(Canadian navvies in the green dark forest building the railroad that spanned a continent. Photo Wikpedia).
It is a chill but delightful day in Your Nation’s Capital. I was moderately pleased about yesterday’s outing- I got some positive feedback on the analysis of the “97% of Doctors Who Smoke, Smoke Camels” methodology of the Global Whatever hysteria, some semi-respectful agreements to disagree and one caustic observation that I am a dupe and a fool to Big Oil.
There were also three requests for re-publication and one quizzical forwarding of an article in which a nice scientist from U-Cal Berkeley mentioned that the sea levels were rising, the ice was disappearing and the temperatures were going up due to the distinctive human-signature of CO2.
The article was so breathtakingly filled with half truths and falsehood that I had to write back, and at the same time I was trying to download three years of statements for every financial account I have due to the latest legal nonsense in which I find myself embroiled that the day quite got away from me.
(Sea ice has rebounded in the Arctic, is at record levels in the Antarctic, and the computer models are not reflecting reality. Of course the climate is changing. It just doesn’t quite agree with the accepted narrative, you know? The green line is the satellite record, the most accurate measure since it began in 1979).
This morning I stumbled into the study to get a thoughtful note from a pal in Utah, who observed that the snowpack was way down, and it did not bode well for the summer to come. I suspect my pal associates the drought in the Southwest with all the other blather about climate change- I mean, something is going on, right?
Well of course it is. It is bad in the west, the mirror image of the ice and snow in the south and east this season. There have been deeper periods of drought in the Southwest before, and longer ones, too. Southern California is a desert, after all, and the history of the American Southwest has been about the control of water. Think about all those fabulous noire detective movies about the men- sorry, historically true- who built the elaborate system of reservoirs, tunnels and aqueducts that make life bountiful in the desert.
Now, one has to observe that the Golden State has not added significantly to the water infrastructure since 2000 with the construction of the Diamond Valley Lake near Hemet, California, and there are some rumblings about new storage facilities, but Governor Moonbeam himself and former Democratic Congressman Tony Coelho both support the position that while the population has doubled in the last forty years, the infrastructure to support them has not.
Meanwhile, billions of gallons of fresh water were diverted to support the endangered Delta Smelt, a three-inch long fish that is not edible, does not eliminate pests or have any meaningful commercial value aside from being food for other fish. Of course that is simplistic- any decent issue has all sorts of nuance and texture. But I think you see where we are going on this stuff. The drought is hurting farmers, and in defense of a single species, the Golden State has literally thrown the bathwater directly into the ocean, protecting no one.
Another pal wrote on what gets to the central core of the real issue. It is not that the Climate (is) Changing (it does) or Income Inequality, or the bizarre notion that being unemployed is a good thing that gives folks more time to get in touch with their inner spirituality.
I think the point is that we appear to have enshrined the notion that humanity is bad into the canon of public policy. I don’t know where precisely that idiocy came from- there are plenty of examples of just how far allegedly smart people are willing to go to make their visions- or delusions- reality. Most recently was the Harvard Student who opined in The Crimson that academic freedom was obsolete, and frankly offensive to her. Before that, it was the University of Oregon professor who thought that climate change skeptics should be rounded up by the State for re-education.
Chilling thoughts. Amazing notions have the strangest currency these days.
Maybe that is the real nub of the issue: We are the pestilence on the planet. Beyond the climate, entwined in all things economic, rooted in some vague concept of “fairness,” defined by no one in particular, and dedicated to the proposition that the Government can deliver us happiness!
I have been seething for the last couple days about the arrogance of the Left, the haughty hubris of those whose policies do not work: Jimmy Carter’s limp-wristed approach to the wild world gave us the Iranian problem that plagues us still, and is about to become a really big atomic problem. Mr. Carter’s economic malaise and Nanny-state approach is recreated in this hyper-political world.
The people seem to be waking up a bit- the disaster of the Affordable Care Act is the poster child for social engineering that doesn’t work.
The Act is too complex, it needs to ration care rather than provide it, and all the rest of the bizarre and intricate provisions of putting Government in the middle of 20% of the economy. Even the uninsured that the Act was intended to benefit don’t like it.
Let’s just take that as a metaphor for the whole enterprise. At the root of things is the world-view that people are the problem. The wise (and wealthy) ought to provide a framework for the peasants to live- closely packed in “sustainable” well-managed urban areas, and away from the pastoral paradise that is Mother Nature, untouched by grubby human hands.
(Gordon Lightfoot at Interlochen in Michigan. Photo Interlochen Arts Center).
I have been mulling the words of an old folk anthem, sung by the pioneering folkie Gordon Lightfoot. Remember him? His ballads and laments celebrated the brave new world of the 1960s that was being born. He celebrated the life and history of the Great Northland, and that resonated in his song “The Canadian Railroad Trilogy.” With the lament about the “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” the two songs commemorate the stolid heroism of the working stiff, and the vision that built the West.
Let’s take the railroad song. I am confident it makes the Progressives squirm when they hear it. Commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to start the celebration of Canada’s centennial year in 1967, the lyrics come in three parts and rising tempos. The slow tempo in the middle and the faster bits at the front and back make it a rousing anthem to those who built the Transcontinental Railroad.
“There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run,
And the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun.
Long before the White Man, and long before the wheel,
When the green dark forest was too silent to be real.”
Those words set the backdrop for the story of the human striving against the wilderness, and the death and sacrifice that went along with it. Can you imagine writing these words today? The vision of the Progressives is to return the mountains to wild majesty, alone, except perhaps a wealthy helicopter trip for some exclusive skiing by the right people. We are told that unemployment is good. Capitalism is bad, naturally, except for the select “renewable” industries which are not, but are well connected to the Political Class, our new masters, guardians of the vision of a human-less future.
Let’s close this slow and then increase in tempo like a locomotive accelerating across the Great Plains, and into a future that mankind could only imagine:
But time has no beginnings and hist’ry has no bounds
As to this verdant country they came from all around
They sailed upon her waterways and they walked the forests tall
And they built the mines the mills and the factories for the good of us all
And when the young man’s fancy was turnin’ to the spring
The railroad men grew restless for to hear the hammers ring
Their minds were overflowing with the visions of their day
And many a fortune lost and won and many a debt to pay
For they looked in the future and what did they see
They saw an iron road runnin’ from sea to the sea
Bringin’ the goods to a young growin’ land
All up through the seaports and into their hands
Look away said they across this mighty land
From the eastern shore to the western strand
Bring in the workers and bring up the rails
We gotta lay down the tracks and tear up the trails
Open ‘er heart let the life blood flow
Gotta get on our way ’cause we’re movin’ too slow
Bring in the workers and bring up the rails
We’re gonna lay down the tracks and tear up the trails
Open ‘er heart let the life blood flow
Gotta get on our way ’cause we’re movin’ too slow
Get on our way ’cause we’re movin’ too slow
Behind the blue Rockies the sun is declinin’
The stars, they come stealin’ at the close of the day
Across the wide prairie our loved ones lie sleeping
Beyond the dark oceans in a place far away
We are the navvies who work upon the railway
Swingin’ our hammers in the bright blazin’ sun
Livin’ on stew and drinkin’ bad whiskey
Bendin’ our old backs ’til the long days are done
We are the navvies who work upon the railway
Swingin’ our hammers in the bright blazin’ sun
Layin’ down track and buildin’ the bridges
Bendin’ our old backs ’til the railroad is done
So over the mountains and over the plains
Into the muskeg and into the rain
Up the St. Lawrence all the way to Gaspe
Swingin’ our hammers and drawin’ our pay
Drivin’ ’em in and tyin’ ’em down
Away to the bunkhouse and into the town
A dollar a day and a place for my head
A drink to the livin’ and a toast to the dead
Oh the song of the future has been sung
All the battles have been won
O’er the mountain tops we stand
All the world at our command
We have opened up the soil
With our teardrops and our toil
For there was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run
When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun
Long before the white man and long before the wheel
When the green dark forest was too silent to be real
When the green dark forest was too silent to be real
And many are the dead men too silent to be real.
You think we could build that railroad today? Nah, there might be some Delta Smelt out there. Hell, I am not sure Gordon would even try to write the damn song. It might offend some people.
– Canadian Railroad Trilogy copyright 1967 Gordon Lightfoot. Musings Socotra
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