Public Comment

Romney's Vision for the Future: An Uninhabitable Earth

By Jack Bragen
Wednesday August 29, 2012 - 04:07:00 PM

I have heard Newt Gingrich, (who I’m relieved won’t be president any time soon) use the term, “Social Engineering” to describe some of the politics to which he is opposed. Ironically, it is the Republicans who are attempting this. Apparently, the Republican vision of the future includes the total elimination of the middle class and the ruination of the Earth’s environment. Under Romney’s vision, America will have only two classes: the few super-rich, and their serfs, the many people who are extremely deprived.  

Romney, who lacks any kind of plan to address global warming and who wants to deregulate and promote the giant energy conglomerates, is of the opinion (apparently, without admitting it) that it is inevitable that we will make our planet uninhabitable and that we will need to don oxygen masks before venturing outdoors. Therefore, it seems that Romney believes it won’t hurt us to hasten the process of creating an uninhabitable environment for most of the life on our planet.  

While the above is conjecture, how else could a candidate not address the obvious facts of global warming and the ruination of the environment? It has to be either an extreme case of denial, or else the Republican Party is fully anticipating an un-breathable atmosphere and unendurable high temperatures in the future.  

Go ahead Romney, ruin the oceans. We don’t need to have safety regulations that restrict offshore drilling; that’s big government interfering again. After all, the plankton are only responsible for three quarters of the oxygen we breathe. So what if we have more accidents like what happened in the Gulf a few years ago… Go ahead, strip mine our parks, and cut down our forests. We need the energy for our Cadillac Escalade and for the electricity used by our big mansions. We couldn’t possibly put a solar cell on the roof—that’s bad for the economy—after all, you can’t make a profit on solar. (This is because you can’t charge people for the sunlight that falls on their roofs.) 

In contrast, President Obama naively hasn’t given up. He’s still hoping that we can maintain a habitable Earth. Obama’s energy policy has taken shape as favoring renewable energy, but also promoting other sources. Owners of the oil, gas and coal companies, giving massive campaign contributions to Romney, seem to think renewable energy is unrealistic and disastrous for the country.  

Looking at the Republican candidates, I initially thought Romney might become a conscientious President. Now that I have learned more about his proposals, I realize that I was wrong. With respect to President Obama, the novelty of an African-American President has worn off, and he is evaluated more by his policies and his performance. (President Obama has been a moderate in office, and so far has not done a lot to shake things up. But that can also be a good thing.) Also, racism hasn’t disappeared, and many white Americans won’t vote for Obama because of his color.  

Obama’s health care initiative will give hope and upward mobility to millions of Americans among the working poor, in addition to disabled people. These are two groups which have largely been kept at the bottom of the socioeconomic heap by the extreme expense of medical care. Disabled people are presently forced to remain unemployed or to work very part time because of the consequence to working of losing their healthcare benefits. Meanwhile, the working poor often live under a pile of debt if they have any kind of need for a doctor. Obama’s health care plan will change all that, I hope.  

We have two choices: prevalent severe poverty and a ruined and possibly uninhabitable planet, versus things becoming moderately better. President Obama should be re-elected.