Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Is it Ignorance or is it Brobdingnagian Greed?


The Koch Brothers are generously funding an initiative on the ballot in California this fall that would kill AB 32 – a clean energy bill that was hailed by environmentalists as an important achievement.
by Charlie Leck

You can see from the title that my “word of the day” came through this morning; and it’s recommended that I try to use it three or four times on the day I get it, so you are my pigeons this morning. Yet, it is not a misused word in this context; rather, it is very appurtenant here!

Brobdingnagian \brob-ding-NAG-ee-uhn [adjective]
Of extraordinary size; gigantic; enormous

I suggest you read the New York Times editorial of 20 September 2010 about “The Brothers Koch and AB 32.”

Here’s an extraordinary example of the power that wealthy, corporate moguls have in America and how they can mess with and manipulate our political systems far beyond the ability of normal, everyday citizens.

The Koch Brothers are providing huge sums of money in a campaign for a ballot initiative in California that will kill a law that is providing great hope that climate change can be slowed and our dependence on foreign oil reduced. The law, however, threatens to reduce the bottom line at Koch Industries. The billionaire brothers also happen to believe “global warming” is nonsense.

So, this California law that aims at reducing carbon dioxide emissions is in danger of being repealed. Such greed and stupidity should no longer surprise or shock me. I guess it doesn’t, but it does still make me angrier than hell!

“The Kochs and their allies are disastrously wrong about the science, which shows that man-made emissions are largely responsible for global warming, and wrong about the economics. AB 32’s many friends – led by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California – have therefore mounted a spirited counterattack in defense of the law.” [New York Times, 20 Sept 2010]

What’s a guy in Minnesota to do about such ignorance and brobdingnagian greed?

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