Button, button, who’s got the button?
A fair number of people have been up in arms over this comment by President Clinton in a speech: “OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.” We’re bothered by an aspect of the comments, but not for that particular remark, which has been taken out of context. The entire context is interesting (via ABC):
“Everybody knows that global warming is real…but we cannot solve it alone….And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada — the rich counties — would say, ‘OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.’ We could do that.
“But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren. The only way we can do this is if we get back in the world’s fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.
“And guess what? The only places in the world today in rich countries where you have rising wages and declining inequality are places that have generated more jobs than rich countries because they made a commitment we didn’t. They got serious about a clean, efficient, green, independent energy future… If you want that in America, if you want the millions of jobs that will come from it, if you would like to see a new energy trust fund to finance solar energy and wind energy and biomass and responsible bio-fuels and electric hybrid plug-in vehicles that will soon get 100 miles a gallon, if you want every facility in this country to be made maximally energy efficient that will create millions and millions and millions of jobs, vote for her. She’ll give it to you. She’s got the right energy plan.”
The discussion above contains some interesting thoughts, among them the assertion that by waging some sort of fight against global warming (whatever that might entail) we will “prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren.” We have come across no evidence to suggest that this is a sound economic premise that can be broadly applied.
But that’s not even our concern in quoting the former President. Our point is this: what is the significance of President Clinton’s constant musings? Are they meant to express the policy of the United States in a Hillary Clinton administration? What happens when the Clintons disagree? It is obvious that Bill Clinton can’t control his far ranging speculations. Is a daily diet of Bill Clinton’s musings on the horizon, followed by next-day assertions from the White House that those policy suggestions have now been declared “inoperative?”
January 31st, 2008 at 11:34 pm
All this time I’ve been ascribing our economic underperformance to Republican incompetence and corruption. Now Slick Willy informs me that the real reason is that the Europeans, Canadians, et al are fighting global warming and we aren’t. So if we replace corrupt incompetent Republicans by (possibly even more) corrupt and incompetent Democrats who fight global warming, all will be well.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” Somewhere, Mencken is smirking.
I’m guessing that the duration of the planetary emergency will be comparable to the time required for the state to wither away under a dictatorship of the proletariat.
The Chinese, and probably the Indians, will not fall for this scam. The Central Kingdom will not allow its economy to be dictated by a shoddy apparat of transnationalist lawyers, environmentalists, kooks, hacks, and parasites. Human progress will not end.
February 1st, 2008 at 1:15 am
Our point is this: what is the significance of President Clinton’s constant musings?
1. From time to time one reads that Bill wants to become Secretary General of the United Nations. While that prospect seems absurd, no limit to the Clintons’ power lust is apparent. Having jumped from Little Rock to the Oval Office, they may consider a global leap (encompassing the Oval Office) worth a shot. Perhaps they’re running two campaigns but are not in complete sync about priorities. (Bill’s soul mate Tony Blair is said to be maneuvering to become President of the European Council.)
2. The musings could be trial balloons. They could be meant to placate, or to throw red meat to, various Clinton constituencies.
3. If the musings are pathological, that may not be entirely bad. Should the next administration be toxic, hopefully it will also be dysfunctional.