Now that the wingnuts have moved on to their latest outrage of the day, let's take a closer look at the notorious Nuremberg analogy. On reflection, I've come to think that it's inappropriate -- and not because it gave Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh (and Brit Hume!) one of their patented umbrage woodies. Three reasons:
First off, never violate Godwin's Law. It's a law for a reason.
Two, the Nuremberg trials resulted in executions. I'm opposed to state-sanctioned execution in all cases, but would certainly never advocate it merely for the crime of being a lying scumbag.
Third -- and more to the point -- Nuremberg was primarily about prosecution and punishment. I'm not a particularly vindictive person, and I'm not that interested in retribution. What I'm interested in is the truth: that the truth be aired; that those who have lied own up to it and be held accountable; that those who suffered as a result of the lies be allowed to tell their stories.
For these reasons, a far better analogy for what I had in mind would have been South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or perhaps what the Germans call Vergangenheitsbewältigung:
Vergangenheitsbewältigung describes the attempt to digest and analyze the past and to learn to live with the consequences of the dark chapters of such a past. The focus on learning is much in the spirit of George Santayana's famous quote that "those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it".
All the lies and distortions about tobacco's effects, and now those about global warming, from all the industry operatives, pseudo scientists, and unprincipled think-tank commentators ... they had and have concrete effects, of course. They delayed our country's reckoning with some very difficult problems, and every bit of delay means more suffering and death. (In the case of global warming, that suffering is farther down the causal and temporal chain, and more diffuse, but let's never forget that it is real.)
But almost as bad as the concrete effects is the less tangible degradation of our public life, our public discourse. The campaigns of deception have had the effect of compromising or crippling institutions we rely on to inform the public. They have filled the air with a haze of information pollution. We have, in practice, been reduced to a kind of de facto postmodernism. The public is losing hold of the notion that there can be such thing as "the truth." They're coming to accept that there is our truth and their truth, and no way of weighing them against one another. In that atmosphere, persuasion falls by the wayside, and only the raw struggle for political power remains. Epistemology becomes ideology. That is precisely what the leadership of the modern American right wing wants.
That's what I most resent: not the lies themselves, but the concerted effort to derogate all sources of independent, verifiable information -- to derogate the very possibility of such information. The attacks on science, the attacks on the media, it's all part of the same project.
What I want is some sort of public forum where the liars can be exposed for what they are and cast, once and for all, from polite company. It isn't economic or legal punishment I seek but simple social opprobrium. Shame. It needs to be made clear that knowingly lying about matters of grave social concern is not OK. This is not a game.
This isn't about everyone who fails to believe in the reality of global warming. Plenty of people have never been directly exposed to the science. A much, much smaller group has seen and processed the science and chooses to believe it's mistaken. Let them all speak -- the answer to incorrect or malicious speech is more and better speech. No one is more of a First Amendment absolutist than me. Bring on the open, good-faith debate.
I'm not talking about run-of-the-mill skeptics. I'm talking about the people who know they're lying, or simply don't care what the truth is. They just want to suck as much financial advantage from their current position as possible before the piper comes calling. Not being a religious believer, I can't anticipate a hell for these folks, so I'd just as soon they eat a little crow while they're still around.
Comments View as Flat
GreenFedayeen Posted 5:40 am
13 Oct 2006
Uniforms?
Please, we cannot look weak here. We must begin the Inquisition and soon. Our Messiah says that we have less than ten years to save Gaia, Mother of All, True Center of the Univers. Do you guys have uniforms, yet?
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jjwfmme Posted 6:29 am
13 Oct 2006
OK, Greenie
If can you can show us that you have the slightest idea what you're talking about when it comes to climate change, we'll take you seriously here, believe it or not. We won't cut your mike like Faux News.
Of course, this will mean that you'll have to actually engage real people, not two dimensional talking heads, and you'll be exposed to facts that aren't masticated and spoon fed through the right-wing, boob-tube industrial complex. I know its scary to go outside the mothership. And your Karl Rove talking points won't help you here. But you can do it.
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bookerly Posted 10:45 am
13 Oct 2006
Re: uniforms
Ummm, Greenie made me laugh!! That was funny!! A joke, right?? A nice one.. Thanks!
patrick
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JoeSchmoe Posted 10:40 pm
13 Oct 2006
crow
David,
I have to say I think you handled this poorly. You shouldn't have had to eat any crow. Your response should have been across the lines of "The eternally indignant right-wing nuts once again show their penchant for attacking staw-men. I only said there should be something LIKE Nuremberg, i.e., an international tribunal investigation wrong doing. Secondly, I never attacked global warming skeptics, I only attacked professional obfuscators and deniers. It's time for the right-wing to pick up a copy of "Critical Thinking for Dummies" and look up attacking a straw-man. However, this gives me an oppurtunity to flesh out my analogy and say in what ways I don't think an international investigation would be like Nuremberg..." Just me 2 cents.
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markbahner Posted 12:25 pm
14 Oct 2006
The truth, eh?
"What I'm interested in is the truth: that the truth be aired; that those who have lied own up to it and be held accountable; that those who suffered as a result of the lies be allowed to tell their stories."
You're interested in the truth, eh?
How about answering these questions:
- Is it necessary for projections of future events (e.g., the IPCC TAR projections for methane atmospheric concentrations, CO2 emissions and atmospheric concentrations, and resultant temperature increases) to be falsifiable, in order for them to be scientific?
- Are the projections of methane atmospheric concentrations, CO2 emissions and atmospheric concentrations, and resultant temperature increases in the IPCC TAR falsifiable?
Please consider this statement in the IPCC TAR in your answer to question #2:"Scenarios are images of the future or alternative futures. They are neither predictions nor forecasts."
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/emission/025.htm
Mark Bahner
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amtr Posted 3:11 pm
14 Oct 2006
Trials Go Both Ways!
Many believe earth is heading for another very nasty ICE AGE. An Ice Age that will kill far more than a Global Warming age will. Cold is a far deadlier killer. If an "Ice Age" does roll in, let's not bother to bring to trial those who kept us from getting ready for shorter growing seasons, lots and lots of snow, cold, damp weather, food shortages, heating fuel delivery problems, mega deaths from starvation and illness. When food becomes scarce and heating hard to come by, take the food and heating fuel from the "Global Warming" crowd! Let them freeze and starve to death! When people have to find shelter in warmer areas, take the homes of those who push "Global Warming" that live in those nice warm areas - no matter what their rank. When food delivery can only be made to some, none to the Global Warming screamers - they will have their Global Warmth to keep them from freezing to death. The globe has been warmer. Iceland has been losing ice since the late 1800's. The "Little Ice Age" ended around 1800 A.D. It was so cold before then that London fairs were held on the frozen Thames up to 1780. The U.S. Continental Army almost froze to death from the cold while at Valley Forge. The Black Death, the Irish Potato Famine, famine around the globe which ushered give rise to Islam can be traced to the colder and damper weather that accompanied the "Little Ice Age". The earth has been warming since the "Little Ice Age ended around 1800 when there were no SUVs, big factories, trains, cars, planes, billions of people on the earth. In fact, same holds for the end of the last big Ice Age that ended some 10,000 years ago and all the other ICE AGES before that. Details the "Chicken Little's" keep ignoring. People like Gore and his "Global Warming terrorists" in earlier times have burned witches alive, imprisoned Galileo, burned books in NAZI Germany, killed Kulaks in Russia. There is an evil and the evil is ignorance and fear of debate. The Global Warming Alarmists are simply the same type who pushed Lysenkoism. These types are simply the current flavor of a part of humanity that has plagued mankind from day one. They are the bane of humanity. They are the "evil ones" who hold humanity down and load mankind with fear and hate of change. . They are the "Witch Doctors" who sow fear and hate to achieve and hold power. They are the new practitioners of ignorance and intolerance. A trial by Global Warming Terrorist I won't be a Nuremburg Trial, it will be a Witch Trial! And, and, and, they are, as always, WRONG!
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jjwfmme Posted 12:34 am
15 Oct 2006
Folks,
If you have any doubts that man-made climate change is happening, read the first two sentences of the report that National Academy of Sciences wrote for the Bush administration back in 2001:
If you still have any doubts, here is link to a compiled list of all the zombie myths that have been making their around the net (including the ice age BS listed above). It's written in layman's terms, but it references all the latest science:
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/how-to-talk-to-...
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TokyoTom Posted 5:01 pm
15 Oct 2006
Mark, scenarios are not science per se. Okay?
What is it with you and the IPCC scenarios?
The climate change science continues to improve, even while complexities mean an infinite amount of research is possible. The question is when do we make a POLITICAL decision to act, in the face of the evolving science. For many, that point was passed a long time ago, when governments around the world signed the climate change treaty that later led to the Kyoto Protocol. The US has not ratified Kyoto, but continues to recognize obligations under the climate change treaty.
You might disagree that the problem is serious enough to merit any political action at all - although I see you actively favor government subsidies for fusion research - but it is still a political decision that our society has a right to make regardless of the existing science.
What is an undeniable truth is that presently there are no clear or enforceable property rights relating to the global atmosphere, so all GHG emitters (in cluntries that have no Kyoto obligations) are allowed to do so to an unlimited degree without cost. A related undeniable truth is that commercial interests that make heavy use of the atmosphere as a GHG dump (either as producers of coal or pettroleum or heavy users of such fossil fuels) have been undertaking deliberate PR campaigns designed to allow them to continue to use the atmosphere for free as a GHG dumping ground, by frustrating any domestic GHG regulatory action that would impose costs on GHG emissions.
Please let me know if you disagree with either of these two points.
Your flogging of the scenarios does not challenge climate change science, but simply goes to the question as to when policy makers have been sufficiently informed to make a decision to act. In my view, that time was long ago, way before the IPCC TAR projections. Are you trying to take the policy decision out of the arena of politics and make it purely a scientific one?
Regards,
Tom
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TokyoTom Posted 5:23 pm
15 Oct 2006
GreenFedayeen, why do you hate America?
I'm not sure if you noticed, but it's not only envirofascists that hate America - Republicans do too, starting from the very top!!! http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/...
Are you aware of what Bush really thinks about climate change? http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/06/20010611-...
Do you also realize that a majority of US senators and the Hou£óe Appropriations Committee approve of a mandatory cap on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions? http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=234960 &Month=5&Year=2006&Party=0
And that the Senate Energy Committee has, with the help of industry leaders, been planning appropriate regulations in the US? http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Conferences.Detail&Event_id=4&Month=4&a mp;a mp;Year=2006
And that Bush just appointed as his Secretary of the Treasury a true believer in climate change, Hank Paulson, former head of Goldman Sachs and of the Nature Conservancy (despite opposition from anti-warmers)? http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2006/06/01/treasury/
It seems that the Republican party as a whole has actually caught the global warming fever ¨C are they all Islamofascist greenies, as you imply Dave Roberts is? Or do they love America just as much as you?
When are you going to get your jersey and join the team?
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TokyoTom Posted 6:12 pm
15 Oct 2006
Dave, this is not enough
First, while you make it clearer whom you're aiming at (those who are mouthpieces for commercial interests trying to stop effective GHG emission regulations), that doesn't really happen until below the fold. It's perfectly fine to hit hard at these types, but you should clarify the debate. There are far too many who are misreading you to think that your ire is directed at everyone, including scientists and laymen alike, and not a very special group that is deliberately manipulating debate for their own commercial, financial or political interests.
Second, why not ALSO aim at people who are simply in cognitive denial, and who dismiss all discussion of climae change because it comes from left-wing nutjobs? So much of the culpability of the first group comes from the fact that for the average citizen it is difficult to understand the science and we can be easily led astray by the rhetoric of the commercial interests.
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