When I read the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s account of the Tea Party rally in Kiener Plaza last Saturday, I was struck by the claims of one Mike Carey, President of Ohio Coal Association and the Chief Executive of of the American Council for Affordable and Reliable Energy (ACARE), newly formed to fight clean energy legislation:
Mike Carey … blasted the proposed climate change legislation, saying it would allow Congress to dictate what Americans ate, where they lived and what kinds of vehicles they drove.
Given the now familiar strategy of both the health and dirty energy industries, which is to rev up the seemingly inbred paranoia of the Tea Partiers, Carey’s evocation of overweening government control was to be expected – just more of the general Tea Party hokum.
However, in the same edition of the Post-Dispatch, I came across an article that described the events that followed Tuesday, Nov. 28, 1939, “Black Tuesday,” when the city of St. Louis was darkened by a fog of coal smoke so dense that “Motorists drove slowly with headlights on. Streetlights, still on, made ghostly glows.”
The cheap, high-sulfur coal responsible for the miasma of pollution that had made St. Louis one of the “filthiest” cities in the nation was mined nearby in Illinois, and there were numerous local interests that had a stake in maintaining the status quo. Efforts to do something about the problem were effectively thwarted until Black Tuesday made it clear that there had to be a change. Sound familiar?
Thanks to the shock delivered by Black Tuesday, St. Louis was finally able to take the necessary steps to insure an acceptable quality of life for its citizens. I doubt that many people in the city at that time felt that government was curtailing their liberty when it stepped in and refused to give local mining interests their druthers.
Yet last Saturday, 1500-2000 people, some of whom are probably descended from those who experienced Black Tuesday, were thumping their chests and gibbering about how “big government” wants to take away their “liberty” – all because a majority of the citizens of this democracy elected a government based on its plan of action to safeguard our quality of life and health.
merch said:
Were you (or anyone you know) there? Which numbers are real?
http://www.kmox.com/pages/5771…
ST. LOUIS (KMOX) — The St. Louis Tea Party Coalition mustered several hundred followers for a rally in downtown’s Kiener Plaza on Saturday.
http://www.ksdk.com/news/local…
Political protests came to the streets of downtown St. Louis Saturday. Thousands of people gathered in Kiener Plaza for the St. Louis Tea Party Coalition’s Thanksgiving/Christmas Holiday Rally
http://www.stltoday.com/stltod…
Coalition officials estimated about 4,000 people showed up for the rally billed as the “Letting Off a Little Steam” Tea Party.
sarah jo said:
Willy,
I saw that same article about Black Tuesday in 1928 and am glad you wrote about it. Now what are we going to do about the Tea Party’s false claims on climate change? Ah, there’s the rub. No one group or agency is “in charge” of educating the public about the real dangers of global warming. Those of us in the “convinced” category read horror stories on websites and tsk, tsk, about it.
But we don’t have the organization and money that the climate change deniers have. They are bankrolled by companies who stand to lose money when emissions limits are law. We have 100 environmental groups sending out e-newsletters and making movies.
Sorry to say, but I think the deniers are going to win this one too (like they’ve emasculated the health care reform bills.) Money talks louder than individuals who care deeply about our beautiful planet. And I don’t see that changing any time soon.
WillyK said:
wasn’t Black Tuesday in 1928 the bank failure that led to the Depression? There seems to be lots of black Tuesdays …
merch said:
Sorry, WillyK, I didn’t mean to offend you. I didn’t know Kieners’ capacity and was trying to reconcile 3 reports.
merch said:
I’m no expert but I see many traits of a narcissistic personality disorder.