Case Study: Anti-Science Prevents Necessary Action

Here’s a fascinating but sad story being reported by Mother Jones, The Washington Post and Alternet:

“We Don’t Need None of That Smart-Growth Communism”

and

Virginia residents oppose preparations for climate-related sea-level rise

and

How Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories May Pose a Genuine Threat to Humanity

In summary:

The Middle Peninsula of Virginia, particularly Hampton Roads, will likely sink in coming decades. The area is vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

The Washington Post explains:

Outside of greater New Orleans, Hampton Roads is at the biggest risk from sea-level rise of any area its size in the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The water has risen so much that Naval Station Norfolk is replacing 14 piers at $60 million each to keep ship-repair facilities high and dry.

Enter the Tea Party:

When planners redesignated property as a future flood zone, activists said officials were acting on a hoax. They argued in meetings and on Web sites that local planners are unwitting agents of Agenda 21, a United Nations environmental action plan adopted in 1992 that the activists see as a shadowy global conspiracy to grab land and redistribute wealth in the United States.

The Tea Partiers first unleashed their fury at a February meeting to launch an oyster farming concern in Virginia’s Mathews County.

Throughout the spring and summer, they shouted down planners (most of whom had likely never heard of the Agenda 21 document) and got so riled up that planners started calling for police to be present at the meetings and hired consultants to help keep meetings moving and productive.

According to Tea Party lore, the notion of sustainability is part of the evil UN plot (Agenda 21 being the governing document) to install Socialism in America.

Really.

As reported by Mother Jones, the Virginia uprising is part of a national movement against Agenda 21, the 18 year-old document that advocates sustainable growth:

In the tea partiers’ dystopian vision, the increased density favored by planners to allow for better mass transit become compulsory “human habitation zones.” They warn of Americans being forcibly moved from their suburban dream homes into urban “hobbit homes” and required to give up their cars and instead—gasp!—take the bus to work. The enemies in this fight are hidden behind bland trade-association names like the American Planning Association or ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability).

The Tea Party intimidation has made local planners afraid of retribution by state legislators looking to curry Tea Party favor.

Consider the case of long-time municipal planner Lewis L. Lawrence:

“My professional credentials have been challenged,” said Lawrence, who holds degrees in municipal planning and provides professional and technical planning advice to municipalities throughout the peninsula. He said he has heard whispers behind his back after meetings: “I’ve been brainwashed. I’ve been called a dupe for the U.N.”

And the kooks seem to be winning:

Shereen Hughes, a former planning commissioner in James City County, worried that some officials are giving ground to fearmongers. The uprising against smart growth “is ridiculous” and “a conspiracy theory,” she said.

But it’s effective. Planners aren’t saying this is wrong, Hughes said, because “most are afraid they won’t have a job if they’re too vocal about this issue.” Tea party members have political allies who “might stand up” against planners who complain, Hughes said.

Lawrence is more gracious than I would be:

Lawrence, a native of Gloucester County, bristled at being accused of undermining the constitutional rights of Virginians.

“It’s driving public policy sideways,” Lawrence said. “It’s not advancing it. It’s not going backward. The voice of a minority is trying to assert itself as the voice of the majority.”

Nonetheless, he said he has to give a little to get a little. “I welcome them every time,” Lawrence said.

Sometimes I wish we could make the Tea Party live in the world they fondly dream of.

-Chris

Related articles

• Virginia Governor Declares State of Emergency for Irene – Fox News (news.google.com)
• Irene Spawns Flooding in Va. (myfoxphoenix.com)
• Agenda 21 Wackos On The Move to Stop Smart Growth (treehugger.com)

Reagan’s Legacy

According to Robert Parry, it’s not good:

Rather than continuing a half century of policies that made smart investments in research and development – along with maintaining a well-educated work force and a top-notch transportation infrastructure – Reagan declared “government is the problem” and built a political movement for deconstructing it.

This anti-government crusade launched by Reagan bore some bitter fruit:

The hard truth for the Republicans and the Right to swallow is that a three-decade experiment with historically low tax rates on the rich has done little more than concentrate America’s wealth at the very top and leave everyone else either stagnating or falling backwards.

In an era in which government programs had provided electricity to every corner of the nation and our transportation infrastructure began to increase productivity and pump up our economic engine, Reagan went to war with government.

He turned regulatory decision-making over to the leaders of the businesses that were to be regulated, busted unions, and most devastating of all — spawned the hydra-like idea that cutting taxes and shrinking government was the answer to all of our problems.

Says Parry:

…the national political framework that Reagan left behind – an intense right-wing media, an interlocking network of think tanks shaping Washington’s “group think,” corporate-funded “grassroots” organizations like the Tea Party, and a Republican Party wedded to the most extreme interpretation of Reagan’s anti-government message – makes it almost impossible to change the country’s direction, short of an electoral revolt.

Parry lays out a compelling case against the cult-like hero-worship Reagan has enjoyed for several decades, but also notes the complicity of Democrats in bringing American to its current state:

While the Right deserves most of the blame for putting the United States into this mess, the Left, the Democrats and the broad public are not without fault. They have either failed to build counter-institutions that can make the case for a return to the pre-Reagan economic policies that worked – or they have let themselves be easily duped into abandoning their own interests.

Read the whole thing by clicking the link below. It’s quite good.

The Dark Legacy Of Reaganomics

Related articles

• Kennedy, Reagan, Loved for All the Wrong Reasons: Robert Dallek (businessweek.com)

A Push For Theocracy

Image by Truthout.org via Flickr

Okay, so I’m going to get a little conspiracy-theory on you.

Another way to read the recent victories by Tea Party candidates is the beginning of a resurgence of the evangelical right.

The reigning king and queen of the Tea Party movement are Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, respectively.

Beck was a coke-addled obnoxious radio shock jock until he found Mormonism a few years ago. His recent multimedia rally to supplant Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic civil rights march on Washington, DC was laden with evangelical overtones.

Beck often presents himself as a messianic figure who has answers from on high for the problems he sees plaguing America.

Mormons and the evangelical right have much in common, and when Beck met Palin on his Fox program, it was clear the two hit it off.

Palin, for her part, has jetted her way across the country to hand-pick Tea Party candidates with the right religious qualifications.

Christine O’Donnell is a great example of a successful Palin-backed fundamentalist Christian candidate.

Her creepy evangelical past is well-documented, and she is the undeniable darling of the Christian Right masses.

She is connected to the New Apostolic Reformation, which seeks to unite all Protestants in a post-denominational movement to transform the world through politics and “direct action”.

One of the movement’s “victories” is the adoptions by the Ugandan government of anti-gay policies that make homosexuality a crime punishable by death.

Bill Maher cut to the chase in his recent interview on the Larry King show (at about 1:10 mins into the clip):

The Newsweek article he mentions is here.

The Vanity Fair article is here.

The movement is not a loose organization of churches holding bake sales to raise money for a new organ. The movement is a hierarchical army committed to creating a theocracy — or at least greatly increasing religious influence on government.

The Vanity Fair article explains:

The term “prayer warrior” describes a person who offers a specific kind of supplication: asking God to direct an unseen battle between forces of light and darkness—literal angels and demons—that some Christians believe is occurring all around us. A leading member of Wasilla’s Church on the Rock, the non-denominational evangelical congregation where Palin sometimes attends worship, confirmed this understanding of the term. When Palin thanks prayer warriors for keeping her covered, she is thanking them for calling on angels to shield her from demonic attacks.

Except that the definition is too benign. It does not at all capture what the agenda and goals of this network are.

It is unlikely that many of the rank and file Tea Party protesters understand the agenda of some of their leaders. It’s unclear if they would even care.

The hostility to other religions, uncompromising warfare on a healthy government and vehement opposition to rights for gays tracks perfectly with the aims of the New Apostolic Reformation.

Beck, a master of promotion whose ego seems to know no bounds, seems to delight in the control his mastery of the language of the evangelical movement gives him over his fawning audience.

It’s not clear what his goal is, and at times it seems like he has only half-formulated a direction for his movement. For now he seems content to bask in the attention his religiously-driven followers give him.

Clearly he intends to increase the influence of religion on American politics.

And he and Palin have an army at their disposal.

Most religious Americans hold views far more moderate than those being espoused by the soldiers and officers of this new religious right.

For those who reject the idea of theocracy, and value the freedom of all Americans to practice any brand of religion that they choose (or, like me, none at all), this is a scary time.

-Chris

Related Articles

• On CNN, Bill Maher Says Tea Party Has ‘No Policy Points,’ Obama Has No Domestic Terror on His Watch (newsbusters.org)
• Al Sharpton: Beck Wants A Theocracy, Not Equal Rights (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Shocker: Tea Party Candidate Christine O’Donnell Wins Delaware GOP Primary (mediaite.com)