Criticism of The American Dissident

At the end of each issue of The American Dissident, the following request appears:  

Criticism Wanted

Well, a friend wrote a bit angry perhaps:  “You love crap so crap it will be in The AD.” And so I responded, “Is it my fault that most poets, including you, are extremely reluctant to criticize the literary establishment? And that is why I can NOT obtain sufficiently good, critical poems and essays—the focus of The American Dissident. And rather than closing shop, I choose to continue publishing because I enjoy putting an issue together—creating the front cover, finding good quotes, corresponding with contributors, calling for submissions, sketching critical cartoons, writing the editorial, posting literary letters, formatting the issue, and sending out the copies. 

     So, send your criticism of this issue!  Hammer the editor! The harshest hammering WILL be published in each issue. Send criticism of your state poet laureate, state cultural council, state artist, state college, state human rights commission, state anti-free speech coalition, state newspaper, state prison, etc. Now, what other poetry journal out there ever makes such a request?  Poetry magazine?  Ploughshares?  NYQ?  Agni?  Rattle?  In any case, thanks for your contributions—poems… and of course hard-earned cash! 

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Dana Stamps II and a few others have kindly responded to the request.  Below is an example.  

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On The American Dissident

Reconstructed from an email debate between G. Tod Slone and Dana Stamps, II [Reconstruction work kindly done by Dana, who is a rare individual willing to embrace vigorous debate, cornerstone of a thriving democracy...]:

Stamps II:  Too many conservative opinions have been featured in The AD compared to liberal viewpoints.  There have been some liberal ideas represented, to your credit, but not many, not nearly enough.  In fact, conservative views are favored to the extent that I have often thought The AD should be renamed “The Conservative Conformist” or perhaps “The Republican Patsy” because liberal dissident views similar to those of Noam Chomsky, arguably the most important American dissident alive, are conspicuously underrepresented.  In a letter to me, you scoffed at his opinion that the Republican Party is “the most dangerous organization in history” because of its science denying stance (which literally puts humanity in danger of extinction) on the global climate change emergency.  Are you interested in having a serious debate or merely in representing your biases? 

Slone:  Now, to your email… since it’s been residing in the back of my brain for a while.  You have provoked thought… and that, at least for me, is always a positive thing.  Rather than address the issues I evoke in my essays, however, you instead resort to name calling, which is a rather common reaction to criticism by those either too lazy to examine the critique or w/o cogent riposte.  Calling The AD “The Conservative Conformist” and “The Republican Patsy” is an example of mindless name-calling.  [No need at all to be more specific or provide concrete examples.] Think as an individual, man, not as a PC-groupthinker!  I know it must be hard to do that in California.

Stamps II:  Now then, a few words about my rudely suggesting that you, and The AD, are conservative conformists.  The issue I have is with honesty and accuracy, not with name calling.  If you are a Grand Old Party guy at heart, own up to it, that is all.  

Slone:  I, Conservative…?  Thoughts on a Slur:  If conservative somehow means speaking truth to power, be it literary, academic, or librarian, then I am conservative!  If conservative somehow means not swallowing everything spewed by left-wing political hacks, including global warming, open borders, pronoun declarations, and white bad/black good stereotyping, then I am conservative.  If conservative somehow means not being an anti-free-speech socialist, communist or Islamist, then I am conservative.  If conservative somehow means standing alone and expressing my opinions openly, especially when they go against the groupthink grain, then I am conservative.  If not only brooking but encouraging criticism is somehow conservative, then I am conservative. 

BUT if conservative somehow means total intolerance to those who do not think like me, then I am NOT conservative.  If conservative somehow means blind support for Trump, then I am NOT conservative.  If conservative somehow means blind praise for cops and soldiers, then I am not conservative.  If conservative somehow means unfettered capitalism is good, then I am not conservative.  If conservative means pro-religion and god-belief, then I am not conservative.  If conservative means keeping US soldiers in countries like Syria, then I am not conservative.  (Hmm, does that mean Trump is not conservative?).

Stamps II:  Maybe you should include this in the mission statement of The AD?  Or at least in the bio preceding your poems?  They would be your words, not mine. 

Slone:  Rather than resort to a simple word, conservative, to diss anything you don’t like, define it.  If conservative means speaking truth to power, be it literary, academic, or librarian, then I am a freakin conservative!  If conservative means not being in-lockstep with Bernie, then I am conservative.  If left-wing means total intolerance to those who do not think like me, then I am NOT left-wing.  If conservative means standing alone and expressing my opinions openly, especially when they go against the groupthink grain, then I am conservative…

Stamps II:  Please don’t think I’m blowing sunshine up your ass, but after Chomsky, my third favorite American dissident, you are next on my list.  Your brave willingness to attack academia is extraordinary … though your conservative politics on most issues outside of your expertise suck. 

Slone:  Keep in mind, Dana, that I am NOT in the least bit angry RE your accusations.  As you know, I not only brook but encourage such accusations.  If doing that is conservative, then indeed I am conservative.  Read Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago and The Oak and The Calf before you swear allegiance to socio-communism!  I read through the NY Times and WAPO everyday.  What right-wing media do you watch or read? 

Stamps II:  Yes, I expose myself to as many diverse opinions as I can.  After all, I read The American Dissident.  Doesn’t this say much about my willingness to be informed in a far reaching way?  Some of the more conservative voices I have listened to are: the energetic Alex Jones of Infowars, Milo Yiannopoulos has made it onto my radar, Ben Shapiro is one of my favorites, Fox News of course, and my very favorite conservative voice is Ann Coulter.  These names are just a few curmudgeons who I have, and will, listen to.  I watch a lot of YouTube, and occasionally read, too.  I do not believe in only confirming my biases.

Slone:  Glad that you do expose yourself to left and right-wing pundits et al.

Stamps II:  Thank you for being “glad” that I seek diversity in my pundits, and there are many more positive qualities to consider by dissenting liberal voices than PC adherence.   Bill Maher, for example, is a well-known liberal who attacks PC regularly on his show Real Time.  By the way, his show is must see political stuff – and I doubt you will not laugh your ass off, too.  

With that said, I wonder if you are exposing yourself to enough liberal voices, and I say this because dissidence is “far more prevalent” amongst liberals than conservatives in my “great and unmatched, stable genius” opinion.  I challenge you, George, to listen to a few episodes of On Contact hosted by Chris Hedges, or even better yet, listen to a few of his speeches on YouTube.  He got fired as a reporter from The New York Times for being against the Iraq war.  He is my personal favorite American dissident, and I have read his latest book America: The Farewell Tour.  If you are not afraid of your views being challenged (and perhaps changed) I dare you to check him out.  

Slone:  If I did not expose myself to enough liberal [i.e., left-wing, not classical liberal] voices, I probably wouldn't be a cartoonist and essayist, since much of what I have fought against is PC.

Stamps, II:  The public intellectual Noam Chomsky has called the Republican Party the most dangerous organization in the history of humanity.  Many not only reject the idea that global warming is manmade, but also that climate disruption is happening at all.  I don’t think we should stop polluting because of the effect that these pollutants have on global dimming, but I respect activists like Extinction Rebellion who have not conceded defeat.  The Czech dissident playwright Vaclav Havel has said, “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something is worth doing no matter how it turns out.”  That is why I have taken the time to write you this letter.  It is worth it to make these arguments, even if I believe you will not agree with them.

Slone:  Once upon a time, I was into Chomsky, but he has been making absolutely absurd statements like the one you evoke.  Communism [and Islamism] has been far more dangerous than the Republican Party!  Millions of people have been slaughtered by communist ideologues, NOT by Republican Party members.  Look at the USSR and its gulags!  Look at red China and Mao!  Communism and socialism end up inevitably killing freedom, which is why I am against both ideologies.  Look at England and Scandinavia and France!  Free speech has become an "arrestable" offense in those countries.   The Democrat Party also favors killing free speech,  far, far more than the Republican Party.  Anybody arguing against the party-line will be demonized.  In the absence of free speech, how can one trust anything climate change propagandists push?  Challenge the propaganda and the propagandists will call you a denier or maybe even a white nationalist.  BTW, I do not support the Republican Party.  I am independent.  Actually, I am not really that interested in weather predictions.  I am far more interested in FREEDOM.

Chomsky is hardly a fucking dissident!  He was a comfy academic all his fuckin life at MIT!   When did he ever risk his job there by speaking rude truth to MIT deans and the president?  He lives a luxury life in Chatham.  How is Howard Zinn a dissident?  He too was a lifer academic at Boston University!  When did he ever speak rude truth to the hands feeding him so royally?  Yes, Dana, give me an example!

Stamps II:  Finally, it is very difficult to prove that Chomsky is a dissident – or anyone else for that matter.  I think that it is much like defining someone as an artist.  Because of the unprecedented innovation of the 20th century, I think it only prudent to call an artist an artist if he or she claims to be an artist, period.  Likewise, the definition of dissident belongs to anyone who claims it.  I just wish that your dissidence would not conform so much to conservative rhetoric, especially as the editor of The AD.  Balance is what I’m looking for, balance … and maybe some originality, which you definitely have when you lambaste academia.

Slone:  Sorry, Dana, but I do NOT “find beauty” in ideological BS/conformity, left or right wing.  Apparently, you do… I am not looking for "balance."  I am looking for rude truth!  Now, do you really think I could get in touch with Chomsky, somehow pierce his gated community, and have him write an essay?  How about Bill Clinton?  Come on, man, you're not being realistic.  I cannot even pierce Poetry magazine's gated community of poets.  I have opened up to those like you... because you contacted me.  I have NEVER rejected essays by Hedges or Ventura.  Sorry, but I am not really into celebrities like Bill Maher.  Again, I UNDERSCORE that The AD focus is on academic and literary issues, far, far more than Democrat/Republican issues.  And that is due to my first-hand experiences as an academic and literati FIGHTING, RISKING CAREER/JOB et al.  You seem to be pushing far more in the political direction than The AD focus.  

Stamps II:  So be it, but maybe you should call The American Dissident something not so inclusive, perhaps The Academic and Literary Press Dissident instead.  That would suggest a more exclusive subject matter.  The term “American” is broad, and suggests the inclusion of all things American that one could dissent to.  Frankly, I want you to live up to the title of the journal you publish and keep its name.  The change I want to see is the more frequent inclusion of writers similar in viewpoint to linguist Noam Chomsky, journalist Chris Hedges, and even the former governor and wrestler Jesse Ventura.  And, of course, less famous writers who dare to think differently, both conservative and liberal and those who defy categorization, thus, American dissidents.

Slone:  Well, I created the name, The AD, back in 1998.  Why?  Well, I thought it was an oxymoron.  That's why.  In other words, we had Chinese dissidents, Russian dissidents, Cuban dissidents, but I had never heard of American dissidents.  Your title suggestion is too long.  And at this point in time, issue #38, I do not want to change the title.

Stamps II:  I look forward to another irreverent, scintillating read, for I’m sure this issue will prove no different in that regard to past issues.  

Slone:  The AD has been highly critical of the academic/literary establishment above all else and does not get into hack politics that much at all!  Have my editorials been praising Trump?  Have my essays and poems been praising Trump?  Prove me wrong here!  You’re spinning nonsense regarding The AD!  Avoid the name calling crap and instead present concrete evidence of your rather damning assertions.  What other magazine in the country criticizes the academic/literary establishment?  I cannot think of one!

Stamps II:  On the conformity issue, I really don’t care what you think as an individual.  In fact, I encourage you to be eccentric as the likes of Thomas Paine or Carrot Top, or any mean between those extremes.  As Voltaire said, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”  But as the editor of The AD, I will criticize you by engaging in “vigorous debate,” though I will try not to hurt your feelings by belittling you when you are wrong, and you are occasionally wrong. 

Slone:  The AD does not boast about being DIVERSE and INCLUSIVE.  That is the left-wing ideological mantra that has replaced uncomfortable (ideologically) TRUTH, REASON, and FACT.  INCLUSIVE?  And why not also criticize it?  Also, on The AD website is a statement of focus that clarifies the purpose of the magazine.  [see theamericandissident.org/focus.html] Have you taken a look at it?  In essence, magazine titles tend to be GENERAL.   Your criticism could of course be applied to MANY literary reviews.  How about Poetry magazine, which would NEVER publish one of my poems?

Stamps II:  Let it be said that I absolutely AGREE with you that the left is “far more dangerous to FREE SPEECH, at least for now.”  When I hear of college students shouting down speakers, I fear for the fate of democracy.  What we, you and I, George, are doing now in these emails … debating ideas, is holy ground.

Slone:  I am surprised you agree that the left is more dangerous to free speech.  But you do not mention the far-right Islamists who seek to spread Islam everywhere.

Stamps II:  I’ll say this for you: you are always up for a good argument.  So let me see if I can equal your moxie.  

Slone:   Now, where is this “white supremacist terrorism” the left always bellows about?  I don’t see it anywhere…  I see plenty of white bad/black good stereotype bullshit spewed by leftists.  I see Antifa as totally INTOLERANT and always resorting to violence.  I see plenty of black hatred for whites, etc., etc.  My interest is not climate change and FBI terrorism statistics.  My interest is FREE SPEECH and VIGOROUS DEBATE.  In that sense, ISLAM is a far greater threat (and you ignored all of my comments on the state of Europe today due to intense Muslim immigration), than white nationalists.  The left clearly controls the language today.  It is far more effective with that regard than the right.  And that is why I see it as far more dangerous to FREE SPEECH, at least for now.

Stamps II:  “With my great and unmatched wisdom” and because “I am a stable genius with the best words,” I will trump you with some “fake news.”  It seems to me that you must have your eyes and ears closed to say something so ignorant, not stupid, but ignorant.  I will quote some info that you ought to be familiar with already.  Here goes: 

“Aug 14, 2017 · A white supremacist named James Fields Jr. attending the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, allegedly runs over and kills an anti-racism protester.”  Author: Ben Mathis-Lilley. 

“Oct 27, 2018 · PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Eleven people have been killed and a number of others injured after a shooting at The Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill on Saturday. Police sources tell KDKA’s Andy Sheehan the gunman, Robert Bowers, walked into the building and yelled, “All Jews must die.”  Author: CBS Pittsburgh.

“The Charleston church shooting (also known as the Charleston church massacre) was a mass shooting in which Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white supremacist, murdered nine African Americans (including the senior pastor, state senator Clementa C. Pinckney) during a prayer service at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, on the evening of June 17, 2015. Three other victims survived.”  Oops, I didn’t cut and paste the author’s name. 

In the New Zealand mass shootings:  “Mar 15, 2019 · The title of his manifesto ― ‘The Great Replacement’ ― is a reference to a 2012 French book by the same name that has become a talking point for white supremacists all over the world.  The book espouses the paranoid theory that mass migration from Muslim-majority countries will dilute and ultimately end white culture and identity.”  Author: Andy Campbell

“Aug 06, 2019 · But when a man walked into a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on Aug. 3 and opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle, killing at least 20 people and injuring dozens more before being captured by the police, he became the third high-profile white supremacist mass shooter of 2019.”  Author: Scott Stewart.

These are just a few of the recent atrocities that have filled the news lately about the evil doings of white supremacists.  How did you not notice?  Is your thinking so constipated with conservative claptrap that you cannot see (or feel) the suffering around you?  “Bellowing about … bullshit spewed by leftists” as you call it, is the fact of real people dying.  And yet all you see is “plenty of black hatred for whites.”  Of course, evil is perpetrated by people of color, too – including radical Islamic terrorists.  The problem I have with The AD is that it is not balanced.  In fact, says Google, “Most domestic terrorism comes from white supremacists,” which is according to the FBI.  You said, “Prove me wrong here!  You’re spinning nonsense about The AD.”  I suppose I should go through a few back issues of The AD and quote from the many times you’ve attacked radical Islamic terrorism, but hopefully your memory will suffice.  

Slone:  Well, this will be a DIALOGUE DE SOURDS... of course.  What I really should have said is that the left seems to think white nationalism is all over the country and far more prevalent than any other kind of nationalism, including black nationalism, chicano nationalism, and Islamist globalism.  In the south, yes, I'm aware of the KKK, but it has largely dissipated over the past 20 or 30 years.  It is not the HUGE THREAT the left wants everyone to think it is.  Certainly, a far greater threat to FREE SPEECH is the left ANTIFA and the left SOCIALISM and the left COMMUNISM.  FAR, far greater threat indeed, than the KKK.  But you will not be able to see that bec. your head is still stuck in Charlottesville.  What about the two blacks who massacred highway drivers?  What about the MUSLIM who killed many at Fort Hood?  What about the MUSLIMS in Orlando?  What about the MUSLIMS on 9/11?  What about the MUSLIMS in the Boston marathon massacre?  What about the numerous MUSLIM attacks on civilians in Europe… almost daily?  What about the MUSLIM attack on the draw Muhammad contest and the one in CAL?  Of course, I am aware of those attacks you listed.  BUT are you at all aware of the attacks I mention here?  If not, I would suggest that you read or watch NOT ONLY left-wing news.  Try this site.  It covers MUSLIM attacks and almost has one per day on its site:  https://vladtepesblog.com

Black hatred for whites is a daily phenomenon in the NY Times, Boston Globe, and WaPo.  It is being taught in the nation's universities.  The back cover of the latest issue of The AD features about 8 black haters of whites, one white hater of whites, and one Asian hater of whites.  If you are unaware of the WHITE PRIVILEGE crap being spewed by the left, then you might find the back cover revealing.  It is mind-boggling when millionaire blacks with voice bellow the white privilege crap to whites who are not millionaires and do not have voice.  

Your small list has NOT convinced me that MUSLIM supremacists are NOT more dangerous than white supremacists.  The influx of MUSLIMS into Europe has provoked a serious reduction in FREEDOM OF SPEECH.  Are you unaware of what is going on in Europe?  Are you unaware that MERKEL was once a member of the COMMUNIST STASI?  Are you unaware that in Britain one can actually be jailed for criticizing Muslims?  In America, we have been fortunate that the influx of immigrants has mostly been latino, not MUSLIM.  In Canada, however, the influx is tending towards MUSLIM... and resultant reduction of FREE SPEECH.  In fact, Quebec is trying to pass a secular law due to the influx of MUSLIMS.  My ONE FEAR as a cartoonist is to draw a cartoon critical of MUSLIMS, not of white nationalists or Trump.  That says a lot!  Are you unaware that MUSLIMS massacred the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo in France?

The problem is that the left-wing media, and I mentioned this and you failed to address it, has a tendency to WHITE-WASH terror acts when NOT committed by white nationalists.  In fact, one clear example of this was its reportage on the left-wing white guy who committed mass murder somewhat recently.  The guy hated Trump!  The left-wing media left that out.

Stamps II:  Well, first, I want to say that it is a pleasure to be arguing with you again.  Most people get angry when they argue politics (or when they get into any disagreements), but I don’t, at least not easily.  Thank you for respecting me enough to take the trouble to compose you thoughts in response to my thoughts; I am grateful.

With that said, let me get into my response.  I consider it progress that you went from saying – “Now, where is this ’white supremacist terrorism’ the left always bellows about?  I don’t see it anywhere…  I see plenty of white bad/black good stereotype bullshit spewed by leftists.  I see Antifa as totally INTOLERANT and resorting to violence.  I see plenty of black hatred for whites.  Etc., etc.” – to saying, “What I really should have said is that the left seems to think white nationalism is all over the country and far more prevalent than any other kind of nationalism, including black nationalism, chicano nationalism, and Islamist worldism.” – is a significant difference.  Going from “I don’t see it anywhere” to it being “far more prevalent” is going from saying it doesn’t exist to saying it does.  As I see it, George, progress has been made.  You have changed your mind.  Good for you!  Most people are stubborn and think it a loss to change one’s mind.  The fact, however, is that something is gained, a more accurate viewpoint.  Kudos!  

Now, I want to make it clear that I agree with you that much evil is perpetrated by non-whites, too.  But for you to say that it is “far more prevalent” is not statistically accurate according, at least, to the FBI, which claims: “Most domestic terrorism comes from white supremacists.”  So, if this is true, the “rude truth,” then it should be represented in The AD as well … if fairness and accuracy is important to its editor.

Slone:  So, progress is made only when I clarify and that clarification tends even just slightly towards your outlook?  Sounds like one-sided progress to me, which indicates NO PROGRESS on your side.  Alas.  And you do not address all the points I've made.

I'm not sure I have much faith in the FBI at all, especially when its tendency is towards PC-white-washing Islamists who kill in America.  The prime example of that is the Fort Hood Islamist!  With enhanced PC-white-washing under Obama, it has really become difficult to determine just how accurate FBI statistics are.  The same white-washing is widespread in Europe and Canada.  If a Muslim bellows his Akbar crap when cutting the throat of a Kuffar, the media will argue insanity and often NOT mention the Akbar statement.  Comment?  

Stamps II:  I didn’t know that you are apparently too sensitive to graciously concede when someone you are arguing with makes a poignant observation, correcting you.  To be specific, you wrote: “So, progress is only made when I clarify …”  Only?  I never said or even implied that.  In fact, the reason why I didn’t comment specifically on every instance you mentioned of “any other kind of nationalism, including black nationalism, Chicano nationalism, and Islamic worldism” is because I agreed with you.  My exact words were: “Now, I want to make it clear that I agree with you that much evil is perpetrated by non-whites, too.”  How is that making “one-sided progress, which indicates NO PROGRESS on your [my] side?”  I shouldn’t have to agree, or comment on, every statement you make when my blanket statement conceded that you were right concerning all the statements you made in that category.  You have a gift for words, and a distinctive (if often spastic) voice.  I enjoy reading your rants, but logic and focused argumentation is not your forte.  You get sidetracked easily, stating too much irrelevant data, as if your brain is going too fast to focus.  Nonetheless, overall, reading you is enjoyable (like being on a roller-coaster) and informative.     

As for the FBI stats, my point is to reiterate the hopefully obvious fact that any nationalism/terrorism/violence is to be condemned, not especially including, but also including, white supremacist evil.  Despite the statistics, any, ANY mass shooting massacres should be unambiguously condemned.  I want you to own up to that fact, and not mitigate it.  Print the whole truth!  If you don’t, you are lying by omission. 

Slone:  Come on, man.  Are you not joking?!  Your problem is that I corrected you many times and you will not respond to those corrections!  If you agreed with me, then simply say that you agreed with me.  Clearly, silence does not indicate agreement!  Shake it up!  

And so now I have a "spastic" voice.  Now, how about one example of my "spasticism"?  You have an odd tendency to praise, then terminate the praise with a caustic criticism, which eliminates the praise.  

"Rant" is of course a negative term.  And again YOU FAIL to include ONE, JUST ONE example of RANT.  To dismiss all of my writing as RANT is nothing short of lazy ad hominem.  In essence, if I write RANTS, then I am a ranter (ad hominem).  Try avoiding AD HOMINEM.  Try including cogent examples to back assertions in a cogent counter-argument.

Stamps II:  Speaking of when you are wrong, I would have to write a book length paper to provide all the evidence of my views on Abrupt Climate Change leading to Near Term Extinction.  YouTube the ecologist Guy McPherson if you want to be informed, or wait it out, George, because I don’t think any of us has long.  I wash my hands – except to AGREE with you about the Nuclear War threat.  In fact, when it gets too hot to grow food, and drinkable water becomes difficult to come by, there will be fighting over remaining resources.  Noam Chomsky thinks that the most likely threat of nuclear war is when the glaciers in the Himalayas melt, and Pakistan and India …

First, the phenomenon of climate disruption is not a religious belief.  As I understand it, religions are based on faith, and faith is a kind of trust in the holy without the requirement of empirical evidence.  I do not have faith in climate disruption; I have reason based on overwhelming evidence to trust the findings that climate disruption is a fact.  

Before I continue, a brief clarification is perhaps necessary on terminology.  “Climate change” and “global warming” and “climate disruption” are referring to the same thing.  I will use climate disruption for the remainder of this letter both to mitigate confusion and to stress the magnitude of the crisis humanity is facing concerning this predicament.

Now then, science has been challenged many times in history.  For example, evolutionary and heliocentric models have been doubted despite the powerful evidence that these phenomena are facts.  Ironically, religious people are usually the deniers – or skeptics, if you like – of these scientific facts.  I wonder what your positions on Darwin and Copernicus are given that you deny climate disruption.  Do you think the world is flat?  Do you think humans were designed rather than evolved?  To think that climate disruption is not happening is as illogical as thinking the earth does not revolve around the sun.  Galileo might have been forced to recant this fact upon the threat of death by the Catholic Church, but the fact remained the fact.  Climate change, likewise, is a fact.

As for Chomsky’s poignant and pertinent claim that the Republicans are the most dangerous organization in human history, it is apropos.  Furthermore, I think it is obvious based on the importance of the scientific facts that prove this observation.  Of course other organizations have been genocidal, as you pointed out, but none have threatened humanity with extinction.  To deny this existential danger with rhetoric claiming that climate disruption is propaganda is as ignorant (not stupid, which is an issue of I.Q., but a sad intellectual disconnect with accurate assessment of the facts) as denying that Darwin and Copernicus were right.

George, I know that what climate scientists are saying is frightening, and I know that many of them are getting paid to do their research, but to dismiss the solid evidence of their findings by declaring them charlatans is a weak argument.  For example, there are many easier ways to make money than by doing science.  The corporations responsible for the majority of the pollution thought to be contributing to climate disruption are making much more money – in fact, an obscene amount of money – than the scientist.

You concluded your last letter to me by saying that you are “not really that interested in weather predictions,” but, as Bob Dylan sang, “The battle outside raging will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls.”  If you care about freedom as much as you say you do, then you must care about climate disruption because it is a threat to human freedom unlike any other threat human freedom has ever faced.  Posterity is calling out to you, and it doesn’t take religious belief to hear them – or not hear the deafening silence!

Slone:  How can one possibly take the global warming political (not scientific) theory seriously when it’s leaders are mega-carbon-footprint Al Gore (DiCaprio) and the 16-year old child from Norway?  Insane!  Think about that!  I was in academe far too long to trust much at all coming out of it, including climate-change propaganda scientists, who know if they buck the politically-correct consensus, they will not get research money, tenure, and other perks.  Why do you think the Democrat Party has turned climate change into such a big part of its ideology?  Because it's somehow the Party of Truth?  Thanks to you I did come up with the term "propaganda," which is negative just like "denier."  

If I were to extrapolate from your model, then I'd have to argue that since 99% of the faculty in any of my old departments proclaimed they were doing a very good job, therefore they were doing a very good job.  BUT my experience dictates the contrary.  You keep citing people, well, how about Ibsen:  "The majority never has right on its side.  Never, I say!  That is one of these social lies against which an independent, intelligent man must wage war."

It is really impossible for me to agree with AOC or monster carbon footprint multimillionaire Al Gore that we'll all be dead if we do nothing in 12 years or whatever the propaganda they're pushing.  I don't expect to convince you, nor am I even trying to.  Climate change has become a religion as some have said.  Well, I don't believe in god or religions.  You do.  That's a difference between us.  

On conformity, I think as an individual, not as a groupthinker.  If some of my views are espoused by Republicans, so be it.  If some of them are espoused by Democrats, so be it.  Also, my personal experience outside does not at all indicate the world is coming to an end in 12 yrs... or 5 yrs like you stipulate.  Also, I vividly recall the huge population scare back in the 60s, where science again became politics and when that happens science inevitably becomes quite shady.  Now, suddenly, there aren't enough people.  Back then there were too many people!  Are you aware of that population scare?

Five years left is an absurdity!  We will be here and not much different from before.  NUCLEAR WAR is a far greater threat than some political climate change theory!  Volcanos, meteors, and the sun are a far greater threat to the planet than man-made CO2 emissions.  And a greater threat to Western Civilization and FREE SPEECH is mass Islamist immigration.

This makes no sense:  “As for global warming, we already went through that: you insisted on holding the view of the Republicans, not dissenting but conforming.”  I am simply NOT convinced that humans are the principle cause of global warming, if in fact the globe is really warming.  How the hell does that become conforming?  How the hell does being a global-warming orthodoxy skeptic become conforming?  Have you redefined the term conforming?  On the contrary, conforming would be a-men’ing to the leftist Al Gore global warming narrative.  You are the conformist, not I.  You do not address the great leftist hypocrisy of millionaire jet-setters proclaiming the end of the world.  We are far, far from the 12-year end of the world AOC inanity.  Greta is a child.  How much scientific background does that 16 year-old have?  Greta is like a god for you.  I am an atheist.  I do not blindly worship the goddess of global warming, Greta.  Period. 

Mine was NOT an accusation, regarding your omission to address points I made, but a simple statement of fact.  You tend again to use vocabulary in a diss-manner, which is NOT an accurate manner.  

BTW, I would publish this correspondence but it is too long.  Again, it would have been perhaps more cogent if we stuck to one point at a time, rather than all the points.  Anyhow...   

Stamps II:  I have been thinking about how I might address the climate change issue in a way that is not simply a reiteration of what others have already argued in the media.  Obviously, you haven’t been convinced by the IPCC, so I will try something different.  Imagine you are in Vegas at a roulette wheel, and instead of the usual configuration, the wheel had 90 present red slots and 10 present black slots.  Which color would you bet on?  Assuming the same amount of money would be paid out evenly, the best bet would obviously be red.  This is the same situation we laymen are faced with when we assess peer reviewed scientific research on climate change.  It is true that there is not 100 percent agreement, but we should make the best bet if we are to be good gamblers.  If the odds were reversed, and climate change skeptics dominated the scientific opinions, I would bet on them and not the climate change adherents.  It is not so much a political decision, I think, but a practical one.

Another way to look at the issue is to imagine a medical doctor diagnosing you with cancer.  She tells you that you have 6 to 8 months to live unless you get chemotherapy.  Since you hope she might be wrong, you seek out the opinions of 9 more doctors.  Eight of them agree with the original diagnosis of the first doctor, but one of them says you’ll recover soon and not die of cancer.  I think a sober person would consider the majority medical opinions the most reliable to trust.  Of course, you might deny the nine doctors, saying they have financial motives to diagnose you so harshly since you must buy expensive chemotherapy to try to save your life.  But denial won’t stop you from having cancer, or at least the likelihood that you have cancer.  What opinions would you bet your life on?  I hope these two metaphorical scenarios will cause you to rethink your skeptical viewpoint on climate change.  The odds are that climate change is both happening and caused, at least in part, by manmade activities.

Let me give a straight forward argument as well.  Instead of citing experts, I hope you will trust me that the argument I am about to make is based on verifiable scientific opinions.  We are now in the midst of the 6th mass extinction event that has occurred on the planet Earth, and it is estimated that 100 plus species are going extinct every day.  One extinction event was caused by a meteorite 25 million years ago, and the other four were caused by volcanoes.  Each of these extinction events were accompanied by large carbon and methane releases into the atmosphere.  If carbon and methane caused extinctions events in the past, it is likely that emitting these greenhouse gases into the atmosphere now by humankind are also the cause of the current ongoing mass extinction.

Now then, what I am going to say next will surprise you, and I hope will prove that my opinions on manmade climate change are not politically motivated.  I do not think we should stop emitting carbon dioxide because of what is known as the Aerosol Masking Effect (also called global dimming).  If I could magically stop all carbon emissions today, it would actually cause the earth to warm faster, accelerating the 6th mass extinction event, perhaps even causing humans to go extinct.  Basically, I think it is too late to save us via emissions reduction.  If I were elected world dictator, I would invest heavily in nonexistent technologies (though they are being worked on as of this writing) to both reduce greenhouse gases while simultaneously saturating the upper atmosphere with safe aerosol masking chemicals.  Somehow, we need to deflect the heat of the sun while significantly reducing or eliminating greenhouse gases.  I know this gobbledygook sounds like science fiction or wishful thinking, but if we don’t invent these technologies, and soon, we risk horrific population loss – maybe even human extinction – via famine and war.

Well, I hope this letter gives you something to think about.  But before I close, I want to answer two of the questions you asked me in your last letter.  Firstly, yes, I have researched the opinions of scientists who are skeptics of manmade global warming.  My overall conclusion – of their minority scientific opinions – is that they are mostly reasonable but not compelling.  Basically, as I stated earlier, listening to them is not a good bet.

As for what I think about Al Gore and his film An Inconvenient Truth is that it is old science that was far too conservative.  The prediction made by him proved to be wrong, not because these predictions were too drastic, but because they were not drastic enough.  Basically, climate change is not only something that will happen in the future, but it both has happened and is happening now.  That is what the book The End of Ice by Dahr Jamail points out at length.  I invite you to read it if you care to be informed about this topic. 

Slone:  Quite frankly, I don't give a damn when I am dead and the earth explodes or whatever you propose will occur.  

Stamps II:  I confess, it has been cooler than normal here in Riverside.  Plus, it has rained much this winter.  California has had a drought for so long that I have had trouble adjusting to the cold, rainy weather.  I don’t drive, so when it rains, I am reluctant to walk or even take the bus for fear that I will get soaked.  Of course, climate change and weather are not the same thing.  As I understand it, an analogy would be to consider the stock market trends compared to any single day’s loss or gain.  For example, there might be daily fluctuations up or down, but the overall trend is up.  I have a family full of conservative Republicans, and all of them relish when the weather is cold because they think that that is conclusive evidence that Global Warming, supposedly manmade or natural either way, is a hoax.

Anyway, George, I feel I owe you an apology.  I have been immersed in the last month or so in studying about climate change.  I have watched at least a hundred hours of YouTube videos, and I have read two books and several magazine articles on the subject.  I think it is the most important problem humanity has ever faced.  Consequently, I felt that if I could convince you to agree with me, that I would be making a positive difference, maybe even influencing you to write about the subject attacking or challenging the skeptical opinions of readers of The AD – and being a former skeptic yourself, such arguments for manmade climate change would be powerful.  Alas, when you stated the simple fact that you are not an expert, I got the message that I was transgressing by focusing selfishly on a topic that I am much more concerned about than you are.  And I must confess that I, too, am a bit fatalistic about life after I am dead.  The sentiment reminds me of the Sun King, Louis the 14th of France, who famously said, Après moi, le déluge (After me, the flood).  Honestly, I am ambivalent about posterity; nonetheless, as a writer, I have often dreamed of making history.  Basically, I try to care, but I understand simply not caring.

So, as I conclude this argument with you, I will briefly share a few final thoughts on the subject.  As I said, I have family who are rightwing Christian conservatives, and I am very familiar with how they think.  For example, they are extremely skeptical of the scientific evidence of both (1) climate change in general and (2) evolution.  Concerning evolution, they think it is a Satanic plot to discredit the truth of divine revelation as found in the Holy Bible.  They think evolutionary biologists are charlatans who are politically motivated, and not truth motivated.  Some of the so-called evidence I have encountered against evolution is (1) what is known as the young earth theory, and (2) the doctrine of irreducible complexity.  Briefly, the young earth theory claims that due to Noah’s Flood, any attempts at carbon dating are inaccurate because of water contamination; hence, the idea the Earth is 4.5 billion years old is false, including evidence of Ice Ages and the dinosaurs.  In fact, my father thinks that so-called dinosaur bones are probably cow bones falsely constructed to look like dinosaurs.  However, most “creation scientists” believe that the dinosaurs existed concurrently with humans.  So the legitimate science that claims the dinosaurs went extinct 25 million year ago, and that modern humans have only been around for 300 thousand year tops is completely false.  The doctrine of irreducible complexity basically says that things like eyes and DNA, etc., are too complex to have evolved, which means that they must have been designed.  They say it would be like a mousetrap putting itself together, or like assuming a wristwatch found on the beach somehow put itself together and did not have a watchmaker.  Reasonable, eh? 

As for climate change, manmade or otherwise, it is rejected because it conflicts with Biblical prophecy.  The idea that global warming might lead to it being too hot for food to grow, and possibly to human extinction, conflicts with the divinely inspired truth that Jesus Christ will return in glory.  How can humans go extinct if, after Armageddon occurs, Jesus Christ is going to rule on the Earth for 1000 years?  As you can see, George, I am very familiar with science denial, that is, science skeptics.

When you argue that climate scientists are politically and financially motivated to fudge their findings, it reminds me of rightwing religious skeptical viewpoints.  The fact is that there is as much solid scientific, empirical evidence of manmade climate change as there is for human evolution.  Yes, there are a small percentage of scientist who flatly deny that evolution is true, and people (science skeptics) with motivations to deny human evolutionary science cling to those minority scientists.  I admit that science skeptics have reasons to deny mainstream science, but their arguments, it seems to me, are much weaker that the strong science for both evolution and manmade climate change.

Well, George, this letter is a horrible way to apologize to you for instigating an argument that you do not want to have.  Consequently, I will give you the last word, if you wish, and I will conclude my argument with you as of this letter.  I must say that it has been fun to argue with you, and I am grateful for your time.

Slone:  I live in the present... because when I am dead the universe dies within me.  I am not really concerned about climate changing.  Why not?

Stamps II:  Let me continue the argument just a tad.  I stick by the words I wrote in my last email to you, which were:  “As for global warming, we already went through that: you insisted on holding the view of the Republicans, not dissenting but conforming.”  So let us closely examine what you wrote about this in your last email to me:  “I am simply NOT convinced that humans are the principle cause of global warming, if in fact the globe is really warming.  How the hell does that become conforming?  How the hell does being a global-warming orthodoxy skeptic become conforming?  Have you redefined the term conforming?”  After all, George, to dissent is to go against the majority opinion.  Right?  In my dictionary, it says dissent is “not agreeing.”  You agree with the President, and the majority of the Senate.  To be clear, you are conforming to their view exactly, and that is the “rude truth” as I see it.  But you said: “On the contrary, conforming would be a-men’ing to the leftist Al Gore global warming narrative.  You are the conformist, not I.”  If I were to agree with what you say I agree with, I would, indeed, be a conformist to the majority of liberals on this issue.  But that does not exclude that fact that you are conforming to a Republican view.  You think exactly – by your own admission – what they think, ergo, conformity.  It is a matter of simple logic.  

Then you wrote: “You do not address the great leftist hypocrisy of millionaire jet-setters proclaiming the end of the world.  We are far, far from the 12-year end of the world AOC inanity [How do you know this, by the way?  What is the evidence of your opinion?].  Greta is a child.  How much scientific background does that 16 year-old have?  Greta is like a god for you.  I am an atheist.  I do not blindly worship the goddess of global warming, Greta.  Period.”  The reason I did not address these issues is because they are irrelevant to the point I was trying to make.  Let me relay an anecdote I know about the philosopher Bertrand Russell.  He was being interviewed, and the interviewer said to him, and I paraphrase: “I cannot believe anything you tell me, because you are a dirty old man.”  Russell replied, “That may or may not be true, but the facts of what I am saying are not contingent upon my qualities as a person.”  I don’t care if Al Gore farts enough CO2 or methane to bring the planet down himself!  It would not hinder the truth or falsehood of what he claims one little bit.  The logic of what a person says is not dependent on a person’s behavior.  Another example: a doctor can tell you that smoking is bad for your health and be smoking a cigarette while he states his opinion.  The opinion is true, a scientific fact, despite his blowing smoke rings in your face.    

Despite what you think, I do not agree with the Green New Deal, A.O.C., Bernie Sanders, Greta Thunberg, or the IPCC.  Greta is not like a god for me; you are pulling that out of your ass.  I not only don’t think she is a god, but I don’t agree with her particular call to action, either.  I think something radically different to them all – and, of course, the views of you and the Republicans (who have identical views, alas).  I have been influenced by (and I said this in my last email to you) “the American dissident Guy McPherson, an ecologist who gave up tenure by leaving his job as professor at the U of Arizona because it became too difficult for him to teach without censure his dire view that, not only is global warming real and manmade, but that humanity has already gone too far to fix it, that is, our habitat.”  I DO NOT AGREE with Al Gore.  There is nothing that I think can be fixed, period.  In fact, I think that no matter what We, the People, do or not do now will stop Abrupt Climate Change leading to the inevitability of Near Term Extinction, that is, death for everyone, rich and poor, in 1 to 5 years tops, maybe 10 to 12 if there is a miracle.  I think something dire that goes against any popular opinions, conservative or liberal; I am an American dissident.  I also dare you to YouTube the ecologist Guy McPherson, my second favorite American dissident.  He says that we have a predicament, and not a problem because the Aerosol Masking Effect (or global diming) caused by greenhouse gases would actually be made worse, actually heating the planet faster, leading to Near Term Extinction, if we were to reduce emissions.  The gases act as little umbrellas that, in addition to keeping heat in the atmosphere, also repel heat back into space.  He has much scientific data to back up his assertions.  The only thing missing in what he calls “Abrupt Climate Change” – that most people cannot live without, including academics who are too conservative – is hope.  Heck, I think you would like him and his ideas.  He is speaking the “rude truth” like few others have the courage to do.  Greta is too late.

Anyway, as for your challenge to offer evidence of climate change, I have selected a few passages from The End of Ice by Dahr Jamail that I advised you to read.  Here goes: “In 1850, the park [Montana’s Glacier National Park] … contained 150 glaciers, covering around 100 square kilometers [said Dr. Dan Fagre, research ecologist].  Today, only between 14 and 15 square kilometers of ice coverage remain, an 85 percent loss, and instead of 150, there are now only 26 glaciers.  Even this amount of ice loss is a conservative estimate, as measuring area doesn’t account for thinning.”  This is happening to all glaciers worldwide, especially – and most disturbingly – in the arctic which has frozen methane stored that will likely be released soon, greatly exacerbating the problem.  “I [Jamail] read a scientific prediction that all of the glaciers in the park [Glacier National Park] will be gone by 2010.”  There is also evidence of substantial loss from the world’s coral and forests, which the book enumerates.

Of course, it is still possible to be a skeptic about manmade causes.  For example, the simple fact that correlation does not always equal causation can be evoked, and other causes may be either contributing or predominantly causing the phenomenon of climate disruption.  The sun, for example, may be responsible.  However, the fact that climate disruption is happening is undeniable based on overwhelming evidence.

Realistically, George, I do not think humankind is going to do anything about this either way.  Soon, maybe in 2 to 5 years, it will be too hot to grow enough food to feed 7.5 billion people.  I think there are going to be wars over resources.  Basically, it is going to get hellish.  If you still don’t believe me, spend a day or two watching YouTube videos of interviews by Dahr Jamail, Guy McPherson, and David Wallace-Wells.  All three of these people are experts and have up to date info about the situation.