Ya Just Gotta Laugh at Our Complacence, to Wit — (a) Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Levels are Higher than Humanity Literally Has Ever Seen, but that News Got only a Handful of Folk’s Attention for Maybe One Day — (b) King Obama Finally Targeted a Few too Many People at Home for His Regal Hijinks, but the Only Ones Really Upset Are Those whom the IRS and DOJ actually Screwed with — (c) Remember Pastor Martin Niemöller’s Warning about Complacence?

14 May 2013

This week demonstrated the kind of bumbling stupidity that may eventually rid the planet of a profoundly damaging species — namely us

If you give a nitwit a brain, he or she will almost certainly use it badly.

That includes most of us (I suspect), most of the time. Which may be the single most persuasive argument against religionists’ hopeful, but scientifically irrational “intelligent design” ranting.

This week’s three most important news stories made these points with reversed oomph. “Reversed oomph” means — sort of like an atomic bomb going off down the block, but nobody pays it any attention.

Story 1 — atmospheric carbon dioxide levels now higher than they ever have been, including throughout the entirety of humanity’s evolution from apes

If you are scientifically inclined, you will recognize that hundreds of thousands of years of evolution tend to forge creatures designed to cope with prevailing conditions. Significantly altering those habitats predictably causes havoc for most of them.

Consequently, when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels crept past 400 parts per million this last week, a non-moron should have been at least slightly concerned. But apparently not so for most of us, given the lack of stir that this story apparently caused:

An instrument near the summit of Mauna Loa in Hawaii has recorded a long-awaited climate milestone: the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere there has exceeded 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in 55 years of measurement—and probably more than 3 million years of Earth history.

The last time the concentration of Earth's main greenhouse gas reached this mark, horses and camels lived in the high Arctic. Seas were at least 30 feet higher—at a level that today would inundate major cities around the world.

The planet was about 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer. But the Earth then was in the final stage of a prolonged greenhouse epoch, and CO2 concentrations were on their way down.

This time, 400 ppm is a milepost on a far more rapid uphill climb toward an uncertain climate future.

Admittedly, panic is not in order. But a combat-ready person would recognize that a certain amount of preparatory anxiety would be helpful in getting oneself girded up to face a probably hostile unknown.

A complete lack of nervousness, before leaping into a potentially deadly situations, marks incompetent fools:

In the U.S., the same dysfunctions preventing anything else useful from happening -- the Senate filibuster, the gerrymandered House, the corrupt campaign finance system -- also hold climate change mitigation hostage.

So does denial.

And though some denial can be attributed to hoax propaganda funded by the fossil fuel industry, some comes from an infantile strain in the American psyche that should not be mistaken for religious freedom.

Story 2 — King Obama’s IRS decided to take a few shots at His Highness’s political adversaries

From Reuters:

When tax agents started singling out non-profit groups for extra scrutiny in 2010, they looked at first only for key words such as 'Tea Party,' but later they focused on criticisms by groups of "how the country is being run," according to investigative findings reviewed by Reuters on Sunday.

Exactly who at the IRS made the decisions to start applying extra scrutiny was not clear from the findings, which were contained in portions of an investigative report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

After brewing for months, the IRS effort exploded into wider view on Friday when Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations for the IRS, apologized for what she called the "inappropriate" targeting of conservative groups for closer scrutiny, something the agency had long denied.

At a legal conference in Washington, while taking questions from the audience, Lerner said the agency was sorry.

She said the screening practice was confined to an IRS office in Cincinnati; that it was "absolutely not" influenced by the Obama administration; and that none of the targeted groups was denied tax-free status.

As of this writing, the only people really concerned appear to be Republicans. King Obama’s Democratic Party supporters seem to have chalked his anti-democratic malevolence up to a mere foible of failed oversight. He can’t be everywhere, can he?

Maybe not, but the President sets the tone. And this Administration’s tone has been remarkably autocratic. It has delighted in:

drone murdering people — without due process of any kind;

spying on everyone, when convenient — which evidently is usually;

prosecuting whistleblowers — mercilessly and against America’s best interest;

and

keeping people locked up at Quantánamo — with not so much as even the most trivial of lawful reasons.

Story 3 — Department of Justice subpoenaed reporters’ telephone records

Can’t have reporters unearthing the King’s dirty laundry, can we?

The Justice Department used a secret subpoena to obtain two months of phone records for Associated Press reporters and editors without notifying the news organization, a senior department official tells NBC News, saying the step was necessary to avoid "a substantial threat to the integrity" of an ongoing leak investigation.

The seizure of the phone records, disclosed earlier Monday by AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt, is the latest move in a series of high profile and controversial investigations of leaks of classified information by the Justice Department.

In a letter of protest to Attorney General Eric Holder, Pruitt said obtaining more than two months of AP phone records on 20 separate telephone lines without prior notice was a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into news-gathering operations.

Maybe it’s time — to rein the President in

I don’t often agree with George Will. But given the two latter news stories, it may be time to start thinking the way Mr. Will reportedly is:

Conservative columnist George Will on Sunday suggested that President Barack Obama could be impeached after it was revealed that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeted tea party groups.

The Associated Press learned last week that the IRS had apologized for what it was an “inappropriate” investigation into whether tea party groups were abusing their tax-exempt status.

“How stupid do they think we are?” Will asked during an ABC News panel on Sunday.

“Just imagine… if the George W. Bush administration had IRS underlings, out in Cincinnati of course, saying we’re going to target groups with the word ‘ ‘progressive’ in their title. We would have all hell breaking loose.”

I abhorred George W. Bush’s wide-ranging transgressions against basic American principles. But President Obama’s record of the same is now radically worse.

Rather than impeaching a sitting president for having illicit White House sex, perhaps it is time to take one to task for doing Liberty herself criminal harms.

The moral? — We are (apparently) pretty dumb, and it seems that we ain’t gettin’ no smarter

My prediction is that all of this news — from the probably deteriorating climate to snuffing out freedoms — is going to blow over, given our accustomed complacence.

Republicans will certainly do more than their share of their now customarily idiotic screeching, but most of it will miss the point — given their already demonstrated willingness to let King Bush II initiate the depredations that King Obama has magnified.

Democrats, for their part, will not say much of anything because President Obama is “their” man. And that is all that matters in an America in which partisanship has taken the place of everything, including Truth and Economic Progress.

On the “liberal” side, I could not help but notice that this morning’s online Huffington Post ignored both the IRS and Associated Press spying stories in favor of headlining:

(i) Russia’s seizure of an alleged CIA spy

and

(ii) Senator Elizabeth Warren’s (righteous and important) attempt to hold the Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Reserve accountable for not prosecuting or properly regulating criminal banks.

We are in a sorry state. And we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Recall Pastor Martin Niemöller’s (1892-1984) famous World War II line?

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemöller, Martin Niemöller : First they came for the socialists . . .”, Holocaust Encyclopedia (11 May 2012) (reformatted)

Where you “gonna” be — when the Secretive Autocrat, his drones, or (maybe) the Climate come for you?

PeteFree.com