Transcript
Sacha Stone (0:00)
Hi, this is Free Thinking through the Fourth Turning. My name is Sacha Stone. Dear Democrats, this time you can't blame the Republicans. The fires in Los Angeles are a direct result of failed progressive policies, and to pretend otherwise will lead to more tragedies. Six years ago on Medium, I wrote the following quote. The Republicans have systematically turned climate change into a partisan issue, you know, like abortion, and have done so to manipulate their gullible electorate into believing the lie that there is no such thing as man made climate change. They spew the dumbo rhetoric anytime they can that, oh, the weather changes all the time, and I don't believe climate change is real. Even if the planet is warming, it isn't our fault. Yeah, it is. You dig up fossil fuels and you burn them. That warms the planet. They were buried for millions of years, which in turn cooled the planet, making it an ideal atmosphere for all kinds of different forms of life, including us. What's coming next is uncharted territory for humanity. We have no idea how bad it's going to get, we just know it will be bad. I was not only furious with rage, but I was quick to blame the other side for deliberately sabotaging our noble efforts to stop the warming of the planet, as though we ourselves were not contributing to it. We acted like we could buy a hybrid here, go vegan there, recycle our plastic, and be absolved from contributing to this existential crisis we all must now face. It isn't that I don't believe the planet is warming or that sea level won't rise, or that it is directly the fault of so many people on the planet. What has changed is that I no longer blame the other side and I no longer see my former side as the good guys in the fight. No, I see them as hypocrites. I was a hypocrite, too. I'd been in a bubble for much of my adult life because I lived online in virtual spaces. Yes, I was raising my daughter in public schools, but those were a bubble, too. We all belonged inside the same utopia. We read the same articles, we watched the same news. Our worries were the same worries. We spoke the same language. And all of us shared the belief that the biggest threat we faced was climate change. And the biggest obstacle we faced was the Republicans. And then my daughter moved across the country and I got a couple of dogs. Rather than fly and leave my dogs at home, I began driving across the country. Those drives changed everything for me. Not just how I saw climate change, but how I saw my fellow Americans. This was how people actually lived, not how we did. Inside our haze of paper straws and cotton diapers, I saw the trucks driving on the interstate to deliver food and goods. The many hotels that require air conditioning and heating, the slaughterhouse trucks providing food for so many in this country, and the tiny houses in the middle of the desert with one embattled air conditioner sticking out of the window. Looking at all of this, all these places and all of these businesses, it was easy to see that there was no turning this thing around. There is no way to convince every state and citizen to hop aboard. What is an existential crisis for the upper class? Life just isn't like that. Everyone wants things that work, cars that run, planes that fly. They want washing machines, DishWashers, flat screen TVs, office buildings, emergency rooms and new computers and tech support lines to buy groceries. They can afford to get fruit in the middle of winter to watch movies and doom. Scroll social media and every tweet warms the planet. As Roy Scranton once wrote, even if we could convince every single American to accept our fixes, what would we do about Russia, India or China? We seem to have gone all in on fantasy, but were disconnected from reality. What we believe on the left, or at least we used to, was that climate change was Armageddon, Doomsday, the end of everything. Therefore, what mattered to us isn't so much that we solve the problems to survive climate change, but that we convert everyone else to our way of thinking. If we could do that, we believed we could start making the big changes to our country and world. The left is still haunted by ghosts of the past, back when we really did have the power and the opportunity to make real change. And we squandered that power and then we blamed the other side. In so doing, we could wash our hands of real solutions, whether it was gun violence, poverty, failing schools, floods, fires or hurricanes. And now, in the perfect cocktail of high Santa Ana winds, no rain for months and a city caught off guard. The fires rampaged through the beaches of the Pacific Palisades, in Malibu, the mountains of Altadena, and continue to burn. There were rumors of not enough water, not enough firefighters, and no way to control the speed of the flames as they ripped through the dry brush, burning one house after another as we watch the tragedy unfold on live television or YouTube. This time, the narrative swirled around California's governor, Gavin Newsom and the Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, newly elected in 2022 as the first female and second black person to serve. Bass had left the country in January, known as the last month of the Santa Ana cycle, that comes every fall from the University of California. Quote, the region sees about 10 Santa Ana wind events a year on average, typically occurring from fall into January, when conditions are dry as they are right now, these winds can become a severe fire hazard. End quote. Because she was out of the country, she could not address the city's immediate needs. The scene was pure chaos, with the firefighters risking life and limb to keep the flames away from homes and neighborhoods. Everything burned. The Humane Society was overwhelmed. Whole histories of places and families were wiped clean, flattened by a force of wind we were not prepared for. Well, why weren't we prepared? We've been warning about this very thing happening for decades. Did we really mean it? Or was it just a way to gain more donations and political power? And none of it was real. Well, just as the unsinkable ship did sink, the big fire did come, and the progressive left was exposed for ineffectual leadership yet again. And as the power went out, no one really tied it together as they screamed about climate change. Power. We need it. We need it for everything. We need so much of it. Only fossil fuels will suffice unless we go nuclear. And that, too, was a problem for the left. For podcast listeners, a tweet by James Woods. Every friend I have, Democrat or Republican, is united in the campaign to recall Karen Bass. Someone said I was being political, but I promise you, if a Republican had left that 117 million gallon reservoir tank completely empty, I swear I would feel exactly the same way. And from Mayor Karen Bass, firefighters from Mexico, Canada, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Colorado, Idaho and New Mexico are here. Our local, regional and state partners have all stepped up to help. It's all hands on deck to fight these fires. But why, Mayor Bass, why doesn't the most wealthy state not have enough firefighters? Why were we caught with our pants down? Don't politicize this tragedy. From the people who politicize not only every tragedy, but also everything else. Our culture, schools, relationships, language, food, friendships. Nothing is not political on the left. And what do we have to show for it? Nothing. We have an industry devoted to absolving the rich of their sins of wealth, DEI and hybrid SUVs. We have actors like Leonardo DiCaprio broadcasting their concerns on Instagram. We have film directors like Jim Cameron and Adam McKay saying I told you so. And we're supposed to do what? Keep listening to them as our leaders fiddle while L. A burns? Adam McKay's carbon footprint came secondary to making his climate film don't look up one of the worst movies ever made. Starring every sanctimonious, unbearable celebrity known to man. I watched that movie and thought about the energy it took to make it, screen it and stream it. The energy it took to mount the Oscar ceremony, the private jets to fly around the world. What hypocrites, I thought, even back then, as a Democrat. Here is a scene from don't look up. Incredible.