So here we are in the Year Aught, the millennium's over,
the Christmas tree is down, we're in debt, and here comes January, February,
Ry-Krisp and cottage cheese. Now is the winter of our discontent, so I think
we ought to coordinate our paranoias.
I've been worried about our paranoias lately -- we don't have them in
order.
Some of us got all paranoid about the Y2K bug, while the media enjoyed a
late-year terrorist boomlet. Traditionalists are sticking with the Russians
and still want to build Star Wars. I couldn't figure out why, at this late
date, the Strategic Defense Initiative still has legs, unless it's because
the Republicans haven't had a new idea since the Reagan administration, so
they're stuck with it.
But then I happened to pick up one of those old techno-thrillers, a vintage
late-Cold War gem, that had the Soviets hiding astonishing technological
capabilities, all the better to eat us with, my dear. How fiendishly cunning
were those Soviets in the thrillers -- and I realized you can't have an
entire genre of literature loose in a society for years and years without
repercussions.
Bet a dollar to a dime that that's why the senators rejected the nuclear
proliferation treaty last year -- in addition to their desire to show up
President Clinton, they suffer from techno-thriller lag. Who knows how those
fiendishly clever Russkies might hide underground nuclear tests from
instruments that can pick up a car crash in Minsk?
In addition to the black helicopter crowd, which sees the U.S. government
as the main menace to freedom (thus achieving a happy concordance of
paranoia with both Islamic terrorists and old communists), we have the
ever-popular media conspiracy. Both left and right have media conspiracy
theories, though I must say that the left is gaining on points. Economic
globalization is good for some heavy-duty paranoia, too.
Meanwhile, our more advanced thinkers are into global warming, rising sea
levels, greenhouse gases, coastlines under water and other great stuff.
Personally, I think you have to be pretty smart to (a) understand the
science involved, and (b) accept an emotionally unsatisfactory outcome in
which we have met the enemy and he is us.
Y2K paranoia was great for technophobes, a sort of just-short-of-Kaczynski
distrust of all modernity. But global warming is for those who actually
trust scientists, or at least think scientists tend to know what they're
talking about. And distrust of science runs deep in our culture -- in many
cartoons, scientists still look like Dr. Frankenstein's assistant, Igor.
That's why I'm interested in resistance to the idea of global warming as a
source of paranoia. Part of it seems to be political -- maybe because Al
Gore is worried about it or the Clinton administration signed the Kyoto
accord, so it's politically incorrect for Republicans to take it seriously.
In a curious incident last year, Dubya Bush first announced that he thought
global warming was a serious problem, and then he backed down after protests
from the oil industry. It's, like, un-Republican to worry about it.
There are probably stupider things than making global warming a political
issue. I just can't think of them right now.
True, scientists have been wrong before. One of my favorite books is The
Experts Speak by Cerf and Navasky, a compendium of misinformation by
assorted authorities. But there is a depressing near-unanimity of opinion
among earth scientists on global warming. Besides, the insurance industry is
taking it very seriously indeed.
I think I've figured out why our resident nutters won't get paranoid about
global warming. It's not something you can solve by stockpiling guns.
Our nuts -- of whom I think quite familially, having sided with them a time
or two (Ruby Ridge, Mount Carmel) -- are can-do guys and gals. If they see a
problem, they are prepared to take it on, head on, personally, whether
anybody else sees the problem or not. Global warming is highly
unsatisfactory for such purposes. You can't shoot it, or even beat it in a
war, so what good is it as an enemy?
Also, global warming is practically a perfect subject for denial. It's hard
to see a shrinking polar icecap, or even a shrinking glacier unless you live
in Alaska.
I was reminded of the power of denial in a political context when Gov.
Dubya recently went into denial about the existence of hunger in Texas. The
U.S. Department of Agriculture came out with the same-old, same-old: Texas
is second-highest in the nation in both "food insecurity" (now there's a
bureaucratic phrase for you) and actual hunger. Five percent of Texas
households were listed as experiencing hunger, compared to 3.5 percent
nationally.
Bush took this as a political shot. "I saw that report that children in
Texas are going hungry. Where?" Bush demanded. "I don't believe 5 percent
are hungry. I'm surprised a report floats out of Washington when I'm running
a presidential campaign. You'd think the governor would have heard if there
are pockets of hunger in Texas."
You'd think so. I hate to tell him this, but the same report has been
floating in Washington and seeping out of Texas since at least the 1960s.
Those same 17 counties in South Texas have been listed as hunger counties
since I started reporting, and there used to be a bunch in East Texas, too.
They don't seem to count by counties anymore, but there's absolutely nothing
new in the Ag report. This state has had a high hunger count since people
started counting. You'd think the governor would know that, wouldn't you?
Across the state, people who run soup kitchens and food pantries promptly
offered to show the governor where there is hunger. The Food Bank of the Rio
Grande Valley has seen a 50 percent increase in the past year in the amount
of food it distributes to churches, soup kitchens and relief agencies,
according to its director.
I was especially struck by something said by Linda Foraker, who runs the
Southwest Food Pantry, an arm of the Christian Life Church in Austin. She
said that given the country's economic prosperity, she can understand why
Bush might not be aware of the problem.
"I was blind to this, too," she told the Austin American-Statesman. "Until
you actually start working with it, you would never see it."
Unless you looked, of course. If the leading Republican presidential
candidate can be in denial about something as often-proven as hunger in
Texas, why should we expect global warming to catch on in the paranoia
contest?
Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at
www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2000 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
