Al Gore Explains The Real Motiviation Behind Republicans' Climate Change Denial

[applegrove]

Al Gore Explains The Real Motiviation Behind Republicans' Climate Change Denial

The Huffington Post | by Mollie Reilly

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/12/al-gore-republicans_n_5313028.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

"SNIP.....................


Former vice president Al Gore says he sees the true motivation behind these remarks: currying favor with Republican megadonors like Charles and David Koch.

Speaking at the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics on Monday, Gore noted that Republicans like John McCain and Mitt Romney had acknowledged and taken steps toward solving the issue before it became politicized by the right.

"I don't think it's particularly complicated why they have all cowed into abandoning that position," Gore said. "They will face primary opponents financed by the Koch Brothers, and others who are part of their group, if they even breathe the slightest breath of sympathy for the truth about climate science. It's not really that complicated."

Gore continued: "And of course, Sen. Paul is from a coal state, but even if he were not, anyone who wants to set his or her aspirations on the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2016 already knows that they can't possibly cross the Koch brothers and the others that are part of that group, the large carbon polluters and ideological anti-statists who are really terrified that the government will do anything new, so as Grover Norquist said famously years ago, they want to shrink the government to where it can be drowned in a bathtub."




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[applegrove]

1. YES! And the Democrats continue to build the narrative around the Koch brothers. Keep at it. It is

1) true 2) will wake people up to their country being bought by people who don't care for them.

[okaawhatever]

2. K & R for the truth nt

[spanone]

4. k&r...

[IDemo]

5. True, but in addition to that,

I honestly think that Conservatives realize that appealing to the least sensible, most emotionally overwrought, attack-mode side of any issue has become a mandatory part of the rhetoric for anyone hoping to gain the support of today's Republicans.

[applegrove]

6. I think they are just chicken and afraid of big money. They are not leaders and it shows.

[freshwest]

12. No, they are not afraid of the big money. They get a good cut. Most baggers have their plans laid

out to make their fortune before running for office. They only run to funnel money to their leaders, the rich oligarchs.

They follow them, so of course they are not leaders. Their time in office is prescribed and planned out for their pay masters and their bosses are not the American people.

Theirc onsistent pattern is nepotism, stealing the Commons and keeping the money coming for their own friends and family. They see no further than that.

They are patricians or tribalists, and would be oligarchs. If people would just see what the GOP truly is, a criminal conspiracy to get rich, they might get voted out.

The sad thing is, the people that vote for them are no different in values and goals. That is what we're confronted with here in the USA, no different than what is going on in Ukraine and Russia and other nations.

Very ugly thing.

[applegrove]

14. That is very sad but true.

[Uncle Joe]

7. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, applegrove.

[2naSalit]

8. Sounds about right.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. It's about the cars

The suburbs, especially the exurbs, are Republican strongholds, and so many people live in neighborhoods that have NOTHING within walking distance and no non-automotive ways to get anywhere.

Anything that says "Your way of life will have to change" is going to be threatening.

They think, "I can't drive as much? I'll be trapped in my house! And how will anyone know that I'm important if I can't drive a big car?"

I am not a vegetarian, but nearly 40 years ago, when Anna Thomas wrote her pioneering cookbook The Vegetarian Epicure, she noted that (at that time), when people thought of a vegetarian meal, they imagined a meat-and-potatoes meal without the meat, i.e. potatoes and a pile of vegetables. As her recipes indicated, however, vegetarianism was a whole new way of looking at meals, so that your main dish could be a soup, a stir fry, a casserole, a curry, a burrito, or any number of other foods from around the world.

In the same way, the Republican base things of car-free or car-lite living as exurban life without the cars. It never occurs to them that their suburb or exurb could be retrofitted to be more transit, cycling, and pedestrian friendly.

[applegrove]

10. Little mom and pop grocery stores. I like

the idea of that only retrofitted so that you go online and order food from them for the week and they get those items in. A few trucks delivering food to that grocery store rather than 300 cars driving way the heck out to the big box grocery. The possibilities are endless. If we could only get the gop to help in congress with laws that would encourage such thinking.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Nail meets hammer

But you forgot to add rural areas that insist on maintaining a way of life that is...well rural...and pretty much over.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. The traditional small town was actually quite walkable

and according to my grandmother, who spent the early years of her marriage in various small towns in North Dakota up through about 1925, people would live on their farms, drive (a car or a horse and wagon) into town once or twice a week, park their vehicle, and walk around to do errands.

It wasn't the contemporary suburban lifestyle, only with cows and chickens.

Such a life would be even more sustainable, given electronic communications, if only there were still small towns with a variety of businesses (which were largely supplied by the railroads).

I asked my grandmother how people moved from town to town in those days. She said that they rented a boxcar from the railroad, hired a horse-drawn wagon and a crew to haul their belongings to the station, paid the railroad to take their boxcar to the new town, and picked up their belongings, again with a horse-drawn wagon and a paid crew.

It was a huge mistake for this country to let its railroads deteriorate to second-class status.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. I am talking of all the energy projects going into rural areas in the US

they are being fought tooth and nail.

But the battle was lost about fifteen years ago when a decision was made to keep centralized energy production and keep our utilities a private, viable system

[Jackpine Radical]

24. That's pretty much the way my father's family did it

when they moved from South Dakota to WI in 1910. And thy rode in the boxcar.

[951-Riverside]

13. Being arrogant, dismissive and snarky didnt help convert people

Global warming is real but telling people they're stupid for "not believing the science" is the wrong approach. There has to be a vastly different approach.

There are a lot of right wing nutjobs who are firm believers in renewable/free energy and even buy into scams so there should be an approach that gets everyone energized just like people from all walks of life are energized about the internet and computers. Once more people start reducing their footprint, behemoth corp interest will follow suit and also start investing.

And no I don't believe carbon credits are the answer.

[Scuba]

16. Maybe a "wading tour" of Miami?

[Orsino]

15. tl;dr: Money.

There's not much that they won't do for money.

[elleng]

19. OK, Money is NOT speech,

money enables politicians to pay for ads

'Unlimited campaign expenditures “impair” the democratic process, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens told senators Wednesday, urging Congress to amend the Constitution to allow “reasonable limits” on election spending. . .

“While money is used to finance speech, money is not speech,” Stevens said. “After all, campaign funds were used to finance the Watergate burglaries -- actions that clearly were not protected by the First Amendment.”'

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-supreme-court-stevens-congress-money-speech-20140430-story.html

Finding a remedy MUST be my goal, as this country is completely messed up (polite terms,) and will NOT recover without CHANGE!

[penndragon69]

20. There's another reason repubLIEcons are climate change deniers.

It gives THEM time to buy up all the high ground around coastal cities
so that when the waters start to rise, it will be THEY who have high ground to sell
to the highest bidder.
Disgusting, really.

[malaise]

21. He nailed it

Rec

[JEB]

22. Bowing before the Bircher kings of America.

[mn9driver]

23. $100 trillion

That's the current worldwide value of oil in proved reserve in the ground.

That buys a LOT of denial.