Americans, like most people, often worry about what the rest of the world thinks of them. Often times, they feel like they are made to feel guilty for many of the world's problems, that everyone automatically blames them.
What escapes most Americans, however, are the contradictions in what is generally accepted belief here within the boundaries of the United States, and the realities outside of those borders. Americans have grown up with the notion that this is the leading superpower, so that have grown a collective sense of entitlement regarding that. They allowed George W. Bush's administration to go to two wars at once, at great cost (in every sense, too), and they pursued the Iraq invasion in a particularly arrogant manner that reflected poorly on Americans. The stated reasons for that invasion, that Saddam's Iraq had a mass arsenal of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD's) proved false, yet most Americans hardly felt a need to apologize to the world for being wrong. Instead, they simply pointed to the Bush administration for misleading them. And, like the American people that they were supposed to represent, the Bush administration followed suit and pointed fingers at anybody and everybody but themselves, declaring that they got wrong information from certain government agencies, or from British intelligence. Anything to deflect the blame.
What the world remembers, though, is that America arrogantly pursued an unpopular war that, in the end, proved to be on false grounds, and turned out to be a disaster that was easy to get in, but not so easy to get out of. They did this against the world's wishes, and mocked much of the rest of the world that was warning them it would be a mistake. Bush proclaimed that the US was not waiting for a "permission slip" from the UN, or any other international agency, to "defend" itself.
Of course, most of us know that, in reality, that war was all about oil, and that oil interests indeed misled Americans, hyping up the threat to make it seem like urgent action was, indeed, needed.
But the thing is, Americans could have taken a bit more time to actually study the situation, to understand it better, and not rush to false judgment. That was a case where Americans could have benefitted from being more skeptical.
There are some areas, however, where Americans have grown so skeptical, that nothing, no amount of facts or figures or consensus from the vast majority of the world's scientific community can even begin to alter the skeptical approach that far too many Americans take.
Of course, I am talking about global warming/climate change. And yes, once again, the oil industry, the same one that contributed so much to the disastrous war in Iraq, is actively involved on the wrong side of a very important argument yet again.
And once again, the whole world is watching, and scratching their heads, puzzled, not understanding the American attitude.
For decades now, Americans have dragged their feet when it comes to trying to foster a healthier environment. One of the first things that corporatist Ronald Reagan did once in the White House was remove the solar panels, which was a clear sign of things to come. His environmental record was atrocious. His successor, George H. W. Bush, also was skeptical about the environment, and he embarrassed many American environmentalists with the nation's stance on key issues during his White House tenure. You might think that Clinton, with environmental activist Al Gore as his Vice President, would have been much, much better. But you'd be wrong. In fact, there were some sweeping environmental regulations that the Clinton administration ushered in, but much of these measures came in the final three days of an eight year term. In other words, it was political posturing, to claim to have taken certain actions, knowing full well that the incoming administration, that of George W. Bush, would play the bad guy, and do away with these quickly. That Bush Jr. did, and worse. After promising to be serious on the environment, he turned his back on this within months of assuming office, citing "new research" (he never made clear exactly what this new research was, or how respectable it was) that suggested that carbon emissions were, essentially, not detrimental to the environment. His presidency was, predictably, a disaster for the environment. And now, President Obama, who promised action to foster a healthier environment. This took a backseat during his first term, but he promised to make it the focal point of the second term. He did take action, recently declaring a course that his administration would pursue, more than five years after he first became president. Most environmentalists, if honest, would admit that Obama has been a disappointment when it comes to the environment.
Notice a trend? Be they Democrats or Republicans, whoever happens to occupy the White House over the last few decades has systematically not taken this issue seriously - particularly when it comes to global warming/climate change.
Even when the rest of the world has heard the calls and begun to take urgent action, the United States, predictably, has been the exception. Germany has moved towards wind power as a leading energy source, and tiny Iceland is a leader in alternative energy research. Europe as a whole has tightened environmental regulations in hopes that these actions might foster a healthier environment, and lessen the detrimental impact that humanity has had on it. Just recently, the newly elected leader of India stated that he wanted India to rely on solar power to provide electricity to many millions of Indians.
In the United States, by contrast, those who aim to become the next "leader" in the White House take it as a badge of honor to cast ever more skepticism on the global warming "theory". Prominent Republican hopefuls try to outdo one another in expressing their doubts about the legitimacy of what an overwhelming majority of the world's scientific community believes, that humanity has contributed greatly towards the climate change phenomenon that we have witnessed. Of course, these "leaders" are trying to land big money sponsors for their political ambitions, and it is pretty transparent to anyone with any real objectivity why they are expressing these doubts.
The question is, why do so many Americans believe them? Why do so many Americans subscribe to the doubts that are sponsored by obviously interested parties that, to the rest of the world, clearly marks a red flag for conflict of interest. Of course big oil companies do not want to acknowledge that human activity accounts for much of the climate change crisis, since they are obviously among the very worst offenders. They would probably be made to pay the price at worst, and at best, their activities would be curtailed. So, it behooves them to do whatever it takes to cast any shadow of doubts on the general scientific consensus regarding the "global warming theory".
The thing is, it is really mostly in America that we see the doubts have such a strong sway.
And the rest of the world, once again, is puzzled by American attitudes. Take a look at this quote from Paul B. Farrell of Marketwatch:
"Thirty million Americans just don’t trust scientists warning of a “95% certainty” humans cause global warming. But they do trust Big Oil, the GOP, God. They honestly believe climate science is a dangerous fear-mongering liberal conspiracy."
Ouch!
When you put it that way, it looks pretty silly, doesn't it?
Yet, it's hard to argue. After all, the ones that are indeed active (and I mean, hyperactive!) in pursuit of a more lax approach to tightening environmental regulations are, predictably, the ones that stand to profit, quite literally, the most from it.
So, again, the question: why do so many Americans believe this, without question? Why, for that matter, did so many Americans, again without question, believe that Saddam Hussein possessed a mass arsenal of WMD's that would, de facto, have meant that Iraq was, in fact, a superpower itself?
Perhaps the larger question is, why are so many Americans so gullible, falling for the arguments of big money corporations time and time again?
It's the same thing with the US being the only industrialized nation in the world that fails to provide it's citizens with what every other industrialized nations has for it's citizens: affordable, universal healthcare. It is considered a basic human right pretty much everywhere in the industrialized world, outside of the United States.
Inside American borders? The notion is mocked. People should pay for their own health! Why should we pay for someone else's bad habits? That's the first step towards a socialist dictatorship! Obamacare is communism, and Obama is the new Hitler/Stalin (take your pick)! Our whole economy is going to be threatened, and the healthcare industry is going to collapse! And so on and so forth.
It seems that Americans are highly skeptical where they probably should not be, and far too gullible where they should not be, as well. Fifty years ago, many Americans were making the same, knee jerk reaction arguments about desegregation, that it would spell the end, that it was communism, that fascism is taking over.
And the truth, at least what seems to me to be the truth, is that dictatorship has taken over in America. But it has nothing to do with affordable, universal healthcare, or the anti-war protests (yes, I heard some neocon radio commentators - I think it was Sean Hannity - likening anti-war protestors to neo-Nazis - I wish I were kidding!). It has nothing to do with tightening regulations to foster a healthier environment, or further empowering the EPA.
It has everything to do with corporatism run amok, and controlling people's live more and more. It has everything to do with people being forced to give more and more, and having to make do with less and less, so that corporations can continue to rake in record profits, and exert unprecedented control over our lives. The so-called "Reagan revolution" of the eighties ushered in real changes in the United States, even though the full impact of those changes has probably not fully been felt yet, even after three decades. But the spirit of deregulation that it brought in has changed the emphasis in American politics to catering to corporations and the very wealthiest among us, rather than to the American people themselves. And it is deregulation, which is to say shifting power from an elected government of the people, by the people, and for the people - despite it's flaws and imperfections - to a bunch of unelected boardrooms and CEO's, who do not have to answer to anyone but their also unelected shareholders - that has proven to erode American democracy to the point where it is now virtually on life support.
A Note...
I originally intended this to be a blog entry exclusively focusing on climate change. But in the course of my writing it, I began to delve into other areas, and perhaps made links where others would not. To me, modern American political skepticism has served to isolate Americans politically. The United States is the only country in the industrialized world to not have some form of affordable, universal healthcare, as mentioned earlier. It is also the country that has tended to drag it's feet the most in regards to environmental legislation, and among industrialized nations, skepticism about global warming runs higher here than elsewhere. It was pretty much the same, only in reverse, during the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, when Americans found themselves almost exclusively the only nation where people believed that Saddam Hussein posed an immediate threat to world peace that warranted a preemptive strike, while the rest of the world was cynical (even the majority of those countries that were part of the so-called "Coalition of the Willing" were generally opposed to the war). There is a reason why Americans seem to find themselves isolated like this politically. It is this reason that Putin took advantage of by continually bringing up the Iraq invasion to point out the hypocrisy of American criticism of his actions in Ukraine. Agree of disagree with what he is doing, he has a point there that many Americans simply refuse to acknowledge. The ill-advised invasion still continues to haunt Americans, and bite them on the butt, right up to the present day. If we go further, and look at the laws where America seems to have more in common with many troubled third world countries, such as with gun laws and gun violence, or with the question of torture and the Geneva Convention, or maternity leave, or probably a number of other areas that I am not thinking of, it seems that Americans increasingly stand alone with their peculiar set of political beliefs. Personally, I believe this is all just a facade for corporatism, and Americans allow it because they want to believe in "American exceptionalism". When some false patriots wave the flag and direct the people to believe that their agenda is the correct political agenda for "true patriots" to believe in, you get what we have got here in this country. And it's more than just a shame, or tragic. It is reaching the point where it is criminal, and where the reality of some second American Revolution is a very real possibility, because corporations have proven to know no limits, and they are clearly out of control.
But in any case, again, this was originally supposed to be a blog entry about climate change, with a bunch of links compiled over these last few weeks, even months, possibly. Here are those links:
Fed report: Warming disrupting Americans' lives Associated Press By SETH BORENSTEIN 40 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/fed-report-warming-disrupting-americans-lives-123516804--politics.html
http://news.yahoo.com/effects-climate-change-visible-space-nasa-chief-says-221720003.html
http://news.yahoo.com/global-warming-never-explained-quite-beautifully-162126072.html
"This Is What a Holy Shit Moment for Global Warming Looks Like" by Chris Mooney May 12, 2014
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/05/west-antarctic-ice-sheet-collapse
Antarctic sea ice hit 35-year record high Saturday" by Jason Samenow September 23, 2013
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/09/23/antarctic-sea-ice-hit-35-year-record-high-saturday/
"Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans From Polar Melt" by JUSTIN GILLIS and KENNETH CHANGMAY 12, 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/science/earth/collapse-of-parts-of-west-antarctica-ice-sheet-has-begun-scientists-say.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
Al Gore Explains The Real Motivation Behind Republicans' Climate Change Denial The Huffington Post | by Mollie Reilly Email RSS Posted: 05/12/2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/12/al-gore-republicans_n_5313028.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
Climate science is a hoax: Big Oil, GOP, God say so by Paul B. Farrell of Marketwatch, May 22, 2014 (this is where I got the quote that I used in this particular blog entry from):
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/climate-science-is-a-hoax-big-oil-gop-god-say-so-2014-05-22?siteid=yhoof2
In Landmark Class Action, Farmers Insurance Sues Local Governments For Ignoring Climate Change, by Ari Philips, May 19, 2014:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/19/3439048/insurance-climate-class-action-flood/
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