Saturday, October 13, 2007

The War Against Gore

For a large part of his career, Al Gore has been regularly and consistently attacked and vilified by the far right. These attacks really began in earnest, though, with the publication of "Earth in the Balance" and advanced upon his being vice president and peaked in the 2000 election, when the so-called claims about his many "exaggrations" came to light ("I invented the Internet" comes to mind).

After a few years out of the limelight, Gore returned to raise awareness of global warming, and made the award-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth". More attacks ensued. Yesterday, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in fighting global warming. The right wasted no time in lambasting him once again.

On Fox News, the anchor compared Gore with other recent Nobel winners, saying they were all "anti-Bush." Like that illegitimates the award. And the anchor went on to say that his daughter didn't like the film because it was too "political" and Gore took a few shots at Bush. Well, boo-fuckin'-hoo-hoo.

In another related story, a British judge recently ruled that "An Inconvenient Truth" can be shown in schools as long as "guidance notes" are provided to give balance to the film's "one-sided viewpoint." In effect, Foxing the film. This is absurd. If one thing is for certain, it's that the global warming believers (you know, all those scientists) have brought along a lot more ammo to provide support for their argument than the global warming deniers have. Many of the deniers aren't even scientists, but political talking heads like Limbaugh and the people at Fox News. How is it conceivable to give these people equal time and act as if their arguments are just as legitimate as the scientists who breathe and live this stuff?

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