that's been the plan all along. "let's start over", "form a commission", "open a dialogue so all sides can be heard." delay, confuse, obfuscate, sow confusion and generate opposition and in the meantime, nothing happens and things stay the same. how convenient. does any of this sound familiar?

once you decide to simply ignore the advice of the experts and decide the issue politically, it becomes a question of two competing conspiracy theories:

1) there is a cabal of government apparatchiks systematically perverting the entire scientific, academic, journalistic and intellectual communities in order to create a socialist bureaucracy with no other aim but to loot the private sector.

or

2) the policy decisions necessary to regulate or solve the problem will reduce corporate profits and those that profit will stop at nothing to put a stop to it.

it's that simple. and it's not like it hasn't happened before; with medical care, with energy, with tobacco, with welfare, with minimum wage, with civil rights, with social security, with safety and health regs, consumer rights and protection, anti-trust legislation; with every single policy change that puts the public welfare over corporate profit--even slavery. it's always the same argument: the world will come to an end and our freedoms will be taken away if they don't get their way.