A Sad Truth

I’m quite embarrassed to say that my mom and her husband are hardcore Bush/GOP supporters. But even so, I was shocked to learn that they haven’t seen “An Inconvenient Truth” yet. My mom was instantly opposed to it because apparently they used a penguin in the marketing of the film and she thought that was pandering to the “March of the Penguins” crowd. My stepfather said they just hadn’t had time to see it and he was interested to learn more about this issue of climate change. With them being clueless Red State Sheep I understood this reason quite clearly.

Of course you all know I’ve seen the film and found it really amazing (as did most others as well). Also, I knew that it was partially a Gore campaign ad and I knew that would be a hard thing for my mom and stepfather to deal with so I told them that it was in there, but easy to separate. I was confident that the rock solid facts and science in it would trump any party crap. I told them that no matter what party we were in, or nationality, it was really important to see this film.

So, I convinced them to go see it. At one point to bring it all home I said “Listen, compared to the Energy industry, what possible financial motivation could Gore (and others) have to push for the climate change cause?”. I did this in hopes to tell them that Al made the film to educate America, and not so he could get rich. They didn’t get my point.

Anyway, they watched the film and hated it. In a 5 page email, they told me that the EPA has all this info on their website and that the Bush Administration is well aware of this issue and is on top of it. Further they went on to tell me that Kyoto was bad for American jobs and that Bush was right to not sign it. Then they finished up their argument with this statement “Al did not discover this problem any more than he discovered the internet.”. My lord!

Now their response was surprising but now that I think about it, I would imagine not very extraordinary. They are a typical Red State family and just refuse to see logic even though they are both quite intelligent. Sadly their kind is representative of most of America (D and R) who simply buys what is fed to them on TV because it paints a rosy healthy happy picture all the time.

I thought “Truth” would appeal to everyone and really be a catalyst for rapid change and acceptance of this issue, I was wrong. Al Gore, by using his celebrity to sell this issue has in some ways planted it firmly to the Left in our sad, pathetic political culture war and that’s really too bad.