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Tucker Carlson: Since Cavemen Used Fossil Fuels, So Must We. (Also, GND Bad, Surrender to Putin) [1]

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Date: 2022-09-01

We could probably do a column-a-day on Tucker Carlson's nightly racism show on Fox, but that'd get pretty boring pretty quickly. We try not to bother with his show, which, yes, goes out to Fox viewers but then disappears into the ether- unless, of course, FoxNews dot com decides to pick it up and publish it. In those cases, it's often worth seeing what it is they want to impress upon their readers, what the talking points are — who to hate and who to love.

This week, the things to hate are the Green New Deal, Ukraine and the Fed, and the people Carlson wants his audience to love are, of course, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

"The Green New Deal means poverty " is the headline of the Fox dot com piece capturing Carlson's 16+ minute diatribe of a TV monologue. Now, your first question may be: What Green New Deal?

And yes, you'd be right to wonder, because the Green New Deal's massive suite of policies that put power in the hands of people instead of polluters hasn't exactly passed. But the Inflation Reduction Act, and all its included faith in green capitalism and fossil fuel handouts, has been renamed by climate deniers as the Green New Deal, because that's the name they've been drilling into their audiences' skulls on a regular basis as the big green boogeyman .

But even that isn't really the subject of Carlson's rant, though it gets the headline. Most of what Carlson talks about is the energy price spikes in Europe, which Tucker blames on their efforts to go green, comparing prices of electricity across Europe and specifically in France, which is mostly nuclear not renewable powered anyway, so if anything an indication of how the prices aren't directly tied to the type of fuel, undercutting Carlson's point. (Not that it matters.)

Carlson said that "Green energy cannot replace fossil fuels" and "anyone with eighth-grade math skills could have figured out in about 10 minutes that we cannot replace fossil fuels with renewables or green energy" because they "remain what they have always been: the key to civilization" which "has been true since Homo Erectus started the first cooking fire in a cave nearly a million years ago."

Except anyone with an eighth-grade science education or wikipedia access might know that fossil fuels are the fossil remains of dead plants and animals cooked by the Earth's heat and pressure over (tens of) millions of years to cook into fuels that gave rise to industrialization, unless Tucker's sitting on some secret evidence that cavemen were drilling oil wells.

He jumps straight from that self-reinforcing stupidity, that fossil fuels need to always be around because they supposedly always have been around, to telling viewers that "the Green New Deal means what it always meant. It means poverty and the people pushing the Green New Deal must have known that all along."

Apparently people saying 'Hey, maybe we shouldn't get our energy from petrodictators and build renewables instead' are responsible for countries instead doubling down on buying from petrodictators.

But said authoritarians aren't the real enemy, and Carlson bristles at the idea that any American should sacrifice anything for Ukraine's defense. "We have to shovel billions to Ukrainian oligarchs who clearly hate the United States because it's the right thing to do. We need to hurt Russia because it's our moral duty. So, did these sanctions actually hurt Russia? They caused food and energy shortages throughout the West. No, they didn't hurt Russia. Russia today has more than enough energy, more energy that it can use or sell."

Good to see Carlson rising to the defense of Russia, erstwhile communist foe turned Trump-era ally to the right.

Don't worry though, Tucker has the answers. "We could fix this problem. The solution to this catastrophe is very straightforward: End the war in Ukraine. Reestablish energy flows into Europe and save the global economy, including ours."

And how does he propose Joe Biden and "other reckless Western leaders" do that? He doesn't say, but he does say what they are doing is "the opposite," of that, "spending billions more from their dying economies to Ukrainian oligarchs and for no good reason."

After reeling off the money spent by various European countries, and the US, on the war effort, Carlson asks "How is all that spending working out? Are we winning the war in Ukraine? Have we bankrupted Vladimir Putin like Joe Biden claimed we would?"

Well by most objective measures, Putin hasn't succeeded in his quick, get-in-and-take-it strategy for seizing control of Kyiv . But still, Carlson defends him: "Take a look at this chart comparing the Russian ruble against the euro. Russia is doing well. Europe is not doing well at all. Now, Joe Biden is calling for an unconditional surrender from Vladimir Putin. Here's the weird thing. By any actual reality-based measure, Vladimir Putin is not losing the war in Ukraine . He is winning the war in Ukraine and Joe Biden looks at that as we won't stop until you proffer an unconditional surrender."

Though he lacks the fortitude to come out and say it, the message is clear: Tucker Carlson wants Ukraine to surrender to Putin's criminal advances, giving the madman whatever he wants. Otherwise, your fossil fuel infrastructure is going to keep raising the price of your electricity bill. Cavemen needed fossil fuels, and so do you!

And somehow, that's the fault of the Green New Deal, the world's most powerful policy to never have been actually adopted.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/1/2120136/-Tucker-Carlson-Since-Cavemen-Used-Fossil-Fuels-So-Must-We-Also-GND-Bad-Surrender-to-Putin

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