Sunday, July 07, 2002
So anyway, seeing as I was in Ottawa for Canada Day and the U.S.A. for the Fourth, I was thinking of writing something about the divine right of kings that the conservatives in this country seem to be hell-bent on restoring. Hey, great idea for something that might take shape later.
But then I heard something today on my radio that just infuriated me. It was a paid political ad by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about the need for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site, demanding (it wasn't a polite request) that listeners thank Senator Kit Bond (R-Backstabber) for supporting the Yucca Mountain site and standing up to "environmental extremists." That's their words, not mine. It was just loaded with the red meat that the Vulgar Pigboy's brainless slaves can't get enough of. And Jean Carnahan simply didn't exist.
Thing was, it was just two days ago that I had been driving through Vermont when I heard pretty much the same ad tailored for a Vermont audience. First of all, there wasn't a speck of that red meat anywhere. (I get the feeling that just wouldn't play in Vermont.) Second, the tone of the ad made it seem like it was pro-environmental to ship nuclear waste by train across the country to a site on an active fault. That is, it would be very good for Vermont's environment to have that waste in Nevada. I had wondered if the "Alliance for Sound Nuclear Policy" was a front group for someone. Well, if I had read the Las Vegas Sun article on the ads that the paper had put out a little over a month ago, I'd have known then. Thanks to the really ham-fisted ad on our local station, it seems pretty clear to me who's lining that Astroturf group's pockets.
