2017 Feb 26^th

Our lesson for today harks back to yesteryear:  Specifically to a musical of the early 60s titled “The Music Man.” This gem was written by Meredith Wilson and starred Shirley Jones with Robert Preston in the title role. The Music Man, Robert Preston is a 1912 traveling salesman/ con artist; he is Professor Howard Hill, who hits a very small Iowa town to sell band instruments and band uniforms. The Iowans aren’t buying…that is they aren’t until Hill can think of a gimmick. The gimmick is that, as the song title claims, “There is Trouble in River City” …and that stands for pool. Professor Hill claims that the pool hall will lead to the kids smoking cubeb cigarettes and saying words like “swell.” Hill’s remedy for this disaster is for the townsfolk to buy his band instruments and uniforms for their kids so that he can start a wholesome band. They’re scared so they buy the con’s shtick. Does this remind you of another con who tries to persuade everybody of how awful everything is, even to the point of telling outrageous lies about the murder rate to a collection of sheriffs and police chiefs. He claims it is the highest in years when the truth is, it at its lowest rate in years. Like Howard Hill in the musical, he is selling fear, a fear that only he can fix…and the con is working beautifully.

There is now before congress an unnecessary bill to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. It is unnecessary because Trump has appointed former Oklahoma Attorney General, Scott Pruitt, to be the cabinet secretary to oversee the EPA. Pruitt has sued the EPA many times because of its restrictions on pollution. Oklahoma produces lots of oil and gas so the oil and gas industry is very generous to law makers who recognize the unimportance of clean water and clean air compared with the importance of oil company profits. Pruitt has for years, been on the right side of this issue. He has had the very generous financial support of these industries. He has even sued the EPA because some of their regulations inhibited the profitability of his state’s oil and gas companies.

Disposing of the wastewater from oil and gas fracking is a problem; it contains stuff that make it unfit for any use by humans or animals. The result is that the fracking industries must force it deep underground at very high pressure. The earth has begun to rebel at this treatment and the earth is apolitical. The result of this has been a bunch of earthquakes. In 2007 there were 10 earthquakes in Oklahoma; last year there were 900 earthquakes in Oklahoma. What did Scott Pruitt do about the earthquakes? Not one damn thing. It took his office several years to even admit that injecting the wastewater from fracking was responsible for the problem.

Pruitt, as you might expect, believes the evidence is equivocal on human contribution to global warming. The result of all this is that Trump has effectively chosen a leader who will destroy the organization he was chosen to lead.

This should come as no surprise. Recall what Steve Bannon said at the CPAC meeting, the aim of the administration is “the deconstruction of the administrative state.” Pruitt will do a fine job of turning the Environmental Protection Agency into the Environmental Destruction Agency. Score a big win for Steve Bannon!