Re: Dave Keeling: Global warming expert shares 50 years of research

From: Ian St. John (istjohn_at_noemail.ca)
Date: 08/27/04 

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 12:46:49 -0400

SwimJim wrote:
> "Ian St. John" <istjohn@noemail.ca> wrote in message
<snip>
>> Or an exercise is real leadership. Nobody was clamoring to reach the
>> moon in 196x. The leadership (JFK) MADE it an issue and got the
>> backing of the public. Similarly leadership is supposed to be the
>> game in politics. Long time since that happened.
>
> The leadership aspect of the race to the moon was the fact that we had
> to prove the intellectual and technological superiority of the West
> over the Communist East. The backing of the public was available
> because of fear of the Russian bear and table-banging Nikita
> Khruschchev. The results were quite good for science and technology,
> but those were not the main reasons we went, nor were they the reasons
> JFK made the call to go.

The point is not that there were reasons to do it but that the leadership
made the difference. In todays political landscape, they would first read
polls to see how many people are concerned with beating the Bear and with
going to the moon and then see if they can use this to justify the expense.
Of course, it would fail that test. They would then decide to invade Iraq,
which has been calling them pussies, put together the jusification based on
selecting for faulty 'intelligence' data for unreliable sources, and ignore
the public clamor against it. This is the failure of 'leadership' that
prevails today. Highly reminiscent of a spoiled child doing whatever it
wants.

But thanks. You are reminding me that most people today cannot even
*recognise* or understand true leadership. It does not mean forcing people
to do what they do not want, but focussing the discussion, reasoning and
getting others to WANT to do what the leader has determined to be the right
course so that all are together working towards that end. i.e. developing a
'unity of purpose', not forcing people to support a wrong action by
'loyalty' and 'patriotism' Those are the tools of Fascists, not Democracies
or even Republics.