Inconvenient Hypocrisy
original post - Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Current mood: belligerant
Category: News and Politics
A fifty year old man is found to be living and "loving" an eighteen year old recent graduate of the local high school and ex girlfriend of his son. The shame cast on him is immediate and well deserved. Though he has done nothing illegal, and no action can be taken against him he is ostracized from the local church and regularly catches dark glances at the local market. After a short time of this he finally discloses that which he has, solely for modesty's sake, been concealing. He is a regular supporter and donor to many local charities and shelters for the help of young girls. He gives greatly and is found to indeed be one of the greatest patrons of such foundations. After this is brought to light the neighbors who showed such disgust towards him were forced to beg for his forgiveness, he was eventually held in such high regard as to be voted in as mayor.
I know this is a ridiculous story. We would never, and could never, be expected to accept such a silly premise as this. A man being exempted from guilt and shame only because he is found to be a donor to causes that mitigate the damage he himself is part of creating.
But now how about our fine former VP? I'm sure everyone's heard about the report by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, regarding Mr. Gores'... oh what's the word... obscene, consumption habits. Now Let me say first off, that I have absolutely no problem with a man owning, living in and thoroughly enjoying life in a grand mansion. As a matter of fact I hope one day to be able to myself. The thing that gets me is that I have sat through the inconvenient truth. I have done my part to reduce my consumption, albeit for my own reasons. But to have someone, whether I disagree with them or not, preach to me like he has; to have them found to be using somewhere in the order of 20 times the amount of average customers, and then expect it to all be alright because they reduce their carbon footprint by giving to organizations that "raise awareness". I guess it's just par for the course. If you have enough, or know enough people and can get on the right TV shows, it doesn't really matter what you do.
Labels:
Al Gore,
hypocrisy,
inconvenient truth
4 comments:
Ok, this is my first comment, and it's a doozy, so please hear me out.
As far as I can tell, you haven't updated this entry since it was originally posted. Living in the Nashville area (as Mr. Gore does), perhaps I've heard more information about this than you, so I'll try to be polite. Articles subsequent to the ones you're commenting on revealed a more complete picture. Gore is renovating his house to include solar paneling and more green building techniques (one of your interests, I believe), and construction sucks up power like a vacuum. Anyone's power bill would be greatly affected. Also, at least one set of numbers released to the media was were inaccurate due to the fact that the cost of his power bill included the cost of the carbon offsets he was purchasing from our local power company, which I believe made his home energy consumption carbon-neutral, but is quite expensive, thus further inflating his power bill. Finally, Gore has taken responsibility for all of the above information and explained how he plans to do better, which is a decent, un-politican-like, thing to do that received VERY little publicity compared to the original defamitory press.
In a nutshell, he's doing more for the environment than any other politician out there, democrat or republican, even flying commercially instead of taking a private jet to give the talks (in the documentary, if you saw it). This is a virtually unheard-of thing for a politician to do.
Trust me, here in Tennessee, plenty of people hate Al Gore solely for the fact that he is a democrat. I mean, that original defamatory "information" was leaked right around Oscar time for a reason. If you're going to claim you're idealistic enough to hate him for his lack of devotion to his own cause, you should at least get your facts straight.
On a broader note, we're ALL working towards a healthier planet- that's why we're writing blogs and starting debates and networking to try to share solutions. Why must we be so polarized in our political views as to not notice the similarities between "the other side" and ourselves? How will any politician ever take a strong stand on environmental issues if environmentalists on the right and left can't unite to support him/her?
Heather, let me first welcome you to my blog; it is my pleasure to have you and your input as my guest.
You are absolutely right; I have not updated this post since I originally made it. I have also not spent a lot of time looking into the mitigating circumstances, guilty on both counts. If you will allow me a slight digression, I think I may be able to shed some light on the reason for this.
When I first began this blog it was not here in this forum. I began it under a myspace account as is stated in the first entry on Mar 6th. I began to blog and write my thoughts about things like this from a passionate and actually rather an angry place. There are a lot of issues that I would guess that we probably would not agree on, at least not 100%, I know this to be true of not just you in particular but probably of a large percentage of the few people that read this blog. I decided not long after beginning this adventure that I would certainly gain more and have much more to offer if I adopted a different approach. I have always been by my very nature an optimist. I have also always tried to hope and look for the best in people. One of my main reasons for beginning this blog was that I wanted to begin to change myself, and move down a more positive path.
Back to the entry at hand; as I said I have not focused on it further. I believe that conservation and environmental action should be a personal decision. I did have this view at the time, but honestly I was a little to wrapped up in being angry at the time. In my defense however, I never said anywhere that I hated Al Gore. Between you and me Heather, I voted for him. I wouldn’t today, but that’s food for another thought.
You stated: “On a broader note, we're ALL working towards a healthier planet- that's why we're writing blogs and starting debates and networking to try to share solutions. Why must we be so polarized in our political views as to not notice the similarities between "the other side" and ourselves? How will any politician ever take a strong stand on environmental issues if environmentalists on the right and left can't unite to support him/her?”
I agree whole heartedly with you! We really aren’t that far off I don’t think. I do want the dialogue and the debate, and I want us to work towards solutions together. Thank you for reading far enough into my short past to see this, and for calling me on it. I look forward to our discussions in the future.
P~
Thanks for the kind welcome. :) I enjoy the discussion and debate too! I apologize for saying you "hated" Gore as well, that was me overreacting and ranting a bit. But I am very glad that we agree on the idea that finding common ground is of the utmost importance- because it is!! I also look forward to continued discussions with you in the future.
~Heather
Glad to see that I didn't run you off Heather. It's good to have someone on board that's not afraid to overreact a little. You'll help bring out my better writing I think. We'll just have to keep it to a spirited debate.
Namaste~
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