A Stormy Week
By Hank Silverberg
It was a dark and stormy week. No,
this is not the first line of some trashy novel. The storm, hurricane Dorian,
devastated the Bahamas, leaving death and destruction in its wake and some dark
overtones for the U.S. government.
Weather forecasting is never an exact
science. But most of the time the National Weather Service, a U.S. Government
agency, gets it right. And, indeed the
weather service and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), were pretty much on the mark with what turned out to be a
very hard storm to track. The people who needed the warnings were able to get good, accurate data and then make their choice to evacuate or stay.
The aftermath of the storm could take
weeks, months, or even years to play out, and the people of the Bahamas are in
for a rough time. Some folks in Charleston, South Carolina and along the east coast got battered, but they for the most part are okay. One dark cloud left behind may
signal more than the damage from high wind and water.
As the storm was approaching,
President Trump went on TV to caution people to get ready. That was good. You
want your leaders to lead. But he
mistakenly told us all that Alabama was under the storm warning along with
Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. It was a mistake. Alabama was NOT
threatened by the storm.
Okay, so the President misspoke.
That’s not the end of the world. It happens on occasion. He heard something in one of the early forecasts that led him to believe Alabama was threatened, and he repeated it. Most of the time, the mistake would simply be corrected and we would all move on. But nothing is normal with
THIS president. He insisted he was right and that everyone else was wrong. That Alabama was indeed in the path of the storm. He,
or someone on his staff trying to placate him, used a Sharpie to doctor a NOAA
map in an attempt to show Alabama included in the warnings.
It was a bit comical for many folks. And there have been hundreds of memes and jokes floating around social media that you can now laugh at. But
there is a sinister aftermath. Reporters, doing their jobs, went to NOAA and asked about
the map. This was the original reaction to the President's tweet from the National Weather Service:
The agency, which had early on removed Alabama from the danger zone, later backed up the President, and a bit later still it was learned that NOAA employees,
including weather forecasters, had been ordered not to dispute the President’s
statements.
What’s the big deal? Well, a president
of the United States told an independent agency not to dispute him, or the agency leadership felt intimidated enough to do back up false information to protect themselves. Weather
forecasts can be crucial in saving lives during hurricanes, and crucial to
commerce and farming on a day-to-day basis. Facts, unedited by politicians are important.
 |
| (Hurricane Dorian over Bahamas on 9/2/19, Courtesy of NWS) |
The Orwellian consequences of Mr. Trump’s actions and NOAA’s response
smack of authoritarianism.
It is not just a Sharpie and a map.
(update added on)
Late Sunday, according to The Washington Post, the chief scientist at NOAA, Craig McLean, sent out an email calling the response by NOAA political and a "danger to public health and safety"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/09/09/noaas-chief-scientist-will-investigate-why-agency-backed-trump-over-its-experts-dorian-email-shows/?noredirect=on
McLean wants an investigation.
(update added on)
Late Sunday, according to The Washington Post, the chief scientist at NOAA, Craig McLean, sent out an email calling the response by NOAA political and a "danger to public health and safety"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/09/09/noaas-chief-scientist-will-investigate-why-agency-backed-trump-over-its-experts-dorian-email-shows/?noredirect=on
McLean wants an investigation.
----------
Then there is this:
Mr. Trump has suggested several times that the U.S. Government set up its own global state-run news network to
counter what he called “unfair” coverage from CNN, which has a substantial worldwide reach.
First, we already have such a network.
It’s called "Voice of America." It was set up in the 1960’s to broadcast
behind the Iron Curtain to provide people living under Communism with news and entertainment that they
never got from their own government-run broadcasts. Today it survives, and is
aimed at audiences in countries that do not have a free press, like Myanmar. VOA does NOT broadcast
within the United States.
Second, state-run news networks are
usually the propaganda tool of a government, not the product of a free competitive press. VOA practices good journalism and has strict rules.
It presents the United States in a good light, but it does not lie or spread false information. I wonder if the President even knows it exists. (In some ways, I hope he doesn't.)
Also this week, the President tried again to
get two Washington Post reporters kicked out of the White House press room. The
reason—he doesn’t like what they report.
The combination of all these items
should be very worrisome to everyone.
The President of the United States
once again shows a total lack of knowledge, or a total disdain for the role of
a free press in a free society.
Presidents have been angry at
reporters before. It’s been pointed out by some conservatives that President
Obama attempted to put at least one reporter in jail. But that was for
reporting classified material, not just for publishing a story Mr. Obama didn’t like. The case was rejected by the courts. That's a big difference.
President Lincoln did put some publishers in jail and closed down their
newspapers, but that was in the midst of a bloody civil war with the future of
the Republic at stake.
When I saw the President’s map, with
the Sharpie line heading into Alabama, it brought back a scene in George
Orwell’s classic “1984. ” The lead character, Winston Smith has a job where he sits at his desk at the
“Ministry of Truth” rewriting stories with government instructions or erasing people and events from history so they never existed.
Perhaps Mr. Trump should use the infamous quote from "1984" for his re-election campaign: "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength."
Here's more evidence why:
Mr. Trump’s problems with the media go
beyond his inability to answer questions with the truth. We learned on Saturday,
via @realdonaldtrump that the President had canceled a secret meeting for peace
negotiations at Camp David about Afghanistan.
The Taliban,
the Afghani President, and Mr. Trump, were all going to be there. It
was canceled after an attack in Kabul killed 12 people, including a U.S. service member. We all learned about it, not from a White House statement, or an on-camera briefing, but from some tweets.
I don’t have a problem with the
President cancelling the alleged meeting. His reason may be valid. The Taliban are not
the most trustworthy adversaries.
But I do have a big problem with how the cancellation was announced.
This should have been done at a news conference where reporters could ask
questions about the purpose of the meeting and why it was cancelled, and what
will be done to follow up. At the very least, the White House should have put the press secretary in front of the cameras to answer those questions. But
there has not been a news briefing from the White House since long before the departure of the embattled spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Now here's the other part of the story. It didn't take too long for the Taliban to issue a denial that any such meeting had ever been planned. They did acknowledge some initial discussion about a peace deal had taken place somewhere else, a fact that has been reported before.
One must wonder if this so-called peace negotiation scheduled at Camp David was the same
as those phone calls Trump said he made to China over the trade war that he bragged about. You know, the calls that we were later told never happened.Now here's the other part of the story. It didn't take too long for the Taliban to issue a denial that any such meeting had ever been planned. They did acknowledge some initial discussion about a peace deal had taken place somewhere else, a fact that has been reported before.
And finally, this pocketbook issue:
A decision by the Trump administration
this week should cost you at least $115 over the next five years, not to mention the harm it will do to the environment.The Department
of Energy has rolled back regulations that would have mandated high energy-efficient light bulbs. The change was supposed to go into effect this coming January.
The Consumer Federation of America says that will cost consumers, collectively,
$14 billion by 2025. And that doesn’t even count the money that would have been saved on
energy production or the cost of new power plants that may now be needed to meet growing demand.
We are now in the calm after the
storm. But it’s hurricane season, so who knows what’s next.
(Copies of my book “The Campaign” are
available on Amazon.com, BN.com or directly from me at a reduced price. Email
me at hanksilverberg@gmail.com for
instructions on how to get a signed copy at a reduced price.)
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