Monday, March 5, 2007
UBERDOG AND THE WATCHPUPPIES
UBERDOG AND THE WATCHPUPPIES
How absolutely deceptive, in its very conception. A small cozy meet-up, no different from 100 other meetups done every day for party politics, or cigar smoking, or charity. A simple meetup NOT sponsored by any official agency, or governmental department, ....AND YET ... the deceptive PR copy distributed in announcements & blogs promised "High Level Scientific Seminar---- Major Figures From The Govermental, Environmental, and Scientific World to appear"..... but read a bit further and we begin to see the disclaimers: "John Hall (invited)"...... "Charles Schumer (invited)"..... That little bracket, with the word "invited" says more than volumes of spin from me.
I once invited Paul McCartney up to my recording studio to jam. My wife had a bake sale once, and invited Martha Stewart. Did they show up? I'm not gonna tell ya, folks, but Hall & Schumer didn't show at Pace last Friday. Nor did NRC, nor did Entergy. Why? Because they had correctly identified the event as a highly spun smalltime anti-Indian Point worry-fest, tricked out to seem like something it was not.
I'm not going to rail on about the meeting's content in this blog. Read my old posts for that. All I wish to point out is the blowfish-type self puffery indulged , seemingly in every breath in, and every breath out, by the tiny hard core "Lets be afraid of Indian Point, regardless" clique. Who was it said "If her lips are moving, she's lying"?
If we listen to a single sentence from this arrogant, deceptive, self-inflating anti-people, anti-work, anti-blue collar, anti-normalcy crowd, we are forced to go home, get deep into Wikipedia for an hour or two, and take notes in a stenographer's notepad, to separate the exaggeration from the known fact, the pretense from the actuality. And it is always so, so, prophetically knowing! So, so dire, so, so urgent, so concerned, serious, so frowning and so, so precious. It's kind of a "Me-as-Potential-Mass-Victim" passion play, for the electric rate payer.
But answer me this--- What if it's 100% histrionics?
What if the few "concerned" souls who showed up to hear about how long it takes a thimble full of water to sink into the Ramapo fault are not representative of anything real? What if their entire area of focus is trivial , even neurotic---- self importance gone wild? A fantasy club? Why do our media outlets have to play along, and announce "High Level Scientific Inquiry at Pace next Friday", when in fact it was 5 local activists, one paid antinuke harrassment agent from Washington DC, and a doctor from NYS DEC-- a doctor who, by the way, disagreed with the other panelists, and said not to worry?
I agree with their right to meet up. I even agree with their right to try to seem much more authoritative than they actually are.
I do not agree that their attempts to speak for the populace are ethical, and I insist absolutely on MY right to debunk their endless charade, in public forums such as this.
I also promise them, and you, that I will be watching these autoinfatuated watchpuppies, as a kind of Uberdog commentor, conscience, and debunking machine.
It ought to be real fun.