Schreiner’s Media Landscape

It’s tragically but tantalizingly ironic that the once-mighty Republican Party is cowering in the shadows of an approaching storm, not terrorists, oil companies or even the Chinese. Bush and Cheney have canceled their last chance to say something good about their horrendous nightmare of an administration. The GOPhers are talking about cutting the convention short: more worried about being seen partying during a national disaster (isn’t that what they’ve been doing the last seven years?) than actually doing anything to help.

What the Republicans fear most is America watching John McCain give his acceptance speech in split screen with live video of bodies floating in the streets of New Orleans. Especially after Obama’s triumphant Denver address that was more like the Jacksons’ Victory tour. But that’s the Republicans’ karma. They created the PR nightmare that is approaching our southern coast, not Nature. And hopefully, many of them are thinking what Robert Preston’s character Big Ed Bookman, faced with divine retribution for his corruption, confessed so eloquently in “Semi-Tough”: “Lord, I’m a sinner and now you’re gonna f**k me.”

Keeping up appearances is a 24/7 gig when all you’ve got is the APPEARANCE OF CARING OR ACCOMPLISHMENT, not any kind of record of it. But after seven years of monumental gaffes and dismal failures- 9/11, Iraq, energy prices, the federal deficit, Social Security, the housing crisis, one ill-fated debacle after another- it is Hurricane Gustav and Nature that frighten our pillars of strength and integrity more than Osama bin Laden, Barack Obama, protesters- even Janet Jackson. You think the GOP considered curtailing its little bash in the face of threats of violence, $4/gallon gasoline, and crippling recession?

Bush, Cheney and the Republicans have led an all-out assault on Nature during their reign of error. Now, their endless, senseless campaigns of destruction make any hurricane, wildfire, even a bear attack or other act of Nature seem like justifiable revenge against an evil overlord. I feel for the people of New Orleans and hope Gustav and his younger sister Hanna who’s yet to come are not as bad as everyone fears. But I also hope that Bush and his partying party finally get the message:

YOU MESS WITH NATURE- NATURE MESSES WITH YOU. Party on, fellas. Don’t bother cleaning up when you leave. We’ll pick up. Just go.

It’s hard to explain why one human and his underlings are so pathological, ruthless, ignorant and destructive. There are many theories and books on why our not-soon-enough departing emperor is so violent, jealous, stupid and out-of-touch. He had problems with his father, did poorly in school, and screwed up everything he did his entire life. Yes, before the White House this poor, little rich kid ruined several oil companies and a baseball team but it’s hard to tell if he ruined Texas. Then there were the drinking, drugs, bad driving and general floundering that molded him into the dangerous loser who’s left our country in the same shape he left his other tragic ”endeavors.”

But it’s still difficult to understand why he wants to ruin the environment. His minions’ rush to rewrite America’s environmental laws to destroy more wildlife, Nature and anything in the path of developers, drillers and digging machines appears to be a form of punishment of his opponents rather than sound policy. I suppose like most twisted psychopaths, he hates and fears his opponents and seeks to torture then kill them- in this case, environmentalists. So it’s probably about politics or jealousy or his mental instability. Something other than hating the Earth.

Either way, he’s punishing the American people and the world again- the same folks who elected this idiot TWICE and who’ve been rewarded with economic disaster, terrorist paranoia, endless wars, loss of respect around the world and a nation even more divided in just about every social and economic category. We know Hitler’s problems began when he determined that he wasn’t a terrible artist- it was that everyone else was wrong.

Despite his privileged childhood- perhaps because of it- W (we won’t even start on Cheney) appears to be taking revenge on those who laughed at, pushed around and, in W’s mind, caused him to be a failure. His pathetic cockiness, mockable swagger and and pathological cluelessness all indicate he believes it’s not him- but that everyone else is wrong.

I get a charge out of so-called “conservative” media’s ravings that are about as conservative as Bush’s accountants. But this one hits the trifecta of wacko radical right-wing paranoia, blind-deaf-dumb parroting of the fossil fuel lobby’s boilerplate script, and the dismally poor and irresponsible “reporting” ruining newspapers across the country- not this one, unfortunately. This editorial by the Provo newspaper is a LOL for lovers of irony, a self-delivered black eye to the fossil fool industry, as well as even more proof that defenders of America’s enslavement to oil, coal and the usual suspects will not go quietly. 

If it wasn’t for inept Republican leadership, out-of-control OPEC oil barons, colluding with our own corrupt fascist government ideologues, and America’s addiction to oil (Bush’s words, not mine)- ALL THE CURRENT GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS POLICIES THAT GOT US INTO OUR CURRENT ENERGY CRISIS- maybe the Provo Herald’s editorial board wouldn’t have written such an outdated, anti-public health, anti-American waste of words.

But such is the imagination of a newspaper that clearly doesn’t understand the concepts behind freedom enough to write about them. Then again, REMEMBER WHO THE OPERATORS OF THE PROVO HERALD ARE REALLY SERVING. It’s not you, me, their readers or average citizens of the state of Utah. It’s the already-wealthy corporations licking their chops waiting for the chance to waste billions more of our dollars on squeezing a few drops of oil out of Utah’s irreplaceable public lands. And attacking environmentalists? Come on, guys- you can be more creative than that. Attack the real culprit here- THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF JUSTICE THAT ALLOWS ORDINARY CITIZENS TO CHALLENGE THE SINGLE-MINDED GREED AND INCOMPETENCE OF THE EXPLOITERS OF OUR COUNTRY’S ESSENCE FOR INCREASED PERSONAL ENRICHMENT. Your true masters.

Like the Bush Regime, the Provo Herald’s editorial board loves to see our justice system circumvented on environmental matters- like in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay- to keep the proven inept and self-serving federal and energy industry leaders in power and keep those nasty green goons handcuffed in their treehouses. Conservation? Conservative? Any resemblance here is purely accidental.

War causes more environmental destruction than any one thing. It’s not a story you hear about much in the corporate media because drought is not as visual as bombs exploding and guns firing and, like torture and child prostitution, it’s one of those dirty secrets that take the glamor out of beating your enemy into oblivion. But what’s happening in Iraq now is not only a more serious crisis but the logical and eventual result of wars with no long-term strategies: not just both Bushes’ but Saddam Hussein’s conflicts with Iran, and his own people over several decades.

Fortunately, war-ravaged Afghanistan has determined that their post-war economic and environmental future (if there is one) rests on one major crop: heroin. Nice to see them standing on their own again. We can only hope that Iraq follows their Afghan brethren and produces an obviously marketable commodity- other than oil- that is in also in high demand among more affluent, western societies and will similarly bolster their economy.

Now that’s nation building!

Once again, money and fear have prevented our so-called leaders in Washington from helping Americans achieve their stated wish of more renewable energy sources. Congress has failed to extend the renewable energy tax credit (I got mine in 2006). The bill was probably doomed anyway, facing a promised veto by Bush/Cheney Inc. who get their money and power from Big Oil, the coal and utility industries.

Why our “leaders” are helping Big Oil and the utility companies maintain their monopoly and enslavement of Americans is incomprehensible. The newly-announced windfall profits of the Usual Suspects are not “raising all boats” as the financial fortunes of our mega-corporations purport i.e. “what’s good for General Motors is good for the country.” Bush’s war for oil has nearly bankrupted our country, making him, his friends and family and our enemies/their friends in Saudi Arabia even more powerful and wealthy. Our coal barons and utility moguls continue to successfully use their influence and money to keep polluting, exploiting public lands for their private gain and pushing our country farther and farther behind the rest of world in developing new, cleaner energy technology.

The miniscule amount of money given back to investors in renewable energy would have helped regular Americans afford solar, wind, geothermal and other energy sources that would ease their dependence on our antiquated fuels and grid. But it was clearly the principle that Congress, Bush and their benefactors objected to. Apparently, the needs and wishes of the American people are too trivial to bother Washington as they continue our dizzying spiral downward.

But as I’ve posted here before, WE WILL DO THIS WITH THEM OR WITHOUT THEM. Doing the right and sensible thing is beyond their reach. But it is well within ours.

When I look upon the Salt Lake valley every morning, everything appears beautiful. It’s when I look closer that I start seeing the flaws: pollution, congestion, sprawl, crime. Am I a pessimist or is there a different, more complex psychogical dynamic here? The answer is in my perception of the landscape in front of me. The Big Picture, Total Perspective, Bottom Line or whatever euphemistic jargon you want to attach to it refer to the real and imagined results of all human efforts. What we do for a living, what we believe, why we’re here. The sum of the parts. The end which justifies our means.

The big problem with the Big Picture is that it’s an illusion. Just as the Salt Lake valley like other metropolitan areas is a cauldron of despair, violence and turmoil, all looks just fine from a distance. America is same way. America is a Big Picture, a dream and an illusion. The reality is in its parts, its homes, its people. The question now is, with the current federal leadership having plainly bungled everything from the economy to homeland security to the environment, does the illusion of America still captivate Americans? Or does it simply hide the cracks of incompetence and malfeasance in its political underpinnings and work only for those who exploit Americans’ blind loyalties to get rich and even help our enemies?

What to do when you discover an illusion disguises a profoundly troubled reality? If you’re Bush/Cheney or others “in charge” i.e. corporations, Big Media you relentlessly guard and maintain the illusion so everyone thinks everything is OK. That worked for a while. But when the failures become so evident that not even the illusion hides them anymore- soldiers dying, families losing their homes, pollution poisoning everything, political cronies cramming their pockets with taxpayer money- are we consequently motivated to take corrective action or depend on the Big Picture to handle it?

Perhaps humans are genetically wired to believe the Wizard of Oz even as he admonishes us to “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” The undeniable artifice of the illusion he manufactures is not enough to avert our eyes. We CHOOSE to believe its magic rather than the real person pulling the levers. Like the Wizard, Hollywood, Washington, OPEC, China, al-Qaeda understand this. Why do you think we get more and more movies about superheroes. “Batman,” “Iron Man,” “Hancock,” “Spiderman” etc. are merely gigantic illusions: parables that soothe us into believing that someone, something will save us from our excesses. And we can’t get enough of them. Like America and God, they hypnotize and paralyze us with their majesty and comforting ubiquity. The REALLY Big Picture, the Grand Illusion.

Believing in illusions is a CHOICE. If you believe illusion, we don’t have to do anything to change or manage our lives, the planet, our self-inflicted wounds. Bush, Jesus or maybe Batman will heal, avenge and save us. Whatever. And if you believe that, you probably still believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy- and America too.

Just as we were forgetting how incompetent, corrupt and arrogant the Bush/Cheney War on Everything Good Team is, they’re back to inflict yet more of their boundless stupidity and violence on the world. In announcing the development of “oil shale” bearing properties on public, federal lands, this out-of-control administration has done for energy what Iraq did for Vietnam: keep failing at the same thing again and again, doing it the same way over and over. As long as it’s with taxpayer money.

Bush and his Legion of Losers are ignoring history, a la Vietnam, to follow their ideological star of Bethlehem. It was about 25 years ago that all the major oil shale projects in Colorado- at Parachute and Rifle on the western slope, abruptly shut down and were abandoned. The reasons were never fully explained (Big Oil doesn’t have to explain anything to anyone and would we believe them anyway). But it was obvious the process was too iffy, too expensive and that the environment was endlessly expendable but Big Oil’s gambling money was not.

I was a reporter for KUSA in Denver and covered that story the day it happened. Colorado instantly became a state of shock. It was like 9/11. The abandonment by Big Oil of its once-precious and gleaming venture was also an abandonment of the people of Colorado and the environment: the thousands who came there to work, the economy that built its hopes and dreams around the billions that would be produced for everybody by these wonderful oil executives. Deep scars were left on the once-beautiful mountain countryside with nothing to show for it. Almost overnight, Colorado’s economy plunged into recession. New homes were abandoned, foreclosed and bulldozed. People fled the state to find work, employment shooting skyward. The taste left in the mouths of Coloradoans by Big Oil has stuck to this day. Colorado is one of the nation’s leaders in renewable energy.

I can still taste it today myself. I was there and lived through the tough years from 1982-1987 until I too left. Much like Michael Moore’s documentary “Roger and Me” where General Motors abandoned the people of Flint, Michigan, the the Black Sunday oil shale disaster is a tragic story of Big Oil hoodwinking government and sticking it to the people of Colorado. The question now is are the people of Utah and the other states affected by the resurrection of this unproved, expensive, environmentally destructive process similar to Canada’s tar sands in which it takes two tons of sand to make one barrel of oil ready to face the possibility of TOTAL ABANDONMENT after MILLIONS OF ACRES OF PRISTINE PUBLIC LANDS ARE DESTROYED?

If you are, then get ready to go back in time to 1982 in Colorado. It ain’t pretty, folks.

All the talk by Big Oil about using their un-Earthly profits to find more oil is about as factual as Bush’s about liberating the Iraqi people. But when you follow the money, it’s going to stock buybacks and other efforts to increase dividends to stock holders and artificially inflate the value of oil stocks. Not only do the oil companies just care about making more and more money, their actions indicate their lack of increased production may be because there’s no more oil to produce. If that’s the case, then their lies to us are even graver, treasonous assaults on America’s freedom; their collusion with foreign governments- some like Saudi Arabia actually our enemies (remember 9/11)- prosecutable offenses tantamount to the terrorism the Bush/Cheney Axis of Imbeciles simultaneously fear and exploit.

Any bets on whether the Bush Regime is going to pursue that investigation? No chance. They’re too busy using the Patriot Act and abusing our Constitution and Bill of Rights to monitor America’s libraries for terrorists hiding in the English Lit section.

In yet another reversal of a Bush Regime environmental assault, a Montana federal judge has put grey wolves in the Yellowstone area back on the endangered species list. There were any one of a number of reasons for the reversal. The Regime ignored scientific evidence showing that the wolves are not safe now, instead buying the argument of ranchers and state authorities who said a hunt was needed to “thin” the pack. Of course, we all know that the Regime always does this because they have an aversion to anything right and/or good when it comes to Nature and will believe anything or just make it up themselves in order to achieve their reckless goals.

Another argument anti-wolf forces use is that the elk herd around Yellowstone is too small because of wolf predation, threatening ecological balance, and doesn’t leave enough for hunters. But as new and continuous information has shown, the reality is exactly the opposite. The lack of wolves is not only bad for the elk for the ranchers and their precious livestock. The latest shows that the Yellowstone elk herd is out of control, due to the lack of predation, giving rise to a deadly disease that, ironically, is spreading to the livestock that the ranchers have fought so hard to “protect” from the big, bad wolves.

This is what happens when politicians, acting either out of payback to special interests or reckless and ignorant ideology, try to play God. Like everything else Bush and his people have done, they screw it up and someone who really knows what they’re doing has to come in and fix it. Too bad a judge can’t just fix similar Bush decisions on air quality, Iraq, and other monumental policy disasters.

With the exception of Governor Huntsman, Utah Republicans don’t give a crap about you, the environment, your power bills or anything that involves something other then the legislature and those it really serves: powerful special interests like utilities, construction companies, the fossil-fuel and mining industries. That’s why the release of the new report on global warming and its effects on the western U.S. drew nothing but scorn from Utah’s lead idiot, alleged Representative Mike Noel R-Kanab.

Despite the fact that most of the symptoms of excessive fossil-fuel consumption already exist here i.e. increased respiratory and childhood illnesses, hotter summers, longer droughts, he and his fellow incompetents insist nothing should be done and the report is just more hooey coming from the radical environmental movement. OOPS! This is a federal report done by the Bush Regime’s own EPA. Are the only remaining Bush supporters in America going to tell their boy that he’s wrong?

If that happens, maybe they’ll even find the brain cells to see how wrong he’s been about Iraq, homeland security, Social Security, immigration, stem cell research, North Korea, China, energy, the economy, the environment and virtually everything else life consists of.

Naaaaaaaaahhhhhh.