After eight long years lost to an administration openly hostile to environmental protection, the fate of the planet may rest on the outcome of the November 2008 election. Humankind is destroying the resources on which all of us depend. We simply cannot afford to lose another four years.
If this sounds alarmist or nothing but the hysterical cries of a tree hugger, consider the realities we face. More than half of all our coral reefs are dead or dying. We have depleted 90 percent of all primary food stocks of fish in the ocean, including tuna, marlin, cod, and halibut. We are losing 50,000 species each year, a sustained rate never before seen in nature. We are cutting or burning tropical forests at ever-accelerating rates. We are dumping 6 billion tons of CO2 into the air every year. Climate change is not a left-wing conspiracy; it is a fact supported by twenty-five hundred scientists from 166 countries. The evidence is now overwhelming. Polar ice is melting at accelerated rates; we will soon see for the first time in recorded history the North Pole free of any summer ice.
The environment matters in this election like never before. The Republican ticket represents old-school, outdated, and discredited views on the environment. But the environment is not the only issue that will determine our future and the quality of our lives. The problems we face over the next four years and beyond extend to other critical areas including national security, separation of church and state, family values, and a woman’s right to choose. Here, as with the environment, the McCain-Palin ticket is out of touch. Palin’s views on abortion and rape victims are extreme even within the anti-abortion movement.
John McCain and Sarah Palin are the wrong people at the wrong place at the wrong time in human history. The two together would create a tsunami of environmental destruction when we desperately need leaders attuned to the urgency of resource protection. Instead, the Republican ticket offers us tired platitudes about off-shore drilling. McCain has chosen a running mate who is blatantly anti-science, which explains her sad denials about global warming, her ignorance of ecosystems management, and her blind hostility to endangered species.
While McCain will take America in the wrong direction, and his policies are nothing but a continuation of eight years of failure, he is real. He is a genuine war hero, and has served in the Senate for thirty-five years. Palin, on the other hand, is an avatar, a figment of the right-wing imagination. The fact that nearly half of the American people take her seriously is a warning sign that our democracy is in jeopardy. A democracy depends on a population capable of making rational decisions based on facts. Palin is proof we are losing that ability. Karl Rove created her, just as he did George W. Bush, and we know the outcome of that experiment. In the case of Senator John Kerry, Mr. Rove made a war hero into a deserter, and an AWOL National Guardsman into a war hero. Rove is up to the same tricks here, molding Palin and her image into a fairy tale completely dissociated from reality.
Barry Goldwater was wrong. Extremism in the defense of freedom is indeed a vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is in fact a virtue. Extremism undermines the very values purportedly being pursued. But apparently the lessons of the past forty-five years have been lost on Governor Sarah Palin.
The Republican candidate for vice president is a religious zealot. In her world, the idea that church must be kept separate from state is merely a quaint relic of liberalism. Palin’s extreme religious views do not reflect mainstream American thought and undermine a fundamental tenet of our Constitution. The governor made the following statement about our troops in Iraq at the Pentecostal Wasilla Assembly of God Church: “Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God; that’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God’s plan.” This lays bare the idea that the war is a Christian crusade. God supports her war against Islam.
If that conclusion is still in doubt, consider that Palin’s long-time religious leader, Pastor Kalnins, has openly preached that our invasion of Iraq is a war over the Christian faith. Conveniently, he happens to know that Jesus himself has called upon believers to sacrifice their lives for the war effort. He claims to speak directly to God. I wonder if he would give us stock tips?
When running for governor of Alaska, Palin openly called for teaching “creation science” in school, alongside evolution. Yes, many Americans would agree, but that is simply a consequence of an educational system in terminal decline. Our students come in sixteenth out of thirty compared to children from around the world. That is why many Americans also believe the earth is four thousand years old, rather than 4.5 billion. In a debate during the 2006 gubernatorial election, Palin stated that religious leaders should be able to support a particular candidate from the pulpit, ignoring IRS statutes that prohibit political campaigning by any tax-exempt religious group. That is not terribly surprising coming from her. Her religious mentor, Pastor Kalnins, told followers they would go to hell if they supported Senator Kerry during the 2004 presidential election.
The McCain-Palin team does not have the character, aptitude, and sense of the American people necessary to tackle our most urgent problems. Their records show quite the opposite. Nothing but a mean streak can explain Palin’s documented indifference to rape victims. Nothing but a deeply flawed character can explain her lies about earmarking, suspicious per-diem reimbursement claims, or inappropriate meddling in personnel affairs to extract vengeance in a bitter family feud. Nothing but religious zealotry can explain her antiquated views on evolution and dangerous position on separating church and state. The McCain-Palin team is out of touch with mainstream America.
In sharp contrast, Senators Barak Obama and Joe Biden have articulated a clear plan to address our most urgent problems using methods consistent with the rule of law, our Constitution, and our cherished commitment to core American values. Senator Obama provides us with the personality and policy strength to lead us toward a better future. Obama has the strength of character, wisdom, knowledge, experience, temperament, and steady hand that America needs in these perilous times. By negative example, the horror of the last eight years proves beyond measure that such personality traits are essential to a successful presidency. On every issue, across all elements of society, Senator Obama will return rationality, sanity, and common sense to our government. He will do so to provide security at home and abroad, conserve our natural resources, help families struggling with health care, protect our civil liberties, eliminate America’s dependence on foreign oil, and revitalize a government decimated by eight years of malignant neglect.