Skinny and bespectacled John Oliver's appearances on the Daily Show are one of my favorite barometers of the prevailing winds of the "unspoken"--that which is lurking on the edge of the cultural dialogue and which are about to emerge into becoming mainstream talking points. Oliver typically speaks his truth while at his most frantic. Last night (Monday Feb. 5) while standing in front of a green screen of the Eiffel Tower, Oliver fell into one of his patented guiltfests, in this case about his own energy usage. He thus pointed the way towards a topic that may be about to sweep through the national dialogue: "What are you doing to be a more responsible consumer of energy?"
For those of us who lived through the Carter years---who saw how energy conservation came to be, after Reagan's election, immediately the most unsexy topic possible---the resurrection of this issue is likely to a shocking alternate-reality deja vu. Get ready to be disoriented by the turnaround.
Why now? Stewart's clips give us the answer: Bush is in trouble and he is finally caving on the whole conservation issue. It is an issue he understands, and can give ground on, partly as a rear guard action to stall any legislation on global warming and carbon dioxide emissions.
Also the theme of "responsiblity through consumer choice" theme deflects blame away from Bush's friends and corporate supporters, who have made untold fortunes pushing subsidized oil on American consumers, and are now on the verge of selling them out just as production from many of the world's largest oil fields is peaking and declining.
O.K., I'm being cynical, but almost every cynical opinion about Bush turns out to be true.
Moreover, from a conservative standpoint, it will be extremely easy to suddenly identify all manner of "liberal hypocrisy" on energy usage. Every conservative radio host and blogger may turn into a "witchfinder general" when it comes to the burning of fossil fuels by prominent Democrats and liberals. Of course some like Matt Drudge have been doing this all along, but it is likely to be of much larger scale, now that the Right Wing feels safe to embrace the conservation meme.
The Left should not be surprised by this, since the Right eventually attempts to steal every issue from liberals, and to turn it back as a weapon on the Left.
Of course, usage of fossil fuels by conservatives will not count in the Right Wing punditry calculus. The subtext is always the same: liberals engage in exactly the same self-centered behavioral patterns as conservatives, but whereas liberals condemn others for these behaviors, conservatives make no judgements, and are therefore more honest and trustworthy, and more in touch with the people. Thus their very greed and gluttony are held as virtues which serve as proof that they deserve to hold power.
Of course this is yet another conservative lie, but one which liberals need to be able to identify and counter at every turn, even as they scramble to emulate Oliver's shamanastic ritual in justifying their rate of kilowatt-hour consumption.
comment: I went looking for the clip online of Oliver's Eiffel Tower segment online but it was not on Comedy Central's site yet. If anyone has it, I'd be delighted if you included a link in a comment. Thanks in advance.