Reflections of conspiracy theory

Sam Smith writes at Undernews:

Why are we allowed to have theories on every topic from the creation of the universe to who is going to win the World Series with the sole exception of wondering who in power is screwing us and how?

The very use of the term 'conspiracy theorist' is an anti-intellectual attempt to silence argument for which the labeler has no factual answer. Ironically, it is often the very accuser who is more inclined to believe in conspiracies, albeit benign ones, because it implies a small number of people deciding the course of history, which is how these critics were taught in college that society properly functions.

Thus anyone who attacks someone else as a conspiracy theorist should be ignored on grounds of simple incompetence with the possible additional liability of disingenuousness. To do the job right, one must follow the evidence and be clear when it stops. The rest is theory or hypothesis, acceptable and worthy of debate, but in a lesser category than fact.

The massive effort to stop people from wondering about such matters is itself reasonable cause for suspicion since the effort relies so heavily on ridicule and so little on fact. Not probably the result of a conspiracy, mind you. More likely, one might theorize, absent further evidence, just plain stupidity.

Monbiot: Radiation no danger

George Monbiot of The Guardian has been convinced by the Fukushima disaster that nuclear power is safe. His opinion is reinforced by the Chernobyl disaster — because few people have actually died from them, and those that did were (or will be) just the workers or other people who shouldn't have been around or shouldn't have drunk contaminated milk.

You see, radiation is safe — as long as you don't go anywhere near it or let it into your body!

A hundred thousand people around the Fukushima plant have probably lost their homes forever, more proof of how safe nuclear radiation is, as long as you drop everything and flee and never come back.

Monbiot's first announcement of this revelation was titled "Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love nuclear power", paraphrasing the subtitle of Stanley Kubrick's sendup of the arms race, "Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb". Kubrick was being satirical, embracing Armageddon for comedic effect. The ironic edge of the title was apparently lost on Monbiot, who embraces nuclear disaster not as a warning, but as proof of its benefit to humanity and the earth.

Monbiot does argue that there are no safe alternatives, but that does not require pretending that nuclear is safe. Embrace its destructive power, George! Love the danger. Waa-Hooo!

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)

White River Valley Players' Vermont Teen Theater

presents

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)

Sat. 4/2 at 7 pm
Sun. 4/3 at 2 pm
Fri. 4/8 at 7 pm
Sat. 4/9 at 7 pm
Sun. 4/10 at 2 pm

Rochester (Vt.) High School Auditorium

Tickets $7 (not appropriate for young children due to some language)

Scary stuff

From artist Judy Taylor:

A Cobbler trains his young Apprentice. In the background are scenes from that era.

Child labor was common in Maine. They frequently performed dangerous tasks for long hours.

Young women were often sent to the mills by their families, who could not, or would not, support them.

For the first time, workers were allowed to vote anonymously in 1891.

In 1884, Maine celebrated its first "Labor's Day", a day for the workers to celebrate.

A member of the IWW or "Wobblies" tries to organize the Maine woodsmen.

Scenes from an unsuccessful strike attempt to create better conditions for women workers.

Frances Perkins, FDR's Labor Secretary and untiring labor activist, a Maine Labor icon.

Maine's version of WWII women workers participated as ship-builders.

The International Paper strike of 1986 in Jay, Maine, one that still divides the town.

A figure from the past offers a hammer to workers of the present, who are unsure of its value in a changing world.

human rights

Gasland and wind energy

With panning shots of the sprawling arrays of giant wind turbines in Texas, Josh Fox thought he was silently offering an alternative vision at the end of his eye-opening documentary Gasland.

He obviously hadn't seen Laura Israel's documentary Windfall yet. Anyone who knows how wind developers operate and have suffered the consequences saw the same story played out by gas developers in Fox's film.

To anyone aware of the facts about wind energy development, those eerie shots of the Texas turbines were clearly foreboding rather than promising. They seemed to promise part 2 of the exploration of energy's unpublicized dark side, not the end of the story.

Especially considering that more wind means more natural gas, which is required to balance the erratic production of wind turbines.

Part 1: Gasland.  Part 2: Windfall.

tags:  wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights

Greens for Nuclear: Useful Idiots

Alexander Cockburn writes at Counterpunch:

On the recruitment of Greens to the cause of the nuclear industry, Martin Kokus sent us the following very interesting letter:

“Instead of saying that global warming rescued the nuclear lobby, I would say the nuclear complex invented global warming. I was working on man-made climate change during the 70's and I think that even the biggest conspiracy theorist is underestimating the role that the nuclear complex played in shaping the debate on AGW. When I say nuclear complex, I am not just referring to the power lobby, but also the weapons manufacturers, the military, the nuclear labs, the academics who are funded by nuclear labs, and those who think that there is some huge geopolitical advantage for the west to go nuclear.

“The nukes were pushing AGW from my earliest political memory. In 1973-74, the Hoover Institute funded a tour by Edward Teller where he described co2 as the real environmental problem and nuclear power was its only solution. (I am sure that you are aware that the Hoover Institute is now espousing AGW as a liberal conspiracy.) During the same time period Bernard Cohen, head of U of Pitt's Nuke Labs, self-appointed expert on safety, and proponent of nuclear power was funded by Americans for Energy Independence (AEI) to do the same thing. One of the organizers of AEI was longtime Cohen associate Zalman Shapiro who was the subject of a series of Counterpunch essays by Grant Smith in regards to the Israeli nuke program. These speakers were not sponsored by climatology departments but by nuclear engineering departments.

“I was in the first US seminar on man-made climate change at UVA. We were worried about particulates, land use, deforestation, and most of all the introduction of agribusiness into the third world. My profs dismissed AGW in about 15 minutes. But even then, one of our contract monitors from Oak Ridge AEC was pushing me to get interested in the greenhouse effect. I also remember Outside magazine (which I always considered right wing and phony environmentalist [indeed, its interest is clearly in conquering nature —Ed.]) doing a series that considered AGW to be the most serious environmental threat. I always found this interesting because there were absolutely no data behind it.

“The real money came into AGW after Thatcher got elected. I am sure that you are familiar with the Centre for Policy Studies', a conservative British think tank, decision to hype AGW. Well, the Reagan administration more than matched that money. We funded half the Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia’s climate group. The UEA was the scene of the recent Climategate scandal. The Hadley Centre and the UEA were the incubators for the IPCC. The money was monitored by what used to be the AEC lab at Oakridge which is now under DOE. The older climatologists were ignored in this funding buildup. In fact, existing funding for non co2 climate change research disappeared.”

Green Development?

To the Editor, New York Times:

By painting as "Nimby" all who question development plans, Elisabeth Rosenthal does a disservice to community participation in decision-making ["Green Development? Not in My (Liberal) Backyard", Week in Review, Mar. 13]. Such pejorative name-calling serves only to quash serious and open discussion.

Every development project requires a cost-benefit analysis, but the "greater good" is often evoked as a means of shutting out local concerns. The people who will be directly affected are best placed to ensure that the costs -- and the claimed benefits -- are properly assessed. It should not be a surprise that their conclusions are frequently different from those of developers and politicians.

This is certainly the case with wind power, which, when examined with the cold eye of someone facing major industrial development of a rural or even wild area, seems to be primarily a tax avoidance scheme for energy companies and investors. After decades of deployment, its other benefits (e.g., less carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning) have proven to be elusive at best. And its impacts -- on the environment, wildlife, and human neighbors -- far exceed the developers' reassurances.

Rosenthal also describes overseas acquiescence, but the European Platform Against Windfarms includes at last count 473 organizations from 21 countries, including 6 from Denmark and 68 from Germany. In the U.K. (with 78 groups signed on to the EPAW), industrialists regularly complain that a third of proposed wind energy facilities are blocked because of locals having a say on the future of their landscapes and their lives.

Eric Rosenbloom
President, National Wind Watch

wind power, wind energy, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights