After reading the brief blurb by Meteor Blades in last night's Open Thread for Night Owls, I wrote this Facebook note, reproduced below in it's entirety (it's brief).
Meteor Blades of Daily Kos makes a solid point in the latest Open Thread for Night Owls (http://bit.ly/...). He mentions a piece by Mattea Kramer of the National Priorities Project titled Tough Talk for America: A Guide to the Presidential Debates You Won’t Hear (http://bit.ly/...) and points out a critical question that needs to be asked:
Kramer has produced a good list. But you may notice one tough-talk item that's not there. Climate change. Which is that? Domestic policy? Foreign policy? Why is it that we don't have a debate on planetary policy? Because most Americans, including many liberals, glaze over at the mere mention of climate change? Because the problems are supposedly unsolvable, so why discuss them when it can be pretended that they will go away if they are ignored?
Moderator Jim Lehrer has a big opportunity here. He could start off the questioning with the smaller issues and work his way up to climate change once Obama and Romney get warmed up. Or he could bring a bucket of ice cubes into the room and set them down on the table in front of him and not ask the question until they are all melted under the Kleig lights. Or he could start out with the hard stuff right off the bat.
Personally, I don't care which. But. Ask. The. Damn. Question.
Yes - Ask. The. Damn. Question. Because it affects more than just one thing. More than just one set of resources & responsibilities. More than just one gender, one ethnic group, one economic tier, one aspect of national security.
It affects everything.
Ask. The. Damn. Question. And make it a national priority, from the grass roots & the net roots, from the local towns and counties to city, state & federal levels.
Ask. The. Damn. Question.
Because the time for willful ignorance has ended. It's time for responsibility, accountability and sustainability to take center stage & shoulder the mantle of reality, for generations living & those to come.
The time to stop the bickering, the time to start smacking down the idiotic delaying tactics & start addressing the issue, is now.
Ask. The. Damn. Question.