President Obama spoke at a Walmart Store in Mountain View, California, on Thursday. I was shocked, as was Chris Hayes, who wondered why Obama chose to embrace Walmart for its environmental leadership, even though Walmart is not among the leaders in this field. Why should Barack Obama choose to give a speech at a Walmart, whose owners are charter members of the one percent.
I forgot my Obama rule: If you don't understand why Obama has made a political move, it's only because Obama understands politics better than you do. If Obama chose to give a speech at a Walmart store in Silicon Valley in California, rest assured he has a reason for so doing. He is one of the most subtle and perceptive politicians of our time.
My suggestion is that Obama has tipped his hand. He is looking forward to the presidential race of 2016, when he will support Hillary Clinton. If Clinton has a challenger from the left, such as Elizabeth Warren or Ed Markey, she will need to win the California primary. So Obama went to California to give her campaign a boost. If Clinton runs in California, she will have to face charges that she was once on the board of Walmart, and thus is a stooge for the one percent. No one is more a member of the one percent than a member of the Walton family, billionaires all.
So Obama has struck a blow against any challengers in 2016. Walmart, apparently, is a leader in the environmental movement. Obama has said it, so it must be so, no matter what Chris Hayes or I might argue against it. He said it in California, too, so California voters will recall his verdict well.
Hayes and other pundits have wondered why Obama would take such a step. After all, they say, he is not going to run for another office. He doesn't need to take controversial positions. But Obama is also concerned about the Democratic Party, more than his own candidacy or lack of it. He is concerned that everything he has worked for in the environmental field, in health care, or in the area of equal rights for all, may be reversed by the President that succeeds him, if that president is a Republican.
Obama is right to be concerned. The Republicans and the one per centers who back them would love to reverse the achievements of the Obama presidency. They can't do it, though, as long as a Democrat occupies the White House. Obama cares about that, as should we all.
The one per centers--yes, David Koch and Sheldon Adelson, you know who you are--wish to impose their will on the 99 percent (the rest of us) by spending their millions to lie to us and persuade us that the worse argument is the better. These are perilous times. We must not let them win.
Showing posts with label Chris Hayes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chris Hayes. Show all posts
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Chris Hayes survives beat-down from Jonathan Chait
Chris Hays appears in Years of Living Dangerously, Showtime's great series on Global Warming. Hayes has called Global Warming the most important issue of our time and has done a great deal of research on it, so he knows what he's talking about.
Jonathan Chait knows very little about Global Warming, which he appears to regard as about as important as a smudge on your newspaper. Nevertheless, he takes Hayes to task in a New York Magazine piece entitled, "Chris Hayes is not making sense on Keystone". Chait has two basic complaints to make about Hays's latest article in the Nation: Keystone's total load of carbon, he says, is only one-tenth as much as its opponents believe, and President Obama has comparable options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Chait's problem is simple. He doesn't believe Global Warming is a crucial issue. For him, the Alberta tar sands become harmless if they release "only" 22 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Chait wants to support Obama's nonsensical, "all of the above" energy policy. But he and Obama somehow believe that increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is ok if it only increases "a little bit." This is nonsense.
The president should be fighting against every gram of carbon injected into the already dangerously loaded atmosphere. "All of the above" is a great energy policy if it means stopping tar-sand development, imposing a carbon tax, raising emission standards, and making polluters pay for the damage they are doing to the environment instead of forcing our children and grandchildren to pay for it.
I said Chait knows very little about Global Warming because he takes his 22 billion tons figure from an article in Scientific American that he has clearly not read. Taking only the parts of scientific studies that support your viewpoint is called cherry-picking. That's obviously what Chait has done, because that same article includes a quote from James Hansen (a scientist, not a journalist) who says:
Chait is generally considered a liberal, but in this article he adopts the tactics favored by the extreme right: denial, cherry-picking data, and attacking the messenger. He wants the reader to believe that Global Warming isn't as bad as we thought it was, writing:
Obama's actions come after two decades of inaction on climate change, and time is our enemy. His two predecessors did almost nothing to combat the problem. The Bush administration and his cronies assured us that the problem was not real, that scientists were lying to us, and anyway global warming was good for business. In other words, they intentionally made the problem worse for their own private gain. So Obama needs to see this as an issue on which compromise has already been tried with terrible results. The free market has had its chance and failed utterly.
Obama needs to take the same stance he did on raising the debt limit: no debate, no compromise, no games. Chait, as Obama's media surrogate, needs to urge Obama to heed the warnings of reputable scientists. Instead, he attacks Hayes, a journalist like himself, for faulty reasoning.
Do not attack journalists, Jonathan. Attack the scientists who are pimping themselves to the energy industry. Attack the Kochs, who are saturating the media with misleading advertisements using the same arguments that you are using. You have a platform. Use it for the good of humankind.
Give a damn.
Jonathan Chait knows very little about Global Warming, which he appears to regard as about as important as a smudge on your newspaper. Nevertheless, he takes Hayes to task in a New York Magazine piece entitled, "Chris Hayes is not making sense on Keystone". Chait has two basic complaints to make about Hays's latest article in the Nation: Keystone's total load of carbon, he says, is only one-tenth as much as its opponents believe, and President Obama has comparable options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Chait's problem is simple. He doesn't believe Global Warming is a crucial issue. For him, the Alberta tar sands become harmless if they release "only" 22 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Chait wants to support Obama's nonsensical, "all of the above" energy policy. But he and Obama somehow believe that increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is ok if it only increases "a little bit." This is nonsense.
The president should be fighting against every gram of carbon injected into the already dangerously loaded atmosphere. "All of the above" is a great energy policy if it means stopping tar-sand development, imposing a carbon tax, raising emission standards, and making polluters pay for the damage they are doing to the environment instead of forcing our children and grandchildren to pay for it.
I said Chait knows very little about Global Warming because he takes his 22 billion tons figure from an article in Scientific American that he has clearly not read. Taking only the parts of scientific studies that support your viewpoint is called cherry-picking. That's obviously what Chait has done, because that same article includes a quote from James Hansen (a scientist, not a journalist) who says:
Moving to tar sands, one of the dirtiest, most carbon-intensive fuels on the planet, is a step in exactly the opposite direction, indicating either that governments don't understand the situation or that they just don't give a damn.Read the article, Jonathan, don't just steal favorable statistics from it.
Chait is generally considered a liberal, but in this article he adopts the tactics favored by the extreme right: denial, cherry-picking data, and attacking the messenger. He wants the reader to believe that Global Warming isn't as bad as we thought it was, writing:
First, the environmental impact of Keystone is far smaller than Hayes implies...And second, the practical alternative, far from being nonexistent, is actually quite potent.Chait needs to do a bit more reading in the literature before he sets himself up as an expert. The opinion among scientists is that the situation is worse, not better, because the US and other governments are dragging their feet and failing to take the drastic measures necessary to avert catastrophe. The steps that Obama is taking are fine, and he deserves our gratitude for taking them, but they fall far short of what the world needs, not in the distant future, but right now.
Obama's actions come after two decades of inaction on climate change, and time is our enemy. His two predecessors did almost nothing to combat the problem. The Bush administration and his cronies assured us that the problem was not real, that scientists were lying to us, and anyway global warming was good for business. In other words, they intentionally made the problem worse for their own private gain. So Obama needs to see this as an issue on which compromise has already been tried with terrible results. The free market has had its chance and failed utterly.
Obama needs to take the same stance he did on raising the debt limit: no debate, no compromise, no games. Chait, as Obama's media surrogate, needs to urge Obama to heed the warnings of reputable scientists. Instead, he attacks Hayes, a journalist like himself, for faulty reasoning.
Do not attack journalists, Jonathan. Attack the scientists who are pimping themselves to the energy industry. Attack the Kochs, who are saturating the media with misleading advertisements using the same arguments that you are using. You have a platform. Use it for the good of humankind.
Give a damn.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Chris Hayes understands the threat of global warming; Tim Cavanaugh understands nothing
Chris Hayes must be used to this by now. Whenever Hayes--or anyone else, for that matter--mentions the catastrophe of global warming, he gets smacked down by someone. There are usual suspects in this game of whack-a-mole. The criticisms usually come from right-wing sources that are heavily financed by the energy industry.
One of the usual suspects is National Review. National Review Online published a critique of Hayes's latest essay in the Nation, headlined "Chris Hayes Wants to Kill About 5.7 Billion People." The headline has nothing to do with the article, but it sure catches your eye. The author, Tim Cavanaugh, presents no evidence that Hayes wants to kill anyone. There are no meaningful statistics presented, nor are there quotes from Hayes's article indicating how many people he wants to kill and why.
Cavanaugh's article is typical anti-science blather. He is no scientist. He does post the International Energy Agency's graph showing how much energy the world generates and how little of it comes from renewable or non-polluting sources. The graph is meaningless in itself because it does not predict how fast or at what cost polluting sources of energy can be replaced by non-polluting ones. It's possible they could all be replaced in 50 years, but Cavanaugh doesn't go into this because it would destroy his entire argument, or even his entire reason for living.
Since Cavanaugh doesn't explain how he arrives at the 5.7 billion killings figure, I will give it a shot. The total number of people on the planet in 2011 was about 8 billion, so Cavanaugh's estimate would be about 2/3 of that. Cavanaugh is simply stating that we can't possibly replace polluting energy sources with non-polluting ones and that therefore 2/3 of the people on the planet will die. A daunting thought, even though most of the energy we use does not go directly toward keeping us alive. Most of the energy we use is wasted on unnecessary items like NASCAR, barbecues and airplane flights to Bermuda. So we could probably cut 2/3 of it without killing anyone.
On the other hand, 40 percent of the energy we consume is used by industrialized countries, whose total population is about 1.2 billion. Therefore, we could easily reach a 40 percent reduction in energy use in industrialized countries without killing more that 1 billion people. Cavanaugh's prediction of mass extinction could only be true is each person on the planet used approximately the same amount of energy. But they don't.
Cavanaugh argues that the use of fossil fuels made rapid population growth possible. He calls this growth "progress". It follows from this assumption (implicitly) that stopping fossil fuel use would reverse "progress", resulting in the predicted number (5.7 billion) of deaths.
Cavanaugh uses some of his article to attack Hayes's writing style, calling it "tricked out with quasi-erudition and broad claims". He charges that Hayes uses "overflowing adjectives", "lethal compound modifiers", and "cascades of adverbs." Cavanaugh does not explain how this style negates the logic of Hays's article. I suspect he was just having fun with words. But his description of common compound modifiers like "heart-stopping" and "full-throated" as lethal is perhaps over the top.
I've spent far too much time dissecting Cavanaugh's article, but I was having too much fun. I'll discuss Jonathan Chait's more important critique in New York Magazine tomorrow.
One of the usual suspects is National Review. National Review Online published a critique of Hayes's latest essay in the Nation, headlined "Chris Hayes Wants to Kill About 5.7 Billion People." The headline has nothing to do with the article, but it sure catches your eye. The author, Tim Cavanaugh, presents no evidence that Hayes wants to kill anyone. There are no meaningful statistics presented, nor are there quotes from Hayes's article indicating how many people he wants to kill and why.
Cavanaugh's article is typical anti-science blather. He is no scientist. He does post the International Energy Agency's graph showing how much energy the world generates and how little of it comes from renewable or non-polluting sources. The graph is meaningless in itself because it does not predict how fast or at what cost polluting sources of energy can be replaced by non-polluting ones. It's possible they could all be replaced in 50 years, but Cavanaugh doesn't go into this because it would destroy his entire argument, or even his entire reason for living.
Since Cavanaugh doesn't explain how he arrives at the 5.7 billion killings figure, I will give it a shot. The total number of people on the planet in 2011 was about 8 billion, so Cavanaugh's estimate would be about 2/3 of that. Cavanaugh is simply stating that we can't possibly replace polluting energy sources with non-polluting ones and that therefore 2/3 of the people on the planet will die. A daunting thought, even though most of the energy we use does not go directly toward keeping us alive. Most of the energy we use is wasted on unnecessary items like NASCAR, barbecues and airplane flights to Bermuda. So we could probably cut 2/3 of it without killing anyone.
On the other hand, 40 percent of the energy we consume is used by industrialized countries, whose total population is about 1.2 billion. Therefore, we could easily reach a 40 percent reduction in energy use in industrialized countries without killing more that 1 billion people. Cavanaugh's prediction of mass extinction could only be true is each person on the planet used approximately the same amount of energy. But they don't.
Cavanaugh argues that the use of fossil fuels made rapid population growth possible. He calls this growth "progress". It follows from this assumption (implicitly) that stopping fossil fuel use would reverse "progress", resulting in the predicted number (5.7 billion) of deaths.
Cavanaugh uses some of his article to attack Hayes's writing style, calling it "tricked out with quasi-erudition and broad claims". He charges that Hayes uses "overflowing adjectives", "lethal compound modifiers", and "cascades of adverbs." Cavanaugh does not explain how this style negates the logic of Hays's article. I suspect he was just having fun with words. But his description of common compound modifiers like "heart-stopping" and "full-throated" as lethal is perhaps over the top.
I've spent far too much time dissecting Cavanaugh's article, but I was having too much fun. I'll discuss Jonathan Chait's more important critique in New York Magazine tomorrow.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
DC Marijuana Decriminatlization: Chris Hayes drinks the Kool-Aid
Chris Hayes recently did a segment on his nightly show in which he discussed the Marijuana decriminalization bill currently before the DC City Council. I have discussed this issue in depth in a previous post. Hayes did his usual professional job of discussing the bill before falling into the error of believing the bill's backers' propaganda (also known as drinking the Kool-Aid).
Hayes mentioned that the bill would decriminalize simple possession of Marijuana and that the proponents of the bill claim they have the 10 votes to override a mayoral veto if it comes. He did not mention that the police department supports this bill and that the police make 9.000 arrests each year for simple possession. I estimate that each arrest nets the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) $8,500. So 9,000 completely useless arrests net the MPD up to $76 million a year. 1 Another way to put that is that the MPD receives $76 million from the city and taxpayers of DC for its activities arresting people for simple possession of marijuana. Any way you put it, that's a lot of wasted money.
The MPD has a substantial vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and they support decriminalization, not legalization. While questioning the Police representative at the hearing, Marion Barry brought out the point that while possession might be legal, possession for sale would still be a felony, and possession for sale could apply to any amount of marijuana, even a single joint. So decriminalization would open up a different way for DC Police to harass its citizens: by charging a person with possession for sale, the police would still get a felony arrest and the individual arrested would still be injected into the court system.
Furthermore, there would still be a fine of $100 for simple possession of marijuana. Many, if not most, of the people arrested by the police for possession are poor. For them, a fine that steep would be difficult to pay, and there they are injected into the criminal justice system again.
I applaud Chris for bringing this issue to the attention of the public. He should also discuss the merits of legalization, which could save the city more than $76 million a year, because incarceration of convicted users comes from the Department of Corrections, not the police department.
1. The figure of $76 million is based on the total budget of the MPD, $410 million in 2012, divided by the number of arrests (48,000), then multiplied by the number of arrests for simple possession of drugs. This is a very rough estimate, yet it still does not include the costs of incarceration for people who are imprisoned for simple possession.
Hayes mentioned that the bill would decriminalize simple possession of Marijuana and that the proponents of the bill claim they have the 10 votes to override a mayoral veto if it comes. He did not mention that the police department supports this bill and that the police make 9.000 arrests each year for simple possession. I estimate that each arrest nets the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) $8,500. So 9,000 completely useless arrests net the MPD up to $76 million a year. 1 Another way to put that is that the MPD receives $76 million from the city and taxpayers of DC for its activities arresting people for simple possession of marijuana. Any way you put it, that's a lot of wasted money.
The MPD has a substantial vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and they support decriminalization, not legalization. While questioning the Police representative at the hearing, Marion Barry brought out the point that while possession might be legal, possession for sale would still be a felony, and possession for sale could apply to any amount of marijuana, even a single joint. So decriminalization would open up a different way for DC Police to harass its citizens: by charging a person with possession for sale, the police would still get a felony arrest and the individual arrested would still be injected into the court system.
Furthermore, there would still be a fine of $100 for simple possession of marijuana. Many, if not most, of the people arrested by the police for possession are poor. For them, a fine that steep would be difficult to pay, and there they are injected into the criminal justice system again.
I applaud Chris for bringing this issue to the attention of the public. He should also discuss the merits of legalization, which could save the city more than $76 million a year, because incarceration of convicted users comes from the Department of Corrections, not the police department.
1. The figure of $76 million is based on the total budget of the MPD, $410 million in 2012, divided by the number of arrests (48,000), then multiplied by the number of arrests for simple possession of drugs. This is a very rough estimate, yet it still does not include the costs of incarceration for people who are imprisoned for simple possession.
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