Iraq hawks who drive Priuses
January 26, 2005 7:29 AM   Subscribe

Green Neocons
posted by Bag Man (31 comments total)
 
Maybe they're going green because they know the future oil export from Iraq is going to be less than what they expected?
posted by PenDevil at 7:41 AM on January 26, 2005


Maybe they're going green because they are smarter than we took them for?

They don't believe that Armegedon is at hand?

They notice that there won't be any oil left reguardless in 50 years?

They know that they are constantly lied to, and are restructuring themselves to be in a better position when the whole charade comes crashing down?

Naw!! Couldn't be!!
posted by Balisong at 7:47 AM on January 26, 2005


Mmmm.... peak oil. When the noecons start going green, you know that the shit is about to hit the fan. Sell your Jetta and buy the used Geo, it's worth it.
posted by Arch Stanton at 7:51 AM on January 26, 2005


The Bush administration is not as monolithic as many liberals seem to think. The neocons are a very different group from the Christian fundamentalists, and neither are the same as the Big Oil tycoons. It is the pastiche of American conservatism, and it is not nearly as unified as American conservatives would like us all to believe.
posted by jefgodesky at 7:54 AM on January 26, 2005


Green snowcones? Gross!
posted by knave at 8:02 AM on January 26, 2005


Sell your Jetta and buy the used Geo, it's worth it.

Or maybe sell your Jetta and buy a biodiesel-burning TDI Jetta?
posted by 40 Watt at 8:06 AM on January 26, 2005


They aren't green. Don't give them that credit. They have a political goal--to stop making rich Arab countries rich--and this is the easiest and cheapest way to do it, to stop buying their damned oil. If they could get all that cheap oil from a friendly country, they would get it and burn it. If they could hurt the Arab oil countries financially by buying and burning more of their oil, they would buy it and burn it.
posted by pracowity at 8:14 AM on January 26, 2005


I just don't understand why it took the Neocons until now to figure out that if Americans stopped consuming as much oil, then we don't have to bend to the whims of OPEC and keep our hands in the sand of the Middle East. Was this not a campaign issue of John Kerry and obvious to anyone even the day after 9/11?
posted by Arch Stanton at 8:17 AM on January 26, 2005


Give it two years before we have a car that runs off a tank full of the lower class.
posted by dougunderscorenelso at 8:32 AM on January 26, 2005


They have a political goal--to stop making rich Arab countries rich

This has got to be a thorn in the side of Bandar Bush.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:33 AM on January 26, 2005


Not every conservative drives a hummer, not every liberal drives a prius. There are conservatives like ParisParimus who don't even own a car much less an SUV. I can think of quite a few Hollywood liberals who drive SUVs or 12 cylinder BMWs and Mercedes. It's convenient to try and paint every conservative with the same colours but it's not accurate and probably harmful to whatever message you might be trying to say.
posted by substrate at 8:38 AM on January 26, 2005


It's envy!
posted by Vulpyne at 8:40 AM on January 26, 2005


Maybe they're just Curb Your Enthusiasm fans.
posted by drezdn at 8:43 AM on January 26, 2005


There are a number of aspects to energy policy. Essentially, these are economics, environment, security and reliability (to the extent that this can be set apart from security). Different national supply structures place different values on these aspects. The increasing dominance of the marketplace in most Western countries acted to increase the emphasis on economics over the last 15 years or so. This has largely been at the expense of security and reliability as excess capacity is driven out of the market and fuelstuffs are sought out on the basis of price alone, rather than on other political characteristics. At the same time, the green movement caused an increased emphasis on environment factors. Increasingly we are seeing governments and other stakeholders noting that the market does not adequately take into account the long-term security aspects of energy supply and the implications this has for the future development of national economies in terms of infrastructure investment and access to necessary fuel supply. Essentially, this can be seen as a response to that; the fact that some of the goals of energy security tie up with environmental goals can be seen as incidental (though politically convenient).
posted by biffa at 8:56 AM on January 26, 2005


FWIW, and hopefully not off-topic, but since the 19C there's been a fuzzy, weird coincidence between a segment of far right ideology and environmentalist/ecologist ideology. The intersection of the sets seems to be something to do with a conflation of self-sufficiency and organic purity, with national self-sufficiency and national purity. See Google for 'ecofascism,' and essays such as this.

Off the top of my head I can think of debates in the Sierra Club re. immigration controls as sound ecological strategies, and the National Front (U.K. racist/nationalist party) promoting 'green initiatives' in the 1980s. I seem to recall that one of the founders of the organic gardening movement in the UK in the 1920s was also the secretary of the British Fascist party at the time.
posted by carter at 9:01 AM on January 26, 2005


carter: Right wing parties tend to favour the status quo over change. Does this not suggest a natural disposition towards conserving nature as it is now? So there are some synergies but not necessarily the same emphasis on sustainable development, ie, development aiming not to reduce opportunities for future generations but not necessarily doing so by simple preservation.
posted by biffa at 9:07 AM on January 26, 2005


That's an interesting point, biffa, and I think there are links between conservatives and conservation, although I'd argue that fascism itself can be a very *revolutionary* ideology (which is what makes it so exciting for fascists and mobs).

Going even further OT (apologies Bag Man!), one of the things that ecofascism does is take organic concerns with the purity of what you put into your personal body, and expands the metaphor to the level of an organic state/society, that is, society as an organic whole that must be kept pure. That's one reason why fascist/supremacist ideologues are so fond of referring to unwanted groups/cultures in society as 'diseases,' 'cancers,' 'viruses,' etc., in the national body, that must be eliminated. But now I'm rambling ...
posted by carter at 9:20 AM on January 26, 2005


It's like the political spectrum is actually a circle -- if you go far enough to the right, you end up on the far left!

Anyway, it's cool to hear about people doing something for a reason that makes sense.
posted by breath at 9:22 AM on January 26, 2005


biffa: that's simplistic. If right wing parties favor status quo over change, than how could they try to change left wing policies?
posted by esquire at 9:44 AM on January 26, 2005


Well obviously it's simplistic, its one sentence. Clearly there will also be other examples where right wing parties have to contend with ongoing societal trends that come into conflict with each other or circumstances where society has to adopt new policies in response to (for example) technological advancement. Preservation of traditions in the face of expanding economic interests throws up a range of possibilities. In general terms however, I would stand by my statement. Conservatives, for example, fall back on the role of tradition. They react to changes in society by wishing to move back to the original position (hence reactionary politics). They can either be successful and the left wing policy is revoked or unsuccessful and at some future date then the policy will be so deeply adopted by society that it becomes the norm. At which point it may be adopted by the conservative as the tradition. But of course, the reality is more complex than that.
posted by biffa at 9:55 AM on January 26, 2005


There is a lot of money to be made in "green" products. It's good for corporate America, and really not so good for the environment. What do you think happens when someone replaces their SUV with a Prius? The SUV doesn't magically disappear, someone else buys it.

I've been on the Lexus payroll and my dad works for the company (disclaimer, disclaimer I've been brainwashed) so I admit I have a conflict of interest in even saying this, but the dealership had 36 orders for "the world's first luxury hybrid SUV" the first week it was announced.

If you don't believe Green is big business, try reading (at least the ads in) Organic Style or Simple Living
posted by GlitterBum at 10:31 AM on January 26, 2005


I've been on the Lexus payroll and my dad works for the company (disclaimer, disclaimer I've been brainwashed) so I admit I have a conflict of interest in even saying this, but the dealership had 36 orders for "the world's first luxury hybrid SUV" the first week it was announced.

But did it displace sales of other SUVs? While this would not be ideal, it may be a better alternative.
posted by biffa at 11:19 AM on January 26, 2005


If you don't believe Green is big business

Whoever is meeting people's consumer needs/demands is going to in business. The energy sector invests $100 billion a year worldwide in new equipment, it doesn't matter whether that's going on coal, nuclear or wind generating plants that's a lot of money for someone. The difference is that some options are better for the environment than others. the issue is to how to make the more environmentally benign technologies attractive to buyers and thus to incentivise the market to provide them.
posted by biffa at 11:23 AM on January 26, 2005


What we really need is some good data on net economic benefits. For example, some alternative energy sources may be more expensive to set up and use, but the residual costs to society and even the individual consumer may be actually lower because of reduced pollution (leading to lower medical bills and lower medicaid taxes), etc.

A great foundation would be a super geeky "total cost" computation company which would do massive number crunching on these kinds of issues and deliver reports on what really makes market sense.

As for the neocons, this is the lamest article ever. I think they just want to get some PR because their foreign policy is an utter disaster for America.
posted by chaz at 11:32 AM on January 26, 2005


This "green (neo-)con" idea is certainly not new to readers of National Review, though I realize that very few of us NR readers also hang out at MetaFilter. Rod Dreher has been on about "crunchy conservatives" or "granola conservatives" for some time now, and it even merited a NR cover story. I think he's even doing a book on it too. Check out these articles:

- Birkenstocked Burkeans: Confessions of a granola conservative
- Crunchy Cons: Picking up organic vegetables in your National Review tote bag
- And editor Jonah Goldberg's skepticism about the meme: Crunchy Conservatism, Reconsidered: Of granola and First Principles

For what it's worth, my husband and I (on Democrat, one Republican) have been itching for a Prius for years now, spurred in small part by California's high gas prices and in much larger part out of a desire to stick it to the Saudis. The less that we as a country have to suck up to brutal but oil-rich tyrannies, the better.

For more conservative reactions to the Slate article, see Andrew Sullivan's blog, where he posted his reaction a few days ago (and notes a similar proposal he tried to introduce under Thatcher), and today posted a (conservative) reader's letter about it.
posted by Asparagirl at 11:42 AM on January 26, 2005


For those not quite financially ready for the prius these guys have posted instructions on how to make their own Ambient Light Vee for much less
posted by ReggieNoble2 at 12:36 PM on January 26, 2005


The difference is that some options are better for the environment than others. the issue is to how to make the more environmentally benign technologies attractive to buyers and thus to incentivise the market to provide them.

The problem is ...same product - Green (Organic) style packaging and promotion. Emphasis needs to be placed on LESS and more responsible consumption, not merely the facade of such(we Americans are such good posers).
posted by samlam at 12:56 PM on January 26, 2005


Also...
Here's something to urge folks that things may be getting urgent. Seems the world press is on it more so than us here n the U.S., where we're more concerned about the economic impact.
posted by samlam at 1:03 PM on January 26, 2005


Green Neocons

Planting trees in Israel are they? :-)

*runs and hides*
posted by nofundy at 1:07 PM on January 26, 2005


The MattD clan are conservatives (it should go without saying by now) but we've got our eye on a hybrid SUV for when our current family-mover is due for replacement.

I can't think of a better tribute to conservative thinking than hybrid cars. They emerged from the market and are prospering in the market, financed by consumers willing to pay a premium, and not by subsidies extracted from the unwilling taxpayer or regulations imposed upon the unwilling manufacturer. (Note that the hybrid SUVs don't even help the manufacturers get down the CAFE ratings.)

We buy ever-increasing amounts of organic food, but we're quite honest about what it is: an expensive luxury (in both taste and whatever margin of health exists.) While enjoying luxuries isn't conservative, it certainly isn't un-conservative, either.
posted by MattD at 1:13 PM on January 26, 2005


How does the author know that Woolsey's not just driving the Prius so he can get into the HOV lanes?
posted by pitchblende at 1:26 PM on January 26, 2005


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