Posted on 09/14/2019 11:19:36 AM PDT by Capt. Tom
In Cape Cod, right-wing demagogues are using the politics of fear to demand a mass cull of sharks and seals. ..snip.. It turned out that the aftermath also fit the pattern of 9/11, demonstrating once again how statistically low-risk but viscerally alarming threats – especially when those threats come from perceived foreign elements or new arrivals – are ripe for demagoguery. Two days after Medici’s death, Howie Carr, a talk-radio host in nearby Boston, took time out from railing against the “Mueller witch-hunt” to warn of “the growing menace” on Cape Cod, being abetted by “environmental extremists.” a Cape radio host, Patrick Desmarais, could veer between his circumspect attitude to gun control in the wake of massacres in Texas and Ohio, and his unshakeable certainty on the shark question. “I’m a cull-the-seals-and-sharks guy,” he told his listeners. .snip..
The guest on both shows was County Commissioner Ronald Beaty Jr., a right-wing Republican who rode Donald Trump’s coat-tails into office in traditionally liberal Cape Cod, despite having once served federal prison time for mailing death-threats to George H.W. Bush. ..snip..
Meanwhile, the group is united in their view of “the environmental extremists,” whom they perceive to be pushing a “pro-shark agenda” behind closed doors, loyal only to their research and fundraising. Their anger focuses on the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, a local non-profit taking advantage of the unprecedented opportunities to observe and tag sharks in shallow water. The Conservancy’s public safety message, often blithely delivered, is that responsible humans have no choice but to surrender the habitat, to what Kartsounis called “a Jurassic state.” ..snip..
Trump himself, according to his own tweets and the testimony of Stormy Daniels, also seems to have long harboured an intense personal animosity towards sharks.
(Excerpt) Read more at newstatesman.com ...
(Sharks Sell!)
The law of unintended consequences.
And as I like to say:
"Today's solution is tomorrow's problem".- Tom
Excerpt CapeCodOnline:
WOODS HOLE – State shark expert Dr. Greg Skomal will be the next featured speaker in the Marine Biological Laboratory’s Falmouth Forum series.
The senior biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries will discuss his research on great white shark behavior on Friday, October 4 at 7:30 p.m. in the MBL’s Lillie Auditorium in Woods Hole.
Since it was only a segment , 60 MINUTES did a decent job of informing the public about the white shark situation in Mass. and along the East Coast. Tom--
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