The intelligent meme right here depicts a harsh actuality of life within the U.S. There are teams, closely funded by billionaires, whose goals are to persuade congress to dismantle all features of the federal authorities that serve the widespread American.
I’m reminded of Charles Koch, who, when requested what he regarded to be “honest” concerning taxation, replied, “I get to maintain my cash.” Not a lot nuance there. No recognition that this man, value many billions of {dollars}, lives in a society that wants infrastructure, nationwide protection, public training, and so on. After I heard these phrases come out of his mouth, I mentioned, “All you’re saying is that you just’re a swine.”
OK, so precisely how a lot actual “thought” exists in these so-called “assume tanks?” For a chapter on the topic for my third guide, “Renewable Power–Following the Cash,” I interviewed a spokesperson for the right-wing Cato Institute, and targeted the dialogue on his group’s method to local weather change.
Frankly, I discovered their place to be shockingly indefensible. It included concepts like, “Probably the most devastating results of local weather change lie many years sooner or later, so, we advocate delaying mitigation ways till that point.”
I’m typically very noncombative once I conduct interviews, however I may assist responding, “Oh, however that’s like having an oncologist inform a cigarette smoker that the affected person has lung most cancers, however for the reason that illness is unlikely to kill him within the subsequent ten years, it’s OK to proceed to smoke till the most cancers has ravaged his physique. I don’t assume that physician can be practising drugs for much longer.”
Efforts to put money into a way forward for issues like high quality training and environmental sustainability are met with pseudoscientific assaults from institutes with high-sounding names, all to guard the wealthy from paying taxes.
There’s a restrict to which this may be taken earlier than america turns into a cesspool of ignorance and poisonous chemical substances, and fades into irrelevance on the worldwide stage.
