12.20.10
Cult of EMP Crazy: US civilization threatened by START
UPDATED
The Cult of Electromagnetic Pulse Crazy will use any right wing political handle to advance its agenda. Currently, it’s ratification of the START treaty.
Yes, a treaty which is aimed at controlling and curbing nuclear proliferation and reducing the weapons, in the hands of the Cult, does no such thing.
In fact, just the opposite. It threatens US civilization because it allegedly has a negative effect on the building of unlimited ballistic missile defenses which are, of course, needed to protect US civilization from a catastrophic end brought about by electromagnetic pulse attack, launched by terrorists who have obtained a nuclear weapon.
But new START is designed to get us back into Russia and the business of monitoring and securing nuclear weapons so that this is less likely.
If you think about this presentation too much, the rickety quality begins to make your head hurt.
But that’s not the point. The idea is to repeat the meretricious argument so many times it becomes an embedded truth.
And while electromagnetic pulse doom hasn’t developed a significant constituency clamoring for protection from it, the model used to to try and establish it is the same as has been used to embed other myths (often called “zombie lies”) — like massive growth by the US government while everyone else was taking the chop or that global warming is a hoax.
The issue of an electromagnetic pulse ending US civilization is much more fringe. It’s good for weekly television shows and movies but not cut from the same universally appealing cloth as other popular zombie myths. However, the lack of enthusiasm for it, as compared to others, among the right has definitely impeded the effort to make it a more shared story.
And it is also not as energizing as the dose of good old spite calling for blocking of START ratification because the Republican Party is furious over the repeal of DADT and any other legislation passed in the lame-duck session. And, of course, because it’s part of the strategy to destroy the president.
In any case, the head cheerleader for this obscure meme is, as usual, the Heritage Foundation.
In the past, I’ve described Heritage in this manner:
Heritage … mentioned last week, is a propaganda organ for the pushing of far right policy dressed up as scholarship.
It gathers various suspect ideas — that healthcare reform must be defeated, that the welfare class is getting too much in entitlements and undeserved stuff, that the rich are being taxed too much, that gays are assaulting the precious institution of marriage, that global warming, while no longer a cruel hoax, if dealt with will result in diminished US business, poorness for the wealthy and a much weakened military, that poor people who aren’t white are unjustly sopping up national treasure that could be spent on missile defense, a project which spreads freedom around the world, that the auto-industry bailout and cash-for-clunkers took money away from freedom-ensuring missile defense, etc — and employs its stable of bought-and-paid-for experts to craft pieces which exhort readers on the excellence of such beliefs.
A snapshot from Heritage’s website today:
Breaking wind: Vulnerable. End of the world. Armageddon.