A Prosperous Future for Al Gore, A Poorer Future for America

Suppose there was a man who lectured and wrote about the catastrophic consequences of climatic change to adoring audiences worldwide. Yet, suppose this man was so ignorant about basic facts of science that recently, when on the Conan O’Brien national television show, he promoted geothermal energy stating the inner core temperature of the earth was several million degrees and that there are drill bits that could withstand that heat. (If the earth was that hot at its center it would be a star. The actual core temperature is very speculative, but is estimated to be around 3000°C  to 7000°C. )

Further, suppose this man, who wants to control the lives of others, is an avid meat eater; even though if he switched to vegetarianism, he could shrink his carbon footprint by up to 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide a year. Further, suppose he has become so wealthy from his alarmist message that he owns a large home, and his home uses more energy in one month than the average household uses in a single year. Further, suppose he has convinced the government to subsidize a company in which he has invested, because the company makes an electric car that will sell for $89,000. Yes, according to the Wall Street Journal “A tiny car company backed by [this man] has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000.” This man according to the London Telegraph could become the “world’s first carbon billionaire” after investing heavily in green companies receiving government subsidies.

You already know from the title of my post that I’m talking about Al Gore. You might wonder why anybody listens to him? A charitable interpretation would be that, even though he is a flawed human being like us all, people listen to him because they value his message about controlling the effects of man-made global warming. No doubt that is true of at least some of his followers. In my view, many are not cheering his message of “climate control;” they are cheering his message of “control.”

It is a dirty secret of academia; professors who cannot teach well but who do mediocre research that very few will ever read, can earn a very nice salary. On an unsubsidized free market, the value of their services would be much less than it is today. There would be no government grants and contracts for their research. Consumers (students and their parents) would be less tolerant of shoddy college courses; and if these professors couldn’t teach, they might find themselves without a job at all. Some people value and cheer any message of control—because it is in their economic self-interest.

Of course, professors receiving government grants and contracts are not the only ones who value any message of control. Mediocre artists who depend upon government grants for their livelihood value control. Government workers of all types, as well as union workers, who depend upon government privilege cheer for more controls. And now we have a growing class of business executives who instead of selling products valued by the market turn to the government for subsidies and bailouts. They too are in the corner cheering for Al Gore, because it means more handouts for them.

None of these people read my blog; and even if they did, they are unlikely to be convinced by the arguments I make. They have weaved a tangled nest of lies in their minds which allows them to justify seeking for wealth that other human beings have produced and that they have not earned. Barring some epiphany in which they clearly see the unrevealed values they live by, they will never be convinced to change their behavior.

But there’s another group of people who support controls—not because they’re trying to live off their fellow human beings—but because they are fearful of the world without controls. They believe for instance that we are running out of fossil fuels and that they will be cold at night if government does not subsidize new green fuels. Al Gore feeds off this energy of fear.

In his book The Origin of Wealth, Eric Beinhocker estimated that the complexity of the economy in New York City alone generates tens of billions of available products to New Yorkers. To many this is evidence of waste that should be controlled by government. After all someone might say, “Why do we need 500 kinds of breakfast cereals? Why do we need to be able to choose from hundreds of automobile models?” For many caring and economically illiterate individuals, it is natural to believe it would be better if smart people, like Al Gore, directed us to develop the “optimal” car model that was both safe and fuel efficient.

Beinhocker estimates, “Over 97 percent of humanity’s wealth was created just the last 0.01 percent of our history.” Complexity goes hand-in-hand with wealth creation—it is no spurious correlation. What seems to be a mess of competing products is what leads to the discovery of new, innovative solutions. Currently, there are literally tens of thousands of entrepreneurs working in the green energy field. Like Al Gore, some of those are not real entrepreneurs; they are simply political operatives getting wealthy off their political connections. They prevent real discoveries from taking place. Every dollar directed to them, is a dollar that the market cannot allocate towards viable solutions. In contrast, real entrepreneurs only make money when they serve the most urgent needs of the consuming public.

Al Gore may well be right in that geothermal energy may be an important part of our energy future. But, there are many different ways to harness geothermal energy, many yet to be discovered; just as there are many different ways to harness solar energy, many yet to be discovered. More importantly, just as no one ever heard of the internet company Amazon in 1990, there are forms of energy that we have not yet heard of that will change our lives in lasting and meaningful ways.

The more the likes of Al Gore gets to control, the poorer we and children and our grandchildren will become. Instead of being directed to the most promising new sources of energy—as it would be on a market system of profit and loss—energy resources will be directed to wasteful products, like Al Gore’s hybrid sports car.

Al Gore, like all of us, has a narrow mind filled with ignorance. The discipline of the marketplace reduces our ignorance and helps to direct our energy and our capital in the service of others. Those who do not understand this and those who feel a sense of entitlement that others should serve them want more controls. They want others to serve them more than they want to serve others. Of course, this is the age-old human story—human beings trying to live off the labor of others. To the extent that we collectively forget that this path leads to economic ruin, is the extent to which Al Gore’s future brightens while ours dims.

Forgiving Major Hasan

One photograph of Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, has been most frequently posted online. When I look at that picture, I don’t see the soulless eyes that are often visible in a picture of a mass murderer. On the contrary, looking at his picture, it is easy to believe the contentions of his relatives that he was once a kind, caring, and decent man. Obviously, something went terribly wrong. Yet, portraying Hasan as either an Islamic terrorist blinded by hatred or a man who snapped because he was reluctant to be deployed to Afghanistan does not ring true to me.

Major Hasan has a medical degree as well as a master’s degree in public health. Perhaps because I am an educator, the recollections of Lt. Col. Val Finnell, Hasan’s classmate in the public health program, caught my interest. Finnell “recalled one time when his classmates were giving presentations in an environmental health class on topics like soil and water contamination and the effects of mold. When it was Hasan’s turn, he said, he got up in front of the class and began to speak about his chosen topic, ‘Is the War on Terror a war on Islam?’”

Despite objections from the class, the professor allowed the presentation to continue. Being non-responsive to assignments became a pattern with Hasan. As a senior-year psychiatric resident at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Hasan was “supposed to make a presentation on a medical topic of his choosing as a culminating exercise of the residency program.” Instead according to the Washington Post “he stood before his supervisors and about 25 other mental health staff members and lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in the Muslim countries.” I have read Hasan’s presentation which is available here. There’s nothing in the presentation that a reasonable person could conclude was a medical topic. In other words, he was again completely nonresponsive to the assignment he was given.

Every few semesters, I encounter a graduate student who submits work that is completely nonresponsive to an assignment. I contact the student and tell him that he has received an F on the assignment, but I invite a resubmission. As a consequence of my intervention, the outcome of this process is often (but not always) a significant learning experience for the student. Sometimes students are nonresponsive to assignments because their schedules are out of balance. Other times, they are simply not serious students. In the end, some students are relieved to have been confronted because it gives them an opening to make new choices.

Dr. Hasan’s professors and medical supervisors clearly dropped the ball. They refused to fulfill their professional obligations; instead, they passed Hasan through. Did they drop the ball because of political correctness or were they simply cowardly, inept, and/or lazy?  Of course, we don’t know; but because they didn’t carry out their professional obligations and hold Dr. Hasan to the same standards they were presumably holding others to, Dr. Hassan was taught very bad lessons. He was taught he was different, that he was a mere object, and that he was less than his classmates.  We can never know how the outcome would have differed; but clearly, opportunities for intervention were missed in Major Hasan’s career.

In his book Beyond Conflict, psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin outlines the attributes of the perpetrator as someone who abuses, coerces, or uses violence against others. Perpetrators, among other things, “deny or minimize the damage they are doing to others;” “blame the victim;” “rationalize the harm they are doing;” and “dehumanize their victims.” I can only imagine the rationalizations Hasan’s professors went through as they passed his shoddy work. Of course, I’m not blaming Hasan’s professors for his murderous rampage. I am merely pointing out that it is unlikely Hasan would have been in the position he was in if he had been held accountable in earlier stages of his career.

Through his numerous other books, Dr. Breggin has also exposed the dangers of widely prescribed mood altering psychiatric drugs. In Medication Madness, Breggin tells numerous true stories of the sometimes horrific side effects of psychotropic drugs. One such story is about Harry.

Harry, normally gentle and considerate, began to take Paxil for depression. He became nervously agitated and, eventually, suicidal. He tried to end his life by stealing a gun from a policeman; and in the process, Harry ran over the policeman with a car. Harry related to Breggin that during his assault, he was not thinking about the harm he was inflicting on anyone. As the effects of Paxil wore off, Harry was genuinely horrified over what he had done.

Dr. Breggin calls the effects of these drugs medication spellbinding. One characteristic of spellbinding medications that Breggin identifies is that the patient has no idea he has a deteriorating mental condition. Ultimately, compulsions and destructive behavior take over the patient’s life. The problem, again, is that the harmful effects of the drug are masked. The medicated patient has become insane and doesn’t know it. How frightening!

Given Hasan’s difficulties in his professional studies and his conflict over his religious and military duties, it would be instructive to ask whether Maj. Hasan was on psychotropic drugs? We do know that Dr. Hasan, as a psychiatrist, was trained to believe that human emotions, such as depression and anxiety, reflect biochemical imbalances in the brain that can be treated with psychotropic drugs.  A 2007 study in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics revealed that almost 16% of psychiatrists self-medicated for depression. I would expect that any commission that investigates Hasan’s rampage will ignore the issue of drugs. The pharmaceutical lobby is simply too powerful.

Neither drugs, nor any past incidents in Hasan’s life, absolve him of any responsibility. But pointing out these things begins to humanize Hasan as more than a soulless monster; and in so doing, we can learn. We can learn that choices motivated by political correctness can be destructive. We can courageously investigate whether Hasan’s mind was altered by drugs. And we can forgive Dr. Hasan.

The word forgiveness is a loaded one. For some, the word brings up fears that forgiveness means we won’t take appropriate action, that we’ll excuse Hasan’s actions, or that we won’t punish him. Forgiveness means none of the above. We forgive Dr. Hasan for our own sake and for the sake of the world we live in.

Author Joe Bailey wrote in Slowing Down to the Speed of Love, “Forgiveness is not merely saying the words I forgive you, it is a change in our level of understanding and feeling. It is a release of all anger and guilt. Forgiveness sees past the illusion that we are totally separate beings, or that one of us is better than another, to the truth that we are all one.”

Can we really be one with a murderer, someone that is labeled by society as a monster? Although we will never be certain of why Hasan choose to be a murderer, we know one thing for sure: In the hours before and during his rampage, Hasan was overcome by murderous thoughts. If we can’t forgive him, how can we forgive our own toxic thoughts? True, few of us ruminate over murderous thoughts; but most of us hold grievances. We get angry and vindictive; sometimes we entertain these angry thoughts for longer periods of time than we would like to admit.

If we can’t forgive, then we must condemn ourselves for our own thoughts. As we condemn our thoughts, we bury our thoughts. We may not take psychotropic drugs, but we may self-medicate with alcohol, excessive shopping, excessive television, and the like. All of these things are forms of resistance, and what we resist truly does persist.

As we try to control our thinking, our resistance lets our thinking take control of us. The harder we resist, the more our fearful and frightening thoughts take front and center stage in our minds. But, there is an alternative to this never-ending struggle, beginning with the liberal application of the healing balm of forgiveness and compassion.

Forgiveness is ours as we become aware of our own negative thinking but do not judge, resist, or justify our unwanted thoughts—we find that troubled thoughts pass by as easily as clouds drifting by on an otherwise sunny afternoon. Then we are free to allow thoughts of kindness, of compassion, and of peace come to us. I’m under no illusion that the cycle of violence in the world will be end anytime soon; but as we forgive ourselves for our own toxic thinking and we forgive Maj. Hasan, we will be just a little bit more compassionate, a little bit kinder, and a little bit more effective in our organizations. We will make our own little corner of the world just a bit more peaceful.

Do Children Need Cocoa Krispies?

My children were home from high school Monday and Tuesday with a cold and fever. They slept a lot; and we hastened their recovery with immunological system boosting substances such as astragalus, ginger, elderberry, and miso soup with shiitake mushrooms.

How foolish my wife and I were; if we were to follow the advice of one food manufacturer and the government watchdog agency—the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—we should have skipped the astragalus and miso soup and served big bowls of Kellogg’s Cocoa Krispies instead.

Before I go any further, for those of you who are unfamiliar with astragalus, I should explain what it is. Astragalus is a root chiefly grown in China where, because of its antiviral activity as well as its ability to strengthen individual’s qi (vital energy), it is a traditional medicine for cold and flu. Astragalus is readily available in natural food stores as herbal tinctures or pills, as well as in the dried root form for adding to soups. Like ginger, I consider astragalus a food grade root; which to me means that there are no side effects in any reasonable dosage.

Dr. Andrew Weil is a well known American physician and author who—having twice been on the cover of Time magazine—probably has done more than anybody to popularize the field of alternative medicine. He markets under his name a product line of vitamins and herbs. One of his products is Dr. Weil Immune Support Formula which contains astragalus and dried mushrooms such as reishi. I don’t personally consume this product, but his formula seems to be a good one.

Kellogg’s Cocoa Krispies is a sugar laden cereal with partially hydrogenated oil added for further health benefits (yes, I’m being sarcastic). Sugar is a well-known suppressor of the immunological system.

Now here is a pop quiz: Which product, Cocoa Krispies or Dr. Weil Immune Support Formula, should be allowed to claim that it boosts the immunological system. As you can guess—I wouldn’t be writing about this issue otherwise—the answer, according to the Food and Drug Administration, is Cocoa Krispies.

Kellogg's Cocoa Krispies

The FDA has no problem with the ridiculous claim that Cocoa Krispies: “helps support your child’s immunity.” As for Dr. Weil, he is not so lucky.  He received, in October, a cease and desist letter from the FDA for claims such as “The Immune Support Formula contains astragalus. . . . Astragalus … is used traditionally to ward off colds and flu and has been well studied for its antiviral and immunity-enhancing properties.” Although this is an absolutely true statement, Weil was warned, “If your firm fails to take corrective action immediately, FDA may take enforcement action, such as seizure or injunction for violations of the FFDC Act without further notice. Firms that fail to take corrective action may also be referred to FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations for possible criminal prosecution for violations of the FFDC Act and other federal laws.”

Your tax dollars at work—allow the absurd false claim that a heavily processed and sugar laden cereal boosts immunity while persecuting sellers of natural remedies. The FDA has been captured by industrial food manufacturers and the pharmaceutical industry.

Almost 2 years ago I wrote about the satirical film Idiocracy. I asked the question: Do Crops Need Brawndo? In the movie, which is set 500 years in the future, a Gatorade-type product—Brawndo—has completely replaced water. Indeed, the product called Brawndo has replaced all other foods on the government’s food pyramid chart. Talk about life imitating the movies—if we are to believe Kellogg’s and the FDA, this flu season, a loving parent should ask: Do my children need Cocoa Krispies?