Global Warming "Doesn't Fit Republican Belief Structure" - Lewis Lapham

[hatrack]

EDIT

Last fall, administration officials ordered Hansen to remove data from the Internet that suggested 2005 could be the warmest year on record. A few months later, 2005 was confirmed as the warmest ever by several scientific institutions. Officials have also prevented journalists from interviewing the scientist about his research. "Things are even worse at NOAA and the Environmental Protection Agency," Hansen said in a television interview.

NOAA has consistently discounted any connection to global warming in its scientific summaries about the record number and destructiveness of hurricanes in 2005, despite ample evidence of a likely connection from other leading climate scientists. On Wednesday, NOAA announced that several of its scientists disagreed with that official position.

"The Bush administration rejects the scientific method," said Lewis Lapham, the editor of Harper's Magazine and author of the recent book "Gag Rule", which looks at how the U.S. government suppresses dissent and stifles democracy. "Global warming doesn't fit into their current belief structure," Lapham told IPS.

The United States is entering into an era where faith is more important than fact and dissent is considered betrayal, he said. When it comes to research, the current administration has gone well beyond the traditional practice of politicians fudging the numbers to get the results they want, Lapham noted. "If science doesn't prove what it's been told to prove, then they (the Bush administration) believe it has been tampered with by Satan or the Democratic Party," he said.

EDIT

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32201

[marmar]

1. And the Republican belief system, of course, can't...

be subjected to facts, or reason, or adaptability to changing conditions...

:argh:

[opihimoimoi]

2. This could very well be the major F/U that brings down BushCo

To deny the obvious confirms their delusion.

[rodeodance]

3. good paragraphs here:

...Outright attempts by governments to muzzle scientists doing public research is not that common, Bocking said. "There are much more subtle ways to direct research."

Decisions about what projects are funded, for how long, the methodology used, and the assumptions made all influence the eventual outcome, he says: "Research results tends to reflect who's paying for it."

This has nothing to do with scientists' personal integrity, he insists. The ample proof is that credible scientists financed by pharmaceutical companies have produced results that were later overturned by publicly-funded scientists.

Publicly-funded research is critical to counterbalance corporate-financed research, he said. And much more of the former is needed.

[InvisibleTouch]

4. They'll reap what they sow.

Unfortunately, that takes the rest of us down with them. Once the rethugs are forced to realize they've been wrong, it'll be too late.

[phantom power]

5. many of them will never "realize they've been wrong."

As Kunstler says, "there may never be any moment of clarity, only new forms of confusion."

Oh, and see this:

George W Bush has won two elections with the unquestioning support of conservatives. Yet, in his first term he made it quite obvious that he was not a conservative in any sense that I understood conservative. From out of control spending to federalizing education to nation building and messianic foreign policy, he has simply not been conservative by any common definition of the term. None of that stopped conservatives from virtually worshipping the man. It is only now that he has become unpopular and his policies are failing that his brand of conservatism is being criticized on the right.

George W. Bush will not achieve a place in the Republican pantheon. Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. By liberalism.

Dave Neiwert chimed in on this discussion yesterday and wrote a very intriguing post in which he posits that the modern Republican party might more aptly be called a political religion, which, as it happens, is an acknowledged sociological designation.

(...)

We hate ourselves for losing and hate our leaders for failing us. The conservatives just put theirs out to pasture and move on, secure in the knowledge that their greater faith will prevail. It must be very nice to live in a world in which you can never, ever be wrong.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#114027531212392066

[InvisibleTouch]

7. Oh, I think when the world is collapsing around us...

...there will be little choice but to realize their errors. The rich rethugs will be insulated longer than the rest of us, to be sure; they have the means and the resources to move to the safest places and horde the most supplies - but at some point, even that advantage will run out.

Then again, they might think "god" is destroying the world in the Biblical apocalypse. Such is the power of delusion.....

[phantom power]

8. Consider recent history:

Do conservatives blame the GOP or BushCo for the ongoing Iraq war? The ones who are even aware that something is going wrong mostly blame liberals, for sabotaging the righteous war effort with our bad attitudes. Why? Because the GOP pundits tell them to.

If the GOP is ever forced to admit to climate change, it's a sure thing that they will tell their hard-core base some story that places the blame on environmentalists. And their base will eat it up. Hell, it's already happening. Last year Congress had Michael Chrichton testify at a hearing on climate change, for his groundbreaking scientific work "State of Fear"

[InvisibleTouch]

9. Well, that's likely true...

...they'll find some way to blame it on liberals, environmentalists, or the Clenis. But it's still self-delusion and it won't do them any good. Some poetic justice in there, that I might take pleasure in, if it didn't also affect everyone else.

[earthside]

6. Worse than Fascism

You know, even Hitler was a big believer in science. That's why the Nazis spent so much on scientific weapons research. And, as despicable as it was, they thought science would prove their monsterous eugenics theories.

But the Bushites want to just throw out anything that contradicts their anti-capitalist corporatist and Christofascist ideology. So, even if 'Star Wars' missile defense fails and fails and fails its test -- they just keep spending billions of dollars on it because it suits their philosophy.

Sheesh.

To paraphrase from Mike Malloy's show: "Have I told you yet how much I hate these people?"

[enough]

10. But more and more like the old Soviet Union,

where truth was only whatever the Regime wanted it to be.

[hunter]

11. The "Republican Belief Structure" is the sort of cult that ends badly.

Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite, etc., but on a much larger scale.

Our Republican leaders are insane.