america's elite excoriate 'green' in their backyard

Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics and the Battle for Our Energy Future …By Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb, Public Affairs Books …Posted on June 8, 2007, Printed on June 11, 2007 …http://www.alternet.org/story/53210/ … Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb's new book, "Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound" (Public Affairs, 2007)….EXERPTED

David McCullough's face contorted with anger. "It's outrageous!" he yelled. He sounded like anyone but the mellow, well-measured man of letters who narrated tales of American history on national television. Indeed, the popular author sounded quite overwrought. Nantucket Sound, he shouted, is "hallowed ground." This time, however, he was sounding his own battle cry, crowing his promotion to general in the seaside civil war, a war that had become an internationally watched conflict over the future of energy and of America's air, coasts and oceans.
Rarely, however, did McCullough appear at public meetings about the wind farm. Indeed, like so many of the beautiful people engineering the public show of fury over Cape Wind, the television star and author preferred controlled, closed-door situations. Tonight, though, after refusing a request for a formal interview, he sputtered on. "This is visual pollution," he complained. He was unable to stop talking. As he and his entourage departed the building, the sentences trailed after him, like leaves blowing in a high wind.
Already drowning in money, the southern shoreline, now made famous by the Kennedy family, was swamped by a storm-surge of development. Today, much of Cape Cod is a highly commercial, Disneyesque version of what was once a very lovely seaside area. Along the south shore and on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, colonies of the rich and the hyper-rich flourish as never before -- not just multimillion-dollar folk but really rich people such as Jack Welch, once leader of General Electric; Paul Fireman of Reebok; Douglas Yearley, longtime chairman of Phelps Dodge mining and board member of Marathon Oil Corp.; and William Koch, inheritor of money from Koch Industries, a massive, privately held energy company heavily into fossil fuels. Like Fidelity's Abigail Johnson, ranked America's 12th richest person in 2005 by Forbes magazine, some represent financial money. Some, like Koch, come from purely industrial wealth. Many, like the Mellons and the DuPonts and the Kennedys, have been there for decades.

America’s elite excoriate “green” in their backyard…?

Yet another classic example of America’s elite – corporate – political – motion picture – communication – decrying placing “green” enterprises in their backyard.

These excoriations include: the Kennedy family clan, Jack Welch of GE, Paul Freeman of Reebok, Douglas Yearley of Phelps Dodge, William Koch of Koch Industries big into fossil fuel, as well as the Mellons, and the DuPonts.

It’s OK for these folks to “blow” hot air, but it is not OK for “mother-nature” to produce energy from the hot air they produce.

As so eloquently demonstrated by America’s elite …. “stupidity combined with arrogance and a huge ego will get you a long way.” … Chris Lowe