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Climate change: a new religion?

A new Apocalyptic vision triggers religious fervor

By Dr. Larry Fedewa (December 6, 2019)

A first in human history:

Anxious about their future on a hotter planet and angry at world leaders for failing to arrest the crisis, masses of young people poured into the streets on every continent on Friday for a day of global climate protests. Organizers estimated the turnout to be around four million in thousands of cities and towns worldwide. (Somini Sengupta, New York Times, September 20, 2019)

(Below: Youth March for Climate Change (New York City, Sept.20, 2019)

What is the motivating force which could impel  such an amazing reaction of youngsters all over the world (except China)? Clearly, the threat of extinction is taken so seriously by so many youths that they felt compelled to participate in this effort. What has convinced so many in so many places simultaneously?

Apparently, it is the vision of the planet earth being baked into destruction by the sun’s rays. This vision seems to have originated from the speculations of climate scientists as interpreted and simplified by activists. Cold, neutral, formulaic science has never elicited such emotional reactions. Those ideas had to be interpreted and simplified by propagandists. Eventually, the vision emerged with its dramatic impact and its ability to inspire visceral fear. It is this vision which has motivated a youthful passion which thirsts for a cause to believe in.

In that sense, climate change advocacy demonstrates many of the same characteristics as religion. It is an unquestioning belief in an unseen event; it inspires an ethic requiring sacrifice to achieve; and it thrives on communal events. Thus, it meets the traditional characteristics of religion: creed, code, and cult. Keep Reading

What now?

Exhausted by their hearings, the House now takes a 10-day vacation

By. Dr. Larry Fedewa (November 23, 2019)

Amid apparently lagging interest in the whole impeachment drama on Capitol Hill, the Democrats leave Washington for the Thanksgiving recess with a serious question to ponder. They have to decide whether to pursue their impeachment strategy toward what looks like a bitter end, or to construct an alternate strategy. It looks increasingly like the practical politicians versus the true believers.

As this column has pointed out, the stakes are very high: almost certainly the control of the House in 2020 and probably the presidency as well. The House is currently split with 233 Democrat seats versus 197 Republican seats (+4 vacancies). The Republicans need to gain a net 18 seats to resume control. Their prospects seem to depend on re-gaining the 31 so-called “Trump districts”, i.e. seats that Democrats won in 2018 that had voted for Trump in 2016. Historical trends are against the Republicans, since control of the House has flipped during a presidential election only twice (1948 and 1952) since 1900. Keep Reading

Will Trump win in 2020?

 

 

Don’t be too sure

 

 

                                        

By Dr. Larry Fedewa (November 9, 2019)

The general opinion among Trump supporters – and many Democrats — is that a sitting president who oversees a thriving economy is very difficult to beat in an election for his second term. There is plenty of precedent for this prediction. Only two presidents since WWII have been defeated for a second term – Jimmy Carter and George Herbert Walker Bush. Carter faced a serious recession and Bush shared the vote with third party candidate, Ross Perot. So, history is definitely on the side of this opinion.

Many Trump supporters believe that his re-election is virtually assured. This is a potentially dangerous presumption. Keep Reading

Dr. Larry on the serious issues of our time (podcast)

Hi everybody –
This is an announcement of  a very unusual convention — a convention where the speakers come to you through fifty (50) unique podcasts. I was invited to contribute my ideas in a 43 minute interview by Kerri Kannan, the bright, energetic organizer of this extraordinary event.
My interview can be found at www.YouTube.com, [Subject: dr. Larry Fedewa –GOVERNANCE] We discuss the serious questions of life, happiness, foreign relations,
and contemporary religion.
 Comments always welcome.
The Dr. Larry Show is live on Wednesdays at 7 pm (ET)  Call 646.929.0130 (EASIEST way to listen) and talk to Dr. Larry and guests on the air.
For more writings, poems, interviews and guest editorials, see my website,
                                                                                       LJF
JOIN THE GLOBAL EVOLUTION MOVEMENT!
Learn How Experts Around the World are Contributing to Global Expansion
and Awakening
Kerri Kannan has created an impressive array of talent — 50 podcasts of interviews with people representing an amazing range of specialties,
all focusing from their diverse points of view on living a successful and productive life. If there has ever been anything like this before, I have never heard of it.  
 
My own part concerns “Governance”, covering the serious issues of our time: e.g. greatest threats to our civilization and to our happiness as individuals, the values of freedom, American foreign policy, and the “religion” of climate change.

Although her questions may be better than my answers, she challenges me to put forth my best efforts.

 

This is a 100% free online webinar series featuring Expert Guests covering a wide array of transformative topics.
JOIN THE GLOBAL EVOLUTION MOVEMENT

Hey Dems, control your attack dogs!

The warning of the Minneapolis Trump rally

By Dr, Larry Fedewa (October 13, 2019)

The contrast could not have been starker: 20,000 people inside and 25,000 people outside the Minneapolis Target Center on Thursday night, having a great time at a Trump rally compared to a few hundred angry protesters in the parking lot taunting police, breaking things, and burning confiscated property. The threat of further violence was thick in the air, particularly as the audience began to leave for home after the event. The fact that no one was hurt appears to have been due to the very visible presence of the police, who were out in force.

Political protest is one of the rights of all Americans. But violence in the name of free speech is NOT a right. The American Left seems to have trouble recognizing this fact. Nor do they recognize the rights of conservatives who also have the right to free speech, as witnessed by all the effective blocks of conservative speakers on U.S. campuses.

But what do the thought leaders of the Democrat Party have to do with violence in the streets? Most of the time, they weren’t even there. The answer is in their words. Namely, the apocalyptic tone of so many of their messages. A good example is the leader of their party, Nancy Pelosi, who speaks of this President as bringing about the “end of our democracy”, “violating the Constitution”, and the like. Talk about condemnation without a trial! She and her co-conspirators are condemning the President first and looking for evidence later.

Even more apocalyptic is the rhetoric of the radical wing of the party who are predicting the end of the world unless their insane recommendations for climate control are heeded. “Seven years left to sustain a habitable planet!” “Eliminate fossil fuels or die!” Their “Green America” agenda is packed with outlandish proposals.

All this rhetoric is bound to stir up extreme reactions. It is intended to. Fear can be a great motivator. It can also overcome logic, common sense and science. Witness the huge reaction of youths during their March 15, 2019 international strike for climate change.

It is also inciting to riot. The irresponsible talk by the leaders of the Democrat Party has let the genie of violence out of the bottle. It seems inevitable that protests like the one in Minneapolis  will evolve between now and November 3, 2020 into violence – UNLESS the rhetoric of the candidates and leaders of the Democrat Party cools off. Even then, it may be too late!

As usual, the Dems accuse the Right of committing the very sins the Left are in fact guilty of – whether they be conspiracy, corruption, or in this case violence. In Minneapolis, the supporters of the President were having an exciting but peaceful event. The protesters were the villains in the story – as they have been in so many demonstrations, riots and marches. The days of Martin Luther King, Jr. and non-violent protests are long gone.

The days of Antifa are here.

 

© Richfield Press, 2019. All Rights reserved.

It’s really not that complicated!

The deep state’s last stand (this term)

By Dr. Larry Fedewa (October 5,2019)

The Attorney General of the United States is investigating the nearly successful coup d’etat 2015-17 which attempted to overthrow the President of the United States. Since there is evidence of interaction between the American conspirators and several foreign countries, including the United Kingdom, Russia, Ukraine, China, Australia, and perhaps others, the AG asked the President to help him open doors in these countries.

The President then asked for this assistance during his telephone conversations with the leaders of these countries. As in any such conversations, the two leaders engage in some bargaining – some subtle and some explicit. Both assume that their conversations are protected by Executive Privilege from public disclosure.

On July 25, 2019 the President talked to the new President of the Ukraine government. It happens that the $400+ million military aid grant from the US to Ukraine has been held up since the spring, presumably because of the Ukrainian election and change of administrations.

It also happens that former Vice President Joseph Biden, now running for the Democrats’ presidential nomination, has long been mentioned as having used his position to shield his son, called Hunter Biden, from investigation by the Ukrainian government for corruption. Since there is evidence of Ukrainian input to the American conspiracy, the US President asked the Ukrainian President for his cooperation in finding out the truth behind this story.

The case was centered on the younger Biden being named a Board member of a Ukrainian energy company with a handsome stipend (now reported as $83,000 per month), simply and solely because of his last name. The senior Biden has even bragged on television about how he succeeded in threatening to withhold US military aid to Ukraine – fighting the Russians in Crimea at the time – unless the Ukrainian government fired a prosecutor who was investigating the company which was paying his son.

Did President Trump do something wrong as the Democrats alleged (before having read the transcript)? Perhaps he was not attentive enough to appearances – Mr. Trump is not known for subtlety. But a crime? Or a “high crime or misdemeanor” worthy of impeachment? That is pure fantasy. Since it comes right on the heels of the failure of the Mueller Report to provide a credible basis for impeachment, these charges seem to reflect a last-ditch effort to discredit the President sufficiently to prevent his reelection next year. That interpretation also would explain why the hurry. Time is running out before the presidential campaign hits high gear. With a Republican majority in the Senate, it is extremely unlikely that there would be the 67 votes necessary to convict a Republican President. The current effort is therefore best understood as part of the 2020 campaign.

There are many extraneous charges, arguments, and issues being raised regarding the identity of the whistleblower, the House Intelligence Committee procedures, the House protocols, subpoenas, executive privilege, the role of the President’s personal attorney, etc. But the fact remains that the intelligence community, initially led by Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan and DNI chief James Clapper, have a long history of attempting to sabotage this President.

So don’t be fooled: it’s not really that complicated.

 

© Richfield Press, 2019. All rights reserved.

 

Next steps to free market health care

A practical approach to progess

 

By Dr. Larry Fedewa (September 24, 2019)

One of Washington’s most respected experts on legislative advocacy, Dr. David Rehr, now a  Gorge Mason University professor, has recommended that we present a list of separable items in an integrated proposal to reform health care. The strategy is that we should be able  to get bipartisan support for some of our ideas and thus build a foundation for the larger reform. This is a sort of step-by-step approach to implementation.

Toward that end, we need to fill in some of the blanks in my overview (see www.DrLarryOnline.com) with numbers and data. So, the authors of the heavily researched book, Health Care is Killing Us: The Power of Disruptive Innovation to Create a System that Cares More and Costs Less (2019) (see Amazon Books), Drs. W. Terry Howell and Aaron Fausz, have volunteered to undertake this task.

“The Dr. Larry Show” on this Wednesday, October 2, 2019 at 7 pm, will feature their report on the following draft propositions (in increasing order of controversy):  Keep Reading

What a Free Market Health Care System Might Look Like

By Dr. Larry Fedewa (August 10, 2019)

 

This week’s column is an edited reprint of a piece I wrote a couple of years ago when the backlash against “Obamacare” first inspired Republicans to talk about “repeal and replace”. Since they are still talking and since the Dems are now also talking about health care alternatives – especially a federal takeover of all health care – the topic remains open for new ideas. I have approached this subject from the perspective of a clean sheet of paper. Why try to build a system on the bones of a failed system, a system no one likes? Why not instead build a new system on a foundation of goals which everyone accepts and agrees with? This is  my answer to that question.

The starting point for a discussion of a national health care system should be setting our goals. I believe that American health care should be:

  1. High quality and state-of-the-art
  2. Available to all
  3. Affordable
  4. Abundant
  5. Well-funded

What are the principal obstacles to these goals? Keep Reading

A pie in the sky can hit you in the eye!

Let’s get practical! 

 

by Dr. Larry Fedewa (August 4, 2019)

If we thought that Hillary with all her baggage was about as sorry a candidate as the Democratic party could come up with, the current crop of aspirants is proving us wrong. This crop does not seem to have even a coherent message. They are angry, they fight each other, they see horror everywhere, they are advocating pie in the sky, and they hate Donald Trump. That’s about it.

Unless some superstar emerges from the shadows, or Mr. Trump flounders into a recession, it’s hard to see much of a contest in 2020. Not that the Republicans haven’t had their own streaks of weak candidates  — one winner in two out of six elections between 1992 and 2016. But so far it is difficult to take the people in the Democrat field seriously.

Eliminate fossil fuels in 10 years – when there is no comparable substitute? When the entire world depends on fossil fuels for survival? Even their statement of the problem is out of date. Nobody can look at the violent weather we have been experiencing and doubt that the climate is changing. But when has it ever not changed? As far back as records go there have been changes in the climate. What about the Ice Age? Keep Reading

The Age of Monochromatic Late-Night Humor [Reprinted from “PJ Media. March 25,2019”]

BY A.J. RICE MARCH 25, 2019

Comedian Jay Leno performs a standup routine at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland Fla. on Jan. 5, 2019. (AP Photo/Reinhold Matay

Late-night comedy has become the sound of left-hand clapping.

Steve Allen, Johnny Carson, and Jay Leno kept you awake by making you laugh. The tiresome political antics of today’s late-night dilettantes make you wish you’d gone to bed early.

It’s not a question so much of left or right as it is of having a bunch of one-track-minds. The punchline is always the same: Orange Man Bad, Orange Man Evil, Orange Man Crazy. Every night, all the time. As predictable as Pravda during the Brezhnev years — and just as amusing.

Jay Leno — who is funny — commented on badgering in the guise of “comedy” this month during an interview with Al Roker of NBC’s Today show.

“It’s different,” Leno said. “I don’t miss it. You know, everything now is, if people don’t like your politics, they — everyone has to know your politics.” Perhaps because today’s late-night hosts insist you know their politics.

Keep Reading