Saturday, March 30, 2019

As The World Turns

“Unlike some of my colleagues, I am not immediately afraid of what carbon emissions, unaddressed, might do to our environment, in the near-term future, or our civilization or our planet in the next few years. Unlike others, I am not immediately afraid of what the Green New Deal would do to our economy and our government. After all, this isn’t going to pass.” These were the words of Senator Mike Lee from Utah. 
Contrasted to those of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “This is not an elitist issue; this is a quality-of-life issue. You want to tell people that their concern and their desire for clean air and clean water is elitist? Tell that to the kids in the South Bronx, which are suffering from the highest rates of childhood asthma in the country. Tell that to the families in Flint whose kids have their blood ascending in lead levels, their brains are damaged for the rest of their lives. Call them elitist.”
Senator Mike went on to reply to "AOC" thus“The solution to climate change is not this unserious resolution, but the serious business of human flourishing – the solution to so many of our problems, at all times and in all places: fall in love, get married, and have some kids.”
Or, roughly translated, "Don't worry your pretty little head about this. Leave law-making to the big boys in the Senate." 
If you have spent any time reading about the ideas and ideals of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, they invariably mention her age and her gender. As if these were the measure of her competency. Which may have something to do with the fact that not one senator voted for her resolution, the one called the Green New Deal. Meanwhile, the "emergency" on our southern border continues and the Pentagon just signed over one billion dollars of their ample budget to build a wall to keep drugs out. But no one is going to bully the United States Senate into making any rash decisions about our planet.
Like the way Franklin Roosevelt bullied the country into pushing this country out of the Great Depression and putting millions back to work and providing us with a return to prosperity and the capacity to fight a second world war. Or the way John Kennedy got it into his head that we could send a man to the moon before the end of the sixties, after coming in second to the Russians for pretty much all of the Space Race. Those were some of the things that made America great. 
Maybe it's best for the rest of us that Senator Mike wasn't telling FDR and JFK to stay at home and have babies. Some people don't get Armageddon unless it's raining fire from the skies. Keep your eye on that weather report kiddies.  

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