When H.L. Mencken observed that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public, he was being kind. Americans offer their opinions willy nilly, on just about every topic under the sun, regardless of whether or not they know what they’re talking about. We may not be readers or deep thinkers, but we sure don’t hesitate to offer ridiculous opinions.
To see the failure of American education, in fact, you needn’t look further than American opinions. Half (half!) of Americans believe they have personal guardian angels. A fourth of Americans claim to have witnessed miraculous healings (does recovering from a cold count? If so, I’m with the program). God has spoken directly to a fifth of our people (not quite Old Testament times, but hardly the Enlightenment). Only 40 percent believe in evolution (it’s hard to take, but come on, everybody, buck up). Half of Americans believe global warming is exaggerated (why read what scientists have to say when you can judge for yourself?).
Now, despite pictures of oozing guck wending its way into the Louisiana wetlands, slowly strangling the feckless pelicans that, coated in oil, are still trying to lay their eggs, 46 percent of Americans continue to support offshore drilling. I wonder how many of them know how to calculate that 5,000 feet means the sea floor lies almost a mile beneath the sea’s surface. This drill-baby-drill figure represents a decline, mind you, from the drill-baby-drill days of Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential campaign. Even she now speaks softly about the subject, telling Gulf state residents that though she continues to support offshore drilling, she feels their pain.
Amerian support for offshore drilling demonstrates that we simply will not budge in our angel-given, God-loves-America-best, divinely-inspired right to use up all the fossil fuels inside the earth, at whatever pace we feel like. We need—absolutely need—to support our “lifestyle,” by which we mean support our “free market right” to “choose” to use gas-guzzling SUV’s to move ourselves around in and to “choose” to heat and cool our homes to whatever temperature we feel like (sweaters and blankets be damned). Moreover, without such petroleum products as plastic bags, containers, computer parts and toys, tell me how we’ll ever make our newest continent—the Great Pacific Garbage Patch—be all that it can be?
Here in New York, those of us who are paying attention can’t help but notice the reassuring ads BP (the proud sponsor of the Gulf disaster) is running on TV that promote the fossil fuel of the future—“clean” natural gas. A soothing daddy-voice tells us that we can have our fossil fuels and be clean at the same time. In particular, corporations like BP want to drill-baby-drill, on an unimaginable scale, into the Marcellus Shale in the northeastern U.S., for this putatively “clean” natural gas.
All that’s holding them back are some pesky environmental groups that have noticed that the process of extracting natural gas (called “fracking”) requires huge amounts of (publicly owned, mind you) water combined with hideously toxic chemicals. They’ve also picked up on the fact that fracking leaves behind gigantic (i.e., hundreds of acres of) open pits of plastic-lined (can you believe it?) toxic waste. We’re supposed to trust corporations that our ground, air, water and unspoiled rural areas will remain safe in their hands—safe like the Gulf of Mexico was safe—while they gently keep us in the lifestyle to which we’ve become accustomed.
Right now, the unfiltered drinking water for 9 million New Yorkers flows by gravity directly from the city-owned reservoirs up in the Catskill Mountains. One goof (drilling companies insist a goof is in the “it’s-extremely-unlikely-this-will-happen” category–remind you of anything?) in fracking in the reservoir region above the Marcellus Shale and the entire drinking supply for 9 million New Yorkers will be polluted. New York City is pitted against the governor in this battle—the city understanding the risk, the governor understanding the cash.
To check out the corporate side of the story, watch television. To check out the environmentalists’ side of the story, visit Frack No! and Catskill Citizens for Clean Energy. A good noggin will see the problem immediately. But as Mencken noted, good noggins are in short supply in America.
5 Responses to The Gulf Disaster Redux
charliemarlow - May 26, 2010 at 9:15 am
Your contempt for people outside of academe is unpleasant to encounter. BTW if people say they have been spoken to by God, on what basis do you say they are wrong? Was it really You?
livefreeordie2 - May 26, 2010 at 9:39 am
What a snooty little diatribe! The arrogance and condescension you exhibit are surpassed only by your blindness to the fact that your noggin is not among those in short supply. For those in the academy who wonder why so very many people equate an academic with someone to be viewed with suspicion, if not distinctly to be ignored, here is an excellent example.
goxewu - May 26, 2010 at 3:52 pm
I was spoken to by God, just the other night. She said to never, ever to reveal the Secret of Salvation. “Tough luck for everybody else,” She said, “if you’re the only one who knows it.”On what basis would charliemarlow say I’m wrong?
charliemarlow - May 26, 2010 at 6:11 pm
goxewuI have no idea what you experienced or did not experience or thought you experienced. You can now go out and start a religion -others have done it. :-)I doubt God spoke to you or to that 1/5 of Americans who also say they were addressed by God. But I don’t think they are stupid or uneducated for believing it happened. The idea of God communicating with people has a long history. Usually people report it when they are seeking guidance about a course to follow in life or on how to deal with a personal crisis. Your example is not in this tradition, so looks unlikely to anyone who reads it.I am not sure if the people surveyed meant God spoke to them or God “spoke” to them. My point was on just one of the things the author listed. I hope she is able to find a refuge from the horrid society of drooling imbeciles she says she lives in.
goxewu - May 27, 2010 at 9:41 am
She (as in She) told me to tell charliemarlow this:* If one has no basis for saying that the people who say “God” spoke to them are wrong, then it’s Pascal’s Side Bet bigtime, i.e., sorting through all the e-mails from the Beyond to the great unwashed Spoken To, just in case one of ‘em has crucial info on how to save one’s tuschie from the Lake of Fire. One wouldn’t want the flames of Hell crackling on one’s cheeks just because of an overlooked bit of spam, would one?* Everyone who’s spoken to by “God” doesn’t want to start a religion. I, for example, am content just knowing the Secret of Salvation and knowing that nobody else knows it. Schadenfreude is more precious than gold, or my own tax-deductible preacher network on cable.* Lots of things–good, bad and indifferent–have “a long history.”* charlie marlow has no idea whether goxewu is seeking a course to follow in life or is dealing with a personal crisis. Such conditions are often masked by snidery. * The per capita IQ of the United States is in fact diminished by the depressingly large percentage of the country’s populace that says it’s been directly spoken to by “God.” Statistical evidence? Don’t need it. I was told directly by Her. And She also told me to ignore the self-incrimination in that statement, because I’m The Exception.* “Drooling imbeciles” is charliemarlow’s description, not the OP’s.