this worsening crisis continues to mount,” and accused Bush of showing the world "a stunning display of moral cowardice."

During his campaign for Presidency in 2000, Gore promised to restructure the federal government to adhere to the letter of Kyoto even if Congress continued to refuse to ratify it. Al Gore on the trail in July: “[I pledge to] develop and deploy the best technologies in the world to reduce our dependence on unreliable and expensive imported sources of oil; protect the country from the threat of climate change and disruptions in electrical power; and make our air and water cleaner to stop the spread of health problems caused by pollution, such as asthma. To innovators everywhere, Al Gore is saying -- if you invest in America's future, we will invest in you."

An Inconvenient Truth (the movie) is itself just the reproduction of a long slide show series that he used to bore people to tears with way back when he was a Senator and global warming was still a non-issue. So it really has existed for as long as you wanted it to have existed. Gore’s been trying to get peoples attention about global warming since the late 1980s.