Bill McKibben and his co-conspirators attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of American History’s Greatest Monster and “Bring solar power back to the White House“:
A few of us have spent the past week carefully transporting a relic of American history down the East Coast, trying to return it to the White House, where it belongs.
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It’s not a painting spirited from the Lincoln Bedroom or an antique sideboard stolen from the Roosevelt Room by some long-ago servant. No, this relic comes from the somewhat more prosaic Carter roof. It’s a solar panel, one of a large array installed on top of the White House in June 1979.
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When he dedicated the panels, President Jimmy Carter made a prophecy that, like many oracles, came true in unexpected fashion — in fact, nothing better illustrates both why the world is heating and why the American economy is falling behind its competitors.
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“In the year 2000 this solar water heater behind me will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy,” he said. “A generation from now this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.” …
Anybody here can tell us more about McKibben’s 10-10-10 Global Work Party?
Zifnab
Is it too late to re-run Jimmy Carter for President? That guy was the nearest thing we’ve ever had in office to a saint.
TJ
Just what I read at the GOS. The installation will essentially be free to the WH. All they have to do is approve the contractors.
cleek
when i was in Japan in 2006, we took a train from Tokyo up to a small resort town near Mt Fuji. the ride took about two hours, and we passed through many small mountain towns and tiny farming villages, gorgeous stuff. and all the little farmhouses we passed had solar panels: one for heating water and (at least) one for generating electricity.
RalfW
I can tell you that Bill McKibben is one of the leading voices for action (not complaint, action) on climate.
And I can tel you that he seemed to get David Letterman’s attention recently, getting about 11 minutes on his show. In the end, Dave’s cynicism (and need to keep the show a comedy) did win out, but in the middle of the segment, I think you could see how Dave having a kid has changed him — he really cares about the future now, even with a gloss of hip cynicism applied.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JcRj-Yokuw
RalfW
More to the point of the question, the goal of the Global Work Party is to have people do coordinated work parties on Sunday, 10/10/2010, so that elected officials can see that people are interested in solutions, not just talk.
Like 350.org day last year, there will be a focus in self-gathered media: photos and youTube vids uploaded centrally, all with the message, “hey, politician, I’m getting my hands dirty (installing solar panels)(digging a rain garden)(fixing up a neglected bike path)(installing a green roof)(whatever) to combat climate change. What the heck are YOU doing?”
The Republic of Stupidity
Actually, there’s already a solar power array on the roof of the WH… the Bushies put it up back in 2003, obviously, to little fanfare…
cmorenc
Reagan’s dismantling of the solar panels from the WH when he took office was supposedly done as an act symbolizing an optimistic, unbounded rather than pessimistic, limited vision about America and it’s future, but instead few things so concisely encapsulated the myopic, selfish, misguided, and shallow vision and understanding Reagan brought to the WH.
LGRooney
@The Republic of Stupidity: That explains why Cheney was so hot to shoot someone in the face!! Thank you.
El Cid
Worthless lazy propagandist nepotized fraud Megan McDumbass (and valued GE Marketplace expert commentatorizer!) sinks to the attention of DeLong and the Krug-Man. Krugman’s highlights:
And for the longest time Krugman just kept wondering why all these economists seemed to be confused or advocating policies based on herd thinking or something.
PurpleGirl
@The Republic of Stupidity: That is so Cheney. He had solar power at the Wyoming ranch but refused to advocate that people in general do things like use solar panels or windmills to generate power.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Zifnab:
Not to disagree too much, but you might want to check the start dates on our hey-it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time project to destabilize Afghanistan using the CIA and friends, and the increase in the Pentagon budget which later came to be labeled as the Reagan defense build up (so-called). Hint: they began while President semi-saintly was in the WH.
This isn’t to tear down Carter, just to point out that even the best presidents have their flaws. Carter was in many ways a pretty conservative Dem by the standards of the late 1970s. Something to keep in mind as we tear our hair out over the vaccilations and follies of the current occupant.
LGRooney
@cmorenc: According to the guy behind me on the sidewalk, lecturing his office mate on the walk to work today, Reagan saved the country. So, I don’t know where your criticism comes from.
He was explaining how Roosevelt only prolonged the Depression with his stimulus policies in the 20s (yes, he said the 20s!) and that Obama is “making the same stupid mistake” today. Reagan, on the other hand, when faced with the same situation upon taking office, slashed spending and taxes, saw an almost immediate rise in GDP and saved the world.
All in all, a great start to my day! This guy is one of the brilliant individuals working federal government contracts because only he knows the real secret to efficiency and success and is therefore needed by the hapless bureaucrats in this town.
El Cid
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Funny thing, though — despite that the enshrined view that the Afghan Freedom Fight was a tremendous victory, it turns out that it was all done by Reagan and Carter’s role evaporates. Hey, inconsistency is always a skill in conservative and hawk politics.
middlewest
@cmorenc:
I’ve always felt this way, too. It may just be symbolism, but Reagan taking down that solar panel can be regarded as the starting gun for the race to the end of the American Experiment. It’s all there: shirking responsibility on the environment, not giving a shit about American workers, and just plain petty meanness.
binz
I think it’s disgraceful to clutter up a national symbol of power and prestige like the White House with these things.
It may make economic sense but can also be construed as a sign of weakness, a billboard-sized advertisement for a lack of optimism.
Americans can do anything. That is the conventional wisdom, I believe a majority of Americans truly believe that deep down and that is and should be our real message. Why undercut that message with a billboard to the world saying we have to watch our pennies, that our power, literally, no longer can come solely from our might and strength?
At best it would be a symbol that we are a wishy-washy people. We ought not to send that message just to save a few bucks on hot water for the President of the wealthiest nation in the world.
Jennifer
@cmorenc: That was such a dick move. Reagan took panels that were already paid for and were producing free energy and trashed them, just to make the point that only girly-men worry about limited resources running out. It was like flipping the middle finger to the taxpayers…”yeah, I know you paid for it, but…F*** YOU I’m gonna waste me some energy!”
This is the kind of stuff that really makes my blood boil. There’s nothing “conservative” about being wasteful, which is the only thing Reagan’s little act actually accomplished. Perhaps we should see this as the birth of conservatives’ faith that they can make their own reality – by removing the solar panels from the roof, Reagan magically turned a limited resource into an unlimited one!
NonyNony
@binz: This is snark, right?
Hard to tell because it sounds like the numbnut things that Reagan supporters said in the 70s about Carter putting the panels up in the first place. Which is some kind of jujitsu because the panels are really all about American can-do spirit.
El Cid
To make sure Americans understood how powerful and unlimited we were, Reagan should have erected a 200 foot oil tank shaped like a phallus on the White House lawn. And maybe also a cowboy hat. That would inspire Americans to see how strong and optimistic we should be.
cleek
@binz:
it’s not about saving a few bucks. it’s about using renewable energy. these days, at least.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@binz:
Not to mention that it was terribly gauche of President Roosevelt to go camping in Yosemite when he could have spent the night in a high class hotel like a real gentleman. McKinley never would have done something that low class.
Martin
@NonyNony: Yeah, I can’t tell either.
Putting the panels up isn’t about saving the WH a few bucks (they guy flies around in his own fucking 747, which the VP isn’t allowed to tag along on) it’s about the message that if solar panels are good enough for the WH, then they’re good enough for everyone else’s house too. That’s why Michelle put the garden in. If they can do it, we should do it.
Citizen_X
Then jump off my roof and fly, or STFU.
Jeff
@binz: Dude
you need to put a smiley at the end of a statement like that.
People might take you seriously.
fasteddie9318
After we’ve finally killed ourselves off, I think future archeologists excavating the hellscape will probably have a reaction similar to the fake archeologists in this Onion piece:
kay
I loved The End of Nature, so a friend sent me this:
Good essay on activism.
D-Chance.
I sure hope the Discovery Channel is reporting on this event…
FlipYrWhig
@Zifnab: I was a kid in the ’70s… I remember my parents, who are pretty much down-the-line hippie-ish liberals, not being too fond of Carter because of the whole “born-again” thing. I don’t know the history of the Kennedy primary challenge, but there was definitely a firebag-like contingent dogging Carter for being too far right. OMG CARTERS WRSE THAN FORD HE SOLD US OUT!
Scott P.
Put that way, isn’t the roof on the White House also a gigantic advertisement for a lack of optimism? I mean, we can do anything! We’re not afraid of a little rain and snow! It builds character!
President Obama, I demand you remove the White House roof this instant!
slag
@RalfW:
He is. But I disagree with his notion that ecogeeks should amp up the climate change rhetoric. As we’ve seen for years now, that’s a path to nowhere. Because Al Gore is still fat.
Ecogeeks need to re-focus locally. Get people charged up about making their local environments healthier. Their neighborhood air and water supply cleaner.
Climate change is too big to grasp for a lot of people (even myself sometimes). But people can see the smog over their homes and the No Swimming signs next to their waterways. That’s what gets people motivated.
FlipYrWhig
@slag: Maybe they could call it thinking globally and acting locally! (I always liked that slogan.)
Maude
@Martin:
The VP never flies on the same plane as the president. He has his own plane. Not trying to be a jerk, just that it seems that you were saying the Obama was a selfish moooslim.
You are a great commentator and I do appreciate what you write.
A thought for soonergrunt, stop malingering and get commenting.
Joshua
Does anything sum up the “being right is wrong” mentality of the Beltway better than the post-presidency travails of Jimmy Carter?
It seems like every time one of his in-office comments is proven correct, he takes another flogging at the hands of the Village. I’m surprised they haven’t called him a child molestor yet (or have they?).
slag
@FlipYrWhig: I know. We keep going back there. But it’s where we need to go. McKibben is right that we can’t compete monetarily on a national level. We need people power, and the environment needs to become a major issue again.
Roger Moore
@The Republic of Stupidity:
From that article, it looks as though it was the leftists in the National Park Service who decided to put in the solar system, not the President or other high up in the Administration. The Park Service is in charge of maintaining the White House, and they have a mandate to incorporate things like solar power into any renovations to properties under their control. That kind of thing can be justified on purely practical grounds for a lot of the Park Service’s buildings, which are out in the middle of nowhere and can be very expensive to hook up to the grid. I assume that’s why somebody like Cheney would have it at his personal ranch in Wyoming.
El Cid
@Joshua: Fuck you. I we had listened to Jimmy Carter we might never have all gotten the thrill of driving 40 foot long 80,000 ton SUV’s in order to make a 10 mile trip to the grocery store. A nation must have priorities.
El Cid
@Roger Moore: I’m sure, though, that Cheney’s solar panels are glued together partly by the blood of sacrificed infants or something, and part of the power generated is used to torture secret prisoners, so it’s all yet another wicked joke to him.
NonyNony
@Martin: Honestly I can’t tell if it’s snark, an attempt at a troll, or someone being serious. Because I’ve heard almost that literal string of words come out of people I know, and I know that they have enough brains to use a computer, so it could be ‘fer realz’.
Sometimes I kind of hate the fact that life has reached the point where I can’t tell what is parody and what is real anymore. Other times I think it’s kind of weird living in a time that is so absurd. Then I read some Mark Twain essays and I realize that when he was alive reality was apparently as absurd as it is today and I don’t know whether I should laugh or cry about that fact.
(I think I’m sad that there isn’t a modern day Sam Clemens commenting on the absurd. Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert are both good, but they haven’t yet risen to the caliber of a Clemens).
Jason In the Peg
“We could have saved it but we were too cheap.”
My favourite quote from my favourite Vonnegut novel, Hocus Pocus.
NonyNony
@El Cid:
Cheney doesn’t need solar power – his ranch is powered by the pure fires of Hell being fueled by the burning of souls. It’s kind of like geothermal, but far more polluting and misery inducing. I’m fairly certain he argued successfully for that in his contract.
kay
@Joshua:
Absolutely. They loathe him. It’s a perpetual sneer. I think they had to destroy Carter in order to embark on their national project of elevating Ronald Reagan to Founder status. Carter had to be evil, so Ronald Reagan could save us.
El Cid
@kay: Well, you can’t have super-heroes without super-villains.
Jeff
@NonyNony:
Yeah, neither one could snap off a curve like Clemens in his prime…
Ooops … wrong Clemens….
Actually I think that both Colbert and Stewart deliver Twain like snark on a daily basis, and will be thought of in the same vein.
But Mark Twain was always about more than the snark. Which is why I will always treasure Huckleberry Finn
MikeJ
@Jeff: I’m pretty sure Colbert is juicing.
Lynnehs
Martin said:
>Putting the panels up isn’t about saving the WH a few bucks (they guy flies around in his own fucking 747, which the VP isn’t allowed to tag along on) it’s about the message that if solar panels are good enough for the WH, then they’re good enough for everyone else’s house too. That’s why Michelle put the garden in. If they can do it, we should do it.
Yes, now only if we could get landlords and home owners associations on board. (Or better yet, get rid of home owners associations!)
RalfW
@slag:
Uhhhh, exactly. That is why 10.10.10 is about community gardens, wetlands restoration, house-by-house solar panels, community composting, etc.
It’s about local people getting together for their local environment.
If the feminist revolution showed us that the personal is political, then the eco revolution needs to show that the local is political and the locus of change.
eemom
re Kennedy primarying Carter — as a high school kid I wasn’t paying much attention to politics at the time, but now it just strikes me as a huge deal that an incumbent president was seriously challenged within his own party. I mean for all the blither blather of the firebaggers, I think it would be inconceivable for that to happen today.
I loved Ted Kennedy, but for me it does tarnish his legacy somewhat. Surely that was one of the major reasons Reagan was able to prevail and unleash the destruction that torments us to this day?
I am interested in the perspective of folks who know more about this.
Martin
@Maude: That wasn’t a ‘gee, what a douche’ observation, but a ‘why would anyone think this is about saving a few bucks on hot water when we spend (with almost universal agreement across parties) 80 gazillion dollars per year just to move him from one place to another – plus we won’t allow this other guy onto his huge 747, we want him to fly in a 2nd plane’ observation.
Suggesting that the solar panels are about money is just retarded. It’s about setting an example.
BR
I just rewatched Gasland. If you haven’t seen it, you need to. It’s a reminder that Natural Gas isn’t “Clean”.
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/gasland/
And it’s a reminder we need real non-fossil fuel alternatives for energy.
El Cid
Obama being asked about whether or not it’s wise to build a ‘mosque’ at ‘Ground Zero’ and if it’s harmful to threaten to burn Qur’ans.
He did answer by clearly stating that if you can build a Christian church, a synagogue, or Hindu temple on a site, then you can build a mosque. And we are not at war against Islam.
Next, maybe he’ll be asked if it’s a good idea for people to protest for 2nd Amendment Rights by bringing handguns into nurseries and kindergarten classrooms.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Maude: As you are implying, there are strategic reasons the Pres and the VP do not fly together: One crash/explosion takes out the elected leadership of the US.
Martin
@eemom:
That’s only because Kucinich is a shitty fundraiser. If he brought money in like Kennedy, you can bet your bottom dollar that FDL would be running ‘Kucinich 2012’ banners today.
El Cid
Interesting. Obama’s getting pissed. He’s raising his voice about Muslims serving in the US military and putting their lives on the line around the world, that there is no difference between them and us, just us, and that the ones most eager to stir up hatreds between the West and “Islam” are in Al Qa’ida. And maybe we need to reflect on that tomorrow.
Thankfully, our discourse and political system and punditariat are so worthless and stupid that these will be treated as controversial non-obvious things, since Bush Jr. isn’t saying it and it’s being said by a fifth column caliphate Kenyonesian traitor not-born-in-America Obama.
Stillwater
@slag: Ecogeeks need to re-focus locally. Get people charged up about making their local environments healthier. Their neighborhood air and water supply cleaner.
This reminded me of a Republican push in Denver some years ago to repeal the pollution restrictions that improved the air quality around here. There argument was that the air was clean, so why have all this government interference in people’s lives?
Thing is, people from both parties could see – because their eyes were no longer tearing up from all the poison in the air – that the restrictions made sense.
Joshua
@Stillwater:
Isn’t that, though, the Republican argument for all their positions? Usually they just want to change rules put into place a long time ago so nobody remembers how shitty it was before.
How many people in the USA today were alive when The Jungle was published, or when the government would routinely send out goons to crack striker’s skulls? How many people in the USA today, then, can understand the whys of food safety or organized labor rules put into place?
It would take a fair amount of knowledge and study to understand, and well, this is America…
Maude
@Martin:
I’m with you on this one.
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Thank you. That is it exactly.
handy
@Joshua:
You can’t spell Murca without FREEDUMB.
liberal
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
You’re quite right on the history.
Moreover, IIRC the deregulatory movement started under Carter, not Reagan. Not sure to what extent the deregulation under C broke down into responsible versus irresponsible.
Mnemosyne
@El Cid:
And yet you’re still going to have idiots complaining about how Obama is so detached and unemotional and you just have no idea how he feels about things.
Meanwhile, those of us raised in the Midwest are looking for things to hide behind because holy shit, he is pissed!
Pangloss
@middlewest: You mean like the symbolism of Reagan kicking off his 1980 Presidential campaign in Philadelphia, MS?
Carol
@Martin: But since then, would you be able to even recruit a serious candidate for such a thing? The record is pretty clear: primary your own President and lose all around. You never get nominated, your President loses the general, and there is no second chance for the nomination-the party never forgives and forgets that.
Kucinich would be a bad fundraiser even if he were the sole person running in 2008, but if he were running against Obama in 2012 he would be lucky to raise enough to give bus tokens to his staff. Nobody wants to fund a sure loser who will in turn make their President lose.
fasteddie9318
@liberal:
Since Carter is History’s Greatest Monster, it’s obvious that any deregulation he did totally sucked and destroyed the country, unlike the Glorious Reagan deregulation which was the greatest thing ever (tied with everything else Reagan ever did which totally doesn’t include any tax increases or huge budget deficits because shut up, that’s why).
Stillwater
@Joshua: It would take a fair amount of knowledge and study to understand,
This, exactly. It takes lots of study to unlearn all the incorrect bullshit many people take for the truth. I mean, there’s a real world test case for almost any GOP/conservative/libertarian fantasy-land policy proposal they put forward, and the test case was the US, and the results are in. Yet, each time the policy is proposed, it enters into the discussion in a vacuum, like there’s no relevant history to judge it by.
Huggy Bear
@slag:
How about, instead of doing that, just pitch it as:
“Hey we can make a lot of friggin’ money off this stuff.”
Then advertise the technology in a campaign that uses chicks with big knockers.
That seems more like the good old-fashioned American way to me.
GregB
Maybe President Obama can compromise and use the solar panels to run the electricity to the to the cattle prods in the undisclosed torture chamber that Dick Cheney left behind.
Win, win.
El Cid
@handy: Thinking about how things are spelled is theft, and also soshullist and Muslin.
Martin
@Carol: Well, I think the distinction to make here is that Obama is still popular, is still viewed as a good President by most of the left, and shows no signs of losing in 2012.
Early in the election cycle Carter was unpopular and the GOP looked to be in a strong position because Reagan was in the running for the candidacy. It was only the Iran hostage situation, and some blunders by Kennedy that made Carter so strong at the outset of the primary season. As time passed and Iran remained unresolved, Carter tanked. Had it not been for the hostage situation giving Carter the early boost, it’s very possible that Kennedy would have been successful at winning the nomination. As for the general election, I don’t know, but I think it would have been closer. Carter carried the south, but there aren’t many EVs there. Kennedy likely would have carried most of the northeast, including NY and PA and at the time NY had almost as many EVs as CA. It probably would have been a much closer general had Kennedy been successful, and I think he might have beat out Bush had Bush been the nominee.
If you have a very unpopular incumbent, then primarying isn’t necessarily a bad strategy. It depends a lot on whether there is opposition to the individual or the policies of the party. I think there was more unhappiness with Carter personally than with Democrats generally in 1980. The firebaggers might feel that the same is true today, but polling suggests otherwise. Even with the crazy shit being said about Obama, he’s held remarkably strong. More than anything I think the public feels that Congress is simply fucked. I don’t think there’s even that great a sense that one party is better or worse than the other, just that there’s a frustration over the institution and that change is needed – and they don’t know how to bring that change about. The typical voter doesn’t seem to have much of a beef with how Obama is running the country right now.
El Cid
Markos Moulitsas is going way too far and is unjustified in comparing the American fundamentalist right as similar to the Taliban.
See? The radical exaggerator Markos compared such rightist patriarchal fundamentalists would-be terrorists with the Taliban when some of them much prefer to be compared to Osama bin Laden.
trollhattan
@binz:
Oh yes? Then suck on
thisthese:http://www.presidentialpetmuseum.com/Pets/Sheep.htm
Say: “baaaah”
eemom
@Martin:
But, do you think that Carter might have won the general if it weren’t for the damage to (1) him as candidate, and (2) the Dem party that presumably was caused by Kennedy’s challenge?
binz
@Martin:
I expect there are security and mobility reasons for why the President needs an aircraft. Or why the VP flies separately. But I expect the President to fly in a very large and expensive jet, it is a symbol of American ingenuity, power, speed and incredible wealth. Only the richest people have big jets at their beck and call. The 747 is also an icon of aeronautics, one recognized world-wide of American leadership and dominance in that field.
The President could be flown around as efficiently in Lear jet but that would be a Canadian aircraft. Obviously they use the 747 because they are very much aware of what it means to use such a behemoth. It is the American-made SUV of the skies.
Symbolism and message trump money.
And what is the symbolism and message here? Well it’s not about projecting an image of optimism, wealth and power. It doesn’t tell the world ‘Fuck you we can do want we want. Because we can. Because we are the wealthiest and the most powerful.’ That is the message they should be sending. But they don’t do that because they are too busy sending a message the most powerful nation and leader of the world is too worried about wasting energy, and we know that means money. And that is what is retarded here.
@Linnehs:
And as for Michelle Obama’s garden, that is just low rent. What’ll she do next, home canning? Graze sheep in the Rose Garden to make linsey-woolsey smocks for her kids?
The White House is not the Little House on the Prairie.
lamh31
Darn, no open thread, so I’ll post here.
After all the verklempting over Obama’s “suppsoed walkback” of his Mosque comments, I thought his answer to the Fox News question about Park51 was a great one.
Also, he says it is wrong to send a message to American Muslims that their religion is offensive.
daveNYC
Holy robot Jesus, just how small is your penis that you’re this obsesed with symbolism and message?
Martin
@Huggy Bear: Slouching toward Idiocracy.
binz
@trollhattan: That only shows you just how low-rent and Third World the White House looks when you do this ‘back to the land’ environmental-concern symbolism nonsense.
Now that I see there is a precedent for sheep grazing around the White House, I can only think that what I wrote as hyperbole in my earlier comment may actually come to pass.
And when barnyard animals run loose around the White House, should we be overly concerned if we fail to wipe our feet on the door mat if we should ever visit? If we do not I don’t see why visiting leaders of other nations would.
lamh31
OT, but I posted a little blurb this morning about President Obama being on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, a nationally syndicated radio show targeted towards African Americans, and here is a little of what he had to say:
Obama wants blacks ‘fired up’
ruemara
Heh, I could have told you more about it, since my last article was about the local version of the 10.10.10 work party, but I see many worthies have informed you. I like this guy, he does stuff.
Felonious Wench
@binz:
Yep, that Mission Accomplished thing on the deck of an aircraft carrier worked out swimmingly.
Either you’re a spoof, or you’ve got “my dick is bigger than yours” syndrome.
Chyron HR
@binz:
Maybe they should pick up some crappy little country and throw it against the wall just to show the world they mean business?
eemom
it is either a troll or a very meticulous spoof
NonyNony
@eemom: Is there really a difference?
El Cid
Other countries emphasize their government buildings using alternative energy ’cause they’re all a bunch of hippie fags and we could totally bomb them to shit.
Martin
@eemom: There’s nothing the Dems could have done to secure a Carter win over Reagan. Reagan wasn’t a great president, but he was a great candidate. Carter’s policies were all long-term – and none of the benefits of those policies were going to be reaped in time for people to give him the credit he deserved. It doesn’t matter if 20 years from now we’ll have lost our dependence on OPEC if I’m still sitting in this fucking line for another 3 hours to buy gas. Diplomacy is slow. Bombing is fast. We’re an impatient country.
IMO, the Dems only chance was either for Reagan to not be the nominee or for someone like Kennedy, who could campaign on Reagans level (and have the EV draw that Reagan had) to be the nominee, or for circumstances out of the control of anyone to develop. I mean, had the hostage situation resolved sooner, Carter may have won, but there was only so much control we could exert there – it was out of political control.
Remember, Carter’s approval in 1979 was around 30%. When the hostage crisis started, it shot up to almost 60%. By the time the rescue effort failed, it had fallen back to 30%. Kennedy entered the race when Carter was at 30%. The early campaign season was when Carter was in the 50s and the early primaries Carter was still up in that area. After he fell back to the 30s, Kennedy was winning most primaries. It was all timing. Had the hostages been rescued in Sept/Oct (or some similarly positive event occurred), I bet Carter would have been in the 50s again for the election and he might have won – but I don’t think there’s a thing the campaign could have done to affect any of these outcomes.
TooManyJens
@NonyNony: No. No there isn’t.
Jeff
@binz:
We had a president who believe that image began and ended with ” I have the biggest balls in the room.. ” and look where it got us– two pointless wars, massive unemployment, huge deficits etc…”
Look, the reason we should be concerned about saving energy is that it is not an infinite resource, and we will have to find new ways to generate it once we have pissed away the oil and coal, and that way will be EXPENSIVE.
So I have no problem with the White House or anyone else for that matter , making the symbolism that we should start saving now.
Scott P.
I wish I could believe you, but I fully expect a primary challenge to Obama in 2012 (and not just a token LaRouchite-style challenge)
HyperIon
@NonyNony wrote stupidly: Is there really a difference?
Yes.
There is a big, fat difference.
El Cid
@Jeff: Trying to drive less or not idling in your driveway with the air conditioning for an hour or properly inflate your tires on your SUV means you hate the USA and are trying to look like we’re weak and wimpy and effeminate.
RedKitten
Bah-ha-ha-ha!
Nicely done, sir. That’s some of the best snark I’ve seen on here in awhile. Seriously, it’s a PERFECT imitation of an ignorant, ball-scratching, bully-worshiping, right-wing fucktard who thinks that foreign policy should consist of “kicking ass”.
And the SUV of the skies? Oh, that’s gold.
Seriously, my hat is off to you.
trollhattan
@binz:
It used to be the “Peoples’ House” in reality, not symbolically. There was no fence. Ordinary citizens could walk up to the door. One thing that made/makes us unique is our leaders are not kept in gilded cages. We discard this philosophy at our peril.
Your suggestion that the preznit should live in a giant stainless-steel middle-finger statue is duly noted.
RedKitten
Another bit of gold — the hits just keep on coming, don’t they? It’s really quite clever, because environmental issues are usually portrayed as the domain of the out-of-touch, elitist liberal. So for you to portray it as the domain of low-rent hicks? It’s a stretch, that’s for certain, but you ALMOST carried it off.
quaint irene
Like this was a big surprise.
Is Angle a teabagger or just personally loony? Anyways, she’s obviously following Palin’s strategy of avoiding any situation where you can’t communicate in prepared sound bites.
NonyNony
@HyperIon:
Okay, so enlighten me since I’m stupid. What’s the difference between a troll and a meticulous spoof that goes on for multiple responses “in character”?
slag
@RalfW: I really like that project. It’s the right way to go. But I was referring to this statement McKibben made:
This is wrong. Amping up the fear factor will not help environmentalists at all.
Jeff
@El Cid:
I just took the wheels off my Hummer, and I’m idling it full throttle right now. Woohoo! Look at the size of my ……
On second thought, maybe we shouldn’t go there.
But isn’t the point to be strong, which is to do what is right, whether or not it is focus-group tested, or merely to appear strong, which is part and parcel of the
Republican agenda.
quaint irene
Maybe we should insist they dig out the Rose Garden as well cause roses are just, so, you know, so girly.
daryljfontaine
@trollhattan: Unfortunately, in the long run, they sheared them down, coaxed them into walking upright, and taught them to vote Republican.
D
Mnemosyne
@lamh31:
Part of the problem (with white voters, anyway) is that people don’t want to hear that things could be worse. It sounds like excuse-making even though it’s 100 percent true that the Republicans won’t be happy until the country is a smoking hole.
They’d rather listen to the guys who promise to bring back the “prosperity” of the Bush years (limited and fragile as it was) than realize that those years are gone gone gone and they ain’t coming back.
El Cid
@Jeff: I’ve got the windows open and the A/C running full, every light, the bathtub faucet on full blast, and my outdoor natural gas grill running full blast. I am feeling so patriotic and strong right now that I have odd sensations.
slag
@Jeff: Are you suggesting that Republicans tend to overcompensate for certain frailties in their character, judgment, and abilities rather than engage in introspection and analysis? Shocked! Shocked, I say!
trollhattan
@daryljfontaine:
Ewe winzes the Internets!
Jeff
@El Cid:
Are you sure it’s not the fumes from the gas grill? or hypothermia?
daryljfontaine
@trollhattan: And now we have an alternative explanation why the right wing is obsessed with Democrats trying to ram legislation down their throats.
Shear madness — and they keep trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
D
drkrick
Breitbard/Drudge/Fox headine: Obama Calls on Blacks to Commit Arson
Joshua
Reagan tearing down the solar panels said to the nation’s citizens, basically, “common sense doesn’t matter. Do whatever you want as long as it projects some phony aura of manliness. Even if it’s really stupid and makes no sense – because phony auras are more important than fact and knowledge.”
Yes you can draw a straight line from Reagan’s bullshit to Dubya – think from your gut instead of your brain, fake it till you make it, and the President’s most important job is to front around like a peacock.
I wonder how World War II would’ve turned out had these buffoons been in charge.
El Cid
@Joshua: Well, Reagan would have had a lot more opportunities for “Mission Accomplished” carrier landings, plus he could
make upmisremember even more stories of heroism in the war he never fought in.scarshapedstar
Anne, you really dropped the ball by not tagging this post with “Black Jimmy Carter”.
Marshall
@eemom – I was around for Kennedy’s primary challenge, and it was simply a disaster. First, what we now call “the Village” never respected Carter at all – I always assumed that it was because he was a Southerner and not one of them – and this definitely included the Democrats in Congress, with the Democratic leadership in Congress basically spending the enter Carter Administration sniping at the President. Then came primary season, and the Kennedy challenge. I was living in Massachusetts at the time, and knew lots of Kennedy supporters, and I never could get it. It was destructive and bitter and spiteful, and I could never understand why Teddy couldn’t simply wait four years for a clear shot at the nomination.
Worse, however, was the press’s adulation of Reagan, which I never could understand either. The man couldn’t give a speech, much less a debate, without howlers, and yet the press reports would never mention the mistakes and outright lies. I remember watching the Carter-Reagan debate and thinking, this is the end of the Reagan candidacy, but the press analysis afterwards was not for the debate I saw.
Looking back on it, that was the peak of our Republic. Since then, education has gone down, inequality has gone up, the government has become controlled by the corporate aristocracy, and we have become unable to address our problems. Teddy Kennedy was certainly against all of that, but he certainly also played his part in bringing it about.