Gored by Gore

[NinerSevenTango]

vacpress, was the power plant there before you moved in?

Is the power plant part of a publicly regulated utility, as they are in my area? Are the rates, profits, investments, and policies, and emissions all regulated by a state board, as they are here?

If 85% of the kids in the neighborhood are suffering ill effects objectively attributable to emissions from the power plant, isn't there an army of ambulance chasing publicity hound lawyers clamoring for millions of dollars?

--97T--

[sdantonio]

Just to add in my 2 cents without reading through the entire thread

PETA, the People for the Eating of Tasty Aminals, have just condemed Gore (yesterday I think) saying if he was really green and earth conscious he would give up eating meat and be vegan or some other flavor of vegetarian.

Additionally his mansion in TN used nore electricity in one month that the average american family uses in 1 year. But he now says he is going to switch to compact fluorscent lights.

This doesn't even take into consideration his other mansion in Verginia, which, being on the historic property list, he is banned by law from making any changes tomake it more "green friendly".

[vacpress]

Niner,

Maybe you have never lived within a very large metropolitan area(chicago).

When I moved here, the Clean Air Act was slowly clamping down on coal burners, asking them to reduce emissions and meet some guidelines. Especially concerning the use of 'scrubbers', which i do not know the details of.

There is a documented issue of children here having asthma at rates many times (15x) the normal rate in chicago. The socio-economic makeup of my neighborhood is destined to be powerless. Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood has always been a refuge for artists, communists, foreigners.. The current makeup is charmingly old fashioned mexican families and the cities most concentrated art community.

We get literally laughed at by the city when we ask about the power plant. As for all these mechanisms you mention that may make it better. Those are ineffective. The emisssions WERE regulated by a state board, now they have the option, which they exercise, to purchase emissions credits.

The best thing going for us is also a mixed blessing. Gentrification has started to thrash the better areas. All the nicest parts of this awesome old neighborhood(it is special here. is it special where you live?) are now being converted into condos.. I havent got a huge anti-gentrification thing, but I do hope if we do need all these silly yuppies with $250,000 2-bedroom apartments, maybe when their children get asthma, the political clout of these white people will trickle down and help the ultimately helpless ethnic and art communities.


i like al gore because he has exposed himself to all of these calls of 'hypocrate' in the name of a reightious cause. he isnt an idiot. he is a scholar. i dont ever agree with much that politicians say, but i am glad he is doing something. i am glad he seems more rational and viable than most politicians talking about the environment..

if he needs to gain political capital while exposing this issue, so be it. it is clear that people have been enlightened by his presentation of the issue. even if he has an agenda and sometimes says absurd things, it is better than nothing.

i wish he would put in some energy saver light bulbs...

vacpress, was the power plant there before you moved in?

Is the power plant part of a publicly regulated utility, as they are in my area? Are the rates, profits, investments, and policies, and emissions all regulated by a state board, as they are here?

If 85% of the kids in the neighborhood are suffering ill effects objectively attributable to emissions from the power plant, isn't there an army of ambulance chasing publicity hound lawyers clamoring for millions of dollars?

--97T--

[sdantonio]

Niner,

Maybe you have never lived within a very large metropolitan area(chicago).

When I moved here, the Clean Air Act was slowly clamping down on coal burners, asking them to reduce emissions and meet some guidelines. Especially concerning the use of 'scrubbers', which i do not know the details of.

truncated, but read the whole thing, it's a good reply

ll very true, and if you want some more hypocracy, there was as EPA report issued a few weeks ago regarding the smoggiest place in America... LA. The largest single poluter in the LA area was the the hollywood industry. You know, the folks who spend their time *****ing at us about now badly we polute things. The official hollywood industry response... well if you clamp down on us and put restrictions on us then we will just make out movies elsewhere and that will screw over a large section of the areas economy.

So I guess if hollywood isn't flipping the bird at the poluters their flipping off the antipolution enforcers.

[One of Many]

I can comprehend the Global climate debate/discussions here being somewhat political and socially informative.

However for your second offense,

While venting animosity and indignation using racial undertones can be seen as bold and progressive by some. These superficial slights would not be tolerated here or anywhere else with respectful values amongst men, given any other relative context casting similar contempt against any other group.



DC

[fizzissist]

You're right. I feel that I've been discriminated against based solely on my race.

I have the RIGHT to not be offended, and this discussion must remain politically correct with zero tolerance for contextual contempt.

...anyone see South Park last night???

[vacpress]

you are correct, of course.

however, it feels allot different when you live amongst it. However, in the case i spoke of, this IS an 'ethnic community'. This is not a suburb. Unfortunately there are divisions in income and clout based on race and other such factors. I didnt say anything unfavorable about any race. Furthermore, I didnt say anything they wouldnt say in the 'Media'.

You suggest we ignore such aspects of the issue? Look around america, probably the world, you will find that there are race lines for who suffers the effects of pollution..

Just like they taught us(i wonder if it is true) that in the English industrial revolution mainly the poor lived in the polluted areas...

Whatever. PC is not ignoring race related socio economic conditions, it is having a standard of decency in communication. I am not sure I crossed that.


R

I can comprehend the Global climate debate/discussions here being somewhat political and socially informative.

However for your second offense,

While venting animosity and indignation using racial undertones can be seen as bold and progressive by some. These superficial slights would not be tolerated here or anywhere else with respectful values amongst men, given any other relative context casting similar contempt against any other group.



DC

[One of Many]

I'd submit to you.

I have seen plenty of small cities around the country that were very nice home town metropolises great to raise kids in and safe to walk on the streets at night. Once the city officials decided there was a need to build low income housing, the cities became rough neck territory, filth and pollution followed. Then the business moved out. People with clout and power created it as a platform for opportunity, yet someone else trashed it. Now the issue is turned again on the people with power, seen from the inside of misery looking out as the problem again. Go figure!


Now, merely by changing only the color of the people within your argument, implied as bringing an unwelcome calamity on any community. Regardless of what scenario or excuse that can be used to defend implicating one race at fault as a whole. No one can deny the dynamics of the offense level escalates many fold into a race bating comment.

Don't get me wrong, I am not offended. I just view the double standard as unconscionable. "Whatever"........kinda backs that up, don't it?



DC

[vacpress]

Fair enough.

I think the issue is complex and that many viewpoints have some validity.

I have sidetracked the original intent of the thread a bit, sorry.

Yes. Al Gore's hypocrisy is disheartening. Long live oil\coal power and profiteering.

Carry on.

[NinerSevenTango]

vacpress,

That power plant --

Was it there before you moved in?

Do the people in your neighborhood get governmental assistance from programs to help them pay their utility bills?

How much money has been spent on scrubber technology by the utilities, and how can you say they are ineffective? Why haven't you looked up the numbers on how much of what is in the discharges, and compared them with occupational exposure levels yourself?

How much more would you and the people in your neighborhood be willing to spend for less pollution from the power plants? Especially if the people in your neighborhood are the least able to afford it?

What difference does it make, where I live?

How do you know that the asthma rates are not caused by some other factor? If it has been proven that it is because of the power plant, who proved it, and which chemical is to blame? Does the incidence follow prevailing wind patterns?

Would Gore be on this campaign if he ever produced anything useful in his life, and traded it to a willing buyer?

I ask these questions because it is apparent to me that Gore has seized upon pseudoscience to scare the ignorant and to ride the scare as a vehicle to power, in his quest to continually expand the powers of government and diminish the freedom of the individual. The producers and honest businessmen of society might be seen as a convenient target for the envy of the have-nots, and the environ mentals can paint them as deserving of having their possessions and income confiscated. But the real victims are the dupes that let Gore do their thinking for them, for they are the ones who are selling their own limited economic freedoms out for a hand-out. They can cheer more expensive energy, punitive taxes, and socialist nanny-state programs too numerous to mention, never realizing that it is themselves and their own offspring who will end up living in perpetual servitude to the state through their own DEPENDENCE on it. Gore thinks YOU use too much energy, and he aims to regulate how much you can afford. Whether it will result in a greener world is immaterial. What is material is that you will do what you are told, when you are told, according to the dictates of politicians who are not held to any standard of truth for the reasoning behind their megalomaniac schemes to regulate, rule, and tax your very sustenance and every aspect of your life. Am I exaggerating? Just watch and see, because there is nothing that myself or people like me can do to stop it. History going back to the ancients shows that every civilization over a certain size follows a path of self-destruction, and the sheeple never see through the trickery and buncombe, no matter how ridiculous it is. The few who know, can take measures to sidestep these movements, which will wash over our society as inexorably as a rising tide. What you can expect out of this, is ever rising numbers of people consuming fewer and fewer goods produced, because over time ever fewer people become willing or able to produce much only to have it confiscated. And we are already near the breaking point on that score. When this causes the inevitable economic crash, possibly in conjunction with a monetary collapse, you will see the government pursue war as a way to keep everyone on subject and working to support them. Despite the iniquities and outrages that take place during the decline, what any freedom loving person is really afraid of, is the plans for maintaining control when the crash comes. Isn't the groundwork being laid already? Didn't we already do this once? How much government expansion can a people sustain the next time?

People who know the way history repeats itself see this decline in full force already. The signs of this are already apparent, as you can see in today's papers, where General Motors outlines its strategy for the future, expecting soon to sell more vehicles outside the U.S. than domestically. These vehicles will not be produced in the U.S. What is happening to the U.S. is a larger scale example of what happens to cities that elect socialistic, tax-and-spend-for-kickbacks, regulate everything nanny governments. It's called capital flight. General Motors and every other large manufacturing concern that has the ability to do so are taking every spare dollar in cash flow that comes in, and removing it from the jurisdiction of the looters, while steadfastly refusing to invest in production capacity here. This strategy began with the divestment of virtually all parts making plants, an admission that they cannot make money building cars here, and telegraphing their intention to just walk away from the U.S. market, and the government, and the unions along with them. Faced with ever stronger unions, more workplace regulation, higher taxes, mileage standards, idiotic ethanol and hydrogen schemes, higher energy costs, higher steel costs, continued inflation, and generally worsening conditions for every measurable business condition, they are fleeing the neighborhood for their very life. Just like any inner city. And just like the major city that I live near, the people who are left are the dependent ones. They take over the government and enact new, higher taxes, more regulation, more hand-outs, more graft and corruption. What they get out of it is a wholesale departure of every business in the city, along with whatever families can afford to get their children out. Then, what is left are crime-ridden neighborhoods full of welfare dependents, where no sane businessman who has any other option would risk his life to do business. Immigrants scratching out a living are the only ones brave enough to open a corner store or gas station, and one of them gets killed in a robbery near here every few weeks.

The goose that laid the golden egg is about dead. Watch what happens to the standard of living of people when not only is half their sustenance eaten out before they get to keep any, but when the cost of energy raises the price of almost everything beyond reach. When this happens, the sheeple will bleat out for the government to take over, because those greedy capitalists have ruined it all, and then they will all have what they so richly deserve -- a life of watching the Al Gores of the world heat their mansions and drive their limousines with rationed power that they are not allowed to have, while they chat with others in the bread line about how much bluer the sky is, now that all manufacturing and most farming is done on another continent.

Perhaps this terrible vision won't come fully to pass very soon, perhaps it will happen sooner than we think. But this is not good or bad, it's just inevitable when a majority sees that they can use the power of the government to extract ever more from the producers of wealth. They will get what they want, even if they ignore the obvious point that less of what they want will be available to them, and eventually it will be denied them completely. While we witness what happened in the USSR, and Germany, and Italy, and the slow stagnation of the EU economies, we continually try to accelerate our own course down the same path.

I'll be watching it unfold from the sidelines with great amusement. Nothing will stop this government machine or steer it from the path that is being set on so many levels. So my words aren't intended to convert anyone who isn't already inclined to agree. They are only written in the hope that some person of the right mind might see them, and educate himself, and find some means to get out of the way of the juggernaut before it comes his way.

--97T--

[One of Many]

I think what you brought to the thread is valid and complex, as far as trickle down effects go. There is plenty of hypocrisy to go around when it comes to finger pointing rather than toward the direct individuals responsible for the decisions, conditions and why.

IMHO, socio-economics in so many respects, becomes self imposed through generations. It's literally frozen to the point cultural icons and peer pressure are misguiding the youth with careless irresponsibility and having spite on their own kind, that do try to earn their way out of poverty with an education to capture the American dream. Not unlike how intense hatred and avoiding external interference is openly taught in Middle Eastern medrases and accepted as destiny. False comfort?

The people that do take on the challenge and struggle to succeed do not hold onto the victim mentality stigmatisms that prevent prosperity nor do they pass them on to their children. Outside influences that do make bad impressions are not always recognized for what they are or the effect they have. One bad apple spoils the bunch or Misery loves company sound familiar? As I have been taught, it is the sins of the father that plague future generations. It doesn't take many generations for cultural chaos to develop a helpless people unwilling to rise above its grip. False hope?

It is rather amusing watching some folks putting so much faith into the likes of social icons that are ridiculously inept in so many of life's issues, but cling to radical causes to retain the spotlight oblivious to how phony they look. I am simply amazed by the apathy over just how some of these icons garnered wealth and whether they walk the walk. It's like being enamored by the icons mere bigger than life, rich image is enough to make their words gospel. We give far to much weight to Super Star popularity, when they rarely have the integrity or knowledge to speak intelligently for the cause, beyond their bank accounts. False witness?

What........Gore's family money was never connected to profiteering?

If there is money to be made, Gore isn't dumb enough to let it slip by. I can see a market explosion for Al Gore Popsicles to ease the GW heat suffering youth as potential converts..........and revenue streams. At least he's making it look like he is doing something in the media, while he does everything else behind the scenes and his supporters are none the wiser and wouldn't believe it anyways. If there is money to be lost, you can bet there is a line item tax deduction to cover it too. Although, if you are vested in a California retirement plan, the Gore's Current channel investment looks be a pretty dirty secret if it does fail.

DC

[fizzissist]

"I'll be watching it unfold from the sidelines with great amusement."

...Speaking of watching...I broke down and watched An Inconvenient Truth tonight. What a load of crap. What a load of cinematic horse crap.

I can see why it is sooooo popular. If you don't know any better, if you don't know any of the facts behind his claims, you'll be lulled like a sheeple in a good ole baptist revival. Yeah, Gore is that good. He was born to preach.

If you're naive to the ways of Hollywood, you won't catch the subleties, like Gore riding in a yellow cab. Or the small little corner of the Lincoln limo that just barely makes it in frame he exits from on his way into a one of his "thousand" presentations. Yup. Like that's all real. Just like him walking through airport security metal detectors while wearing a metal belt. .....and not a secret service droid in sight.

It's a brilliant example of film and editing, scripting and acting. But it ain't a documentary about anything but AlGore's aspirations of power and influence.

How many of you who've seen it remember the bit about the peer-reviewed publications that didn't have a single dissenting opinion about the source of global warming???? 920+ papers, and ZERO papers not in agreement. Gore didn't mention the study was that of Naomi Oreskes, and Benny Peiser took her study to task and found it was B.S. His efforts to unmask her were met with REAL censorship.

Wanna see??? http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Scienceletter.htm

Gore also spends time playiing the poor me card with the tripe of his loss to Bush. He lost, ancient history, boo-fricken hoo, and it has NOTHING to do with global warming, anthropogenic or otherwise.

Gore spends his time preaching. That's what this movie really is, a gimme that old time religion sermon, with the bible repaced, and CO2 as satan. If what he were preaching were true and without deception, it might be ok, but it ain't.

Gore is a sleaze, a hypocrite. He's today's $300 man.