Norvell Rose
The green shoots of Obama's Green Police
By Norvell Rose
Despite its creepy implications, I was going to let that odd Super Bowl car commercial featuring the Green Police just ride quietly into the sunset. Until the even creepier announcement the following day from the Obama White House. That's when the worlds of fiction and fact, denial and disdain collided with a big, bad bang.
About that commercial — you know the one from Audi — offering a disturbing glimpse into a future envisioned no doubt by environmental extremists of the ultra-lib left. A future where a meddlesome Green Police force swarms through neighborhoods, into homes and businesses, looking for any evidence of crimes against the planet. You know, awful infractions, like using plastic grocery bags, trashing old batteries and drinking from styrofoam cups.
Now whether the ad for Audi's new "green" car was supposed to be a spoof, a satire, a lampoon — whatever — it was weirdly hair-raising. And also consciousness-raising, but not necessarily in the way the eggheads at Audi intended. Viewed as an omen of ugly things to come, it was a super chilling moment during the Super Bowl.
Then, the very next day comes word from Washington that the Obama Administration wants to set up yet another federal agency on climate change. Its mission? To provide "relevant and timely information" on potentially life-altering changes in the earth's environment. In other words, up from the fertile hotbed of environment activism in Washington spring the ominous green shoots of what could easily become Obama's own Green Police.
For we all know how today's "information" agency becomes tomorrow's enforcement division.
So tell me, Mr. Obama, where exactly is that new agency going to get its "information"? From the so-called climate "experts" whose shoddy, shameless work continues to be discredited on an almost daily basis? From the self-serving pack of global-warming scientists and other Chicken Littles whose reputations are crashing around them like a flimsy house of discards?
At a news conference announcing the formation of this climate agency, a federal official said, "whether we like it or not, climate change represents a real threat." Really? According to that "settled science" exposed to an increasingly unsettled public as a hoax and a fraud? I would contend the only real threat is allowing government to grab any more power based on this unscientific racket.
At the same news event, another federal official chimed in, "climate change is real, it's happening now." Maybe. But the true extent and impact of any change are being rightfully questioned on more and more fronts.
And speaking of (cold) fronts, it seemed particularly fitting that the announcement of Obama's latest global-warming folly came on a frigid day when official Washington was closed — buried under a massive snowfall. In fact, the big event planned for the National Press Club had to be scaled back to a telephone conference. Hmmm? Just like the hysteria about climate change is being scaled back to a far more rational investigation.
Plus, Mr. President, haven't you heard that the country is in something of a financial pickle? Shouldn't we be trying to shrink the size of government and the weight of the federal budget instead of growing our multi-generational burden with another bureaucracy? I guess the whole limited government, fiscal discipline message has been lost on you, huh?
And maybe you missed the latest poll from Rasmussen Reports. A new national telephone survey shows that 75% of voters now say they are at least somewhat angry at the government. That's an increase of nine anger points since last September. Don't you see that our anger is based, at least in part, on the fact that you don't listen to us?
And how do I know you don't listen? Because you keep doing things, proposing policies, pushing plans, driving initiatives that we don't want. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press makes that point, as you are fond of saying, perfectly clear.
According to a new Pew survey, dealing with global warming ranks at the bottom — the very bottom — of the public's list of priorities for government action. Just 28% of us consider it a top priority, the lowest measure for any of the twenty-one issues tested.
Then there's the evidence piling as high as DC snowdrifts that the American people are growing weary of you and your arrogance, Mr. President. Showing determination is one thing, but flaunting audacious disdain for the will and wisdom of the people is quite another.
According to a devastating poll released the same day as the announcement of the new climate change agency, President Obama's overall approval rating has sunk to a new low. And it's the independent voters who propelled him to the White House who are fed up with the job he's doing.
Obama's job-approval rating has tanked to a dismal 29 percent among independents, the Marist College survey found. His disapproval rating is nearly twice as high — 57 percent.
And according to the New York Post, Obama's overall approval among all registered voters hit a new low of 44 percent, the lowest of any poll that uses people to survey voters.
Still, despite all the evidence of phony science, the runaway growth of the Washington bureaucracy, the disastrous shape of the federal budget, the lack of public belief in the urgency of the environmental need, and the collapsing support of the citizens for whom he supposedly works — despite all this — Obama doggedly pursues his climate change folly.
You know what, perhaps we should report this foolish waste of precious presidential energy and federal resources to the Green Police. Because when it comes to Obama's agenda, what we really need is arrested development.
© Norvell Rose
February 9, 2010
Despite its creepy implications, I was going to let that odd Super Bowl car commercial featuring the Green Police just ride quietly into the sunset. Until the even creepier announcement the following day from the Obama White House. That's when the worlds of fiction and fact, denial and disdain collided with a big, bad bang.
About that commercial — you know the one from Audi — offering a disturbing glimpse into a future envisioned no doubt by environmental extremists of the ultra-lib left. A future where a meddlesome Green Police force swarms through neighborhoods, into homes and businesses, looking for any evidence of crimes against the planet. You know, awful infractions, like using plastic grocery bags, trashing old batteries and drinking from styrofoam cups.
Now whether the ad for Audi's new "green" car was supposed to be a spoof, a satire, a lampoon — whatever — it was weirdly hair-raising. And also consciousness-raising, but not necessarily in the way the eggheads at Audi intended. Viewed as an omen of ugly things to come, it was a super chilling moment during the Super Bowl.
Then, the very next day comes word from Washington that the Obama Administration wants to set up yet another federal agency on climate change. Its mission? To provide "relevant and timely information" on potentially life-altering changes in the earth's environment. In other words, up from the fertile hotbed of environment activism in Washington spring the ominous green shoots of what could easily become Obama's own Green Police.
For we all know how today's "information" agency becomes tomorrow's enforcement division.
So tell me, Mr. Obama, where exactly is that new agency going to get its "information"? From the so-called climate "experts" whose shoddy, shameless work continues to be discredited on an almost daily basis? From the self-serving pack of global-warming scientists and other Chicken Littles whose reputations are crashing around them like a flimsy house of discards?
At a news conference announcing the formation of this climate agency, a federal official said, "whether we like it or not, climate change represents a real threat." Really? According to that "settled science" exposed to an increasingly unsettled public as a hoax and a fraud? I would contend the only real threat is allowing government to grab any more power based on this unscientific racket.
At the same news event, another federal official chimed in, "climate change is real, it's happening now." Maybe. But the true extent and impact of any change are being rightfully questioned on more and more fronts.
And speaking of (cold) fronts, it seemed particularly fitting that the announcement of Obama's latest global-warming folly came on a frigid day when official Washington was closed — buried under a massive snowfall. In fact, the big event planned for the National Press Club had to be scaled back to a telephone conference. Hmmm? Just like the hysteria about climate change is being scaled back to a far more rational investigation.
Plus, Mr. President, haven't you heard that the country is in something of a financial pickle? Shouldn't we be trying to shrink the size of government and the weight of the federal budget instead of growing our multi-generational burden with another bureaucracy? I guess the whole limited government, fiscal discipline message has been lost on you, huh?
And maybe you missed the latest poll from Rasmussen Reports. A new national telephone survey shows that 75% of voters now say they are at least somewhat angry at the government. That's an increase of nine anger points since last September. Don't you see that our anger is based, at least in part, on the fact that you don't listen to us?
And how do I know you don't listen? Because you keep doing things, proposing policies, pushing plans, driving initiatives that we don't want. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press makes that point, as you are fond of saying, perfectly clear.
According to a new Pew survey, dealing with global warming ranks at the bottom — the very bottom — of the public's list of priorities for government action. Just 28% of us consider it a top priority, the lowest measure for any of the twenty-one issues tested.
Then there's the evidence piling as high as DC snowdrifts that the American people are growing weary of you and your arrogance, Mr. President. Showing determination is one thing, but flaunting audacious disdain for the will and wisdom of the people is quite another.
According to a devastating poll released the same day as the announcement of the new climate change agency, President Obama's overall approval rating has sunk to a new low. And it's the independent voters who propelled him to the White House who are fed up with the job he's doing.
Obama's job-approval rating has tanked to a dismal 29 percent among independents, the Marist College survey found. His disapproval rating is nearly twice as high — 57 percent.
And according to the New York Post, Obama's overall approval among all registered voters hit a new low of 44 percent, the lowest of any poll that uses people to survey voters.
Still, despite all the evidence of phony science, the runaway growth of the Washington bureaucracy, the disastrous shape of the federal budget, the lack of public belief in the urgency of the environmental need, and the collapsing support of the citizens for whom he supposedly works — despite all this — Obama doggedly pursues his climate change folly.
You know what, perhaps we should report this foolish waste of precious presidential energy and federal resources to the Green Police. Because when it comes to Obama's agenda, what we really need is arrested development.
© Norvell Rose
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
