CLIMATE CHANGE, by Freebo – special to the GUIDE

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Award-winning musician FREEBO wrote an essay on climate change that’s worth a read, and we present it as a guest editorial in the Guide. It’s entertaining and thoughtful, and takes it to the “deniers” of right-wing media.
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Freebo has gone from high profile bass player (Bonnie Raitt, John Mayall, CSN, Maria Muldaur, Ringo Starr) to award winning singer-songwriter ('07 L.A. Music Awards “Best Folk Artist,” ’08 Posi Award “Most Uniting Song,” ’07 South Florida Songwriting Contest). Now firmly in the folk/acoustic world, he tours nationally as a solo artist with his acoustic guitar. His songs of life, love, politics, and dogs span many styles, and his soulful earnestness creates intimacy with his audience.
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Freebo, from the road, wrote on Sunday, February 14, 2010 –
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“The Atlanta show was unfortunately snowed out...several inches making Atlanta drivers unable to cope with the highways! I have compassion for those of you in the Northeast with record snows still digging out.
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“Which brings me to make an observation and a statement about GLOBAL WARMING....or CLIMATE CHANGE!
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“I find it fascinating...and frustrating...to hear the Conservative Pundits point to record snowfall as proof that there's no global warming. "How could there possibly be global waming with all this snowfall and cold....ridiculous!"
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“Of course they make it a point to specifically call it GLOBAL WARMING, never using the phrase CLIMATE CHANGE. An overwhelming percentage of scientists agree and reliable statistics confirm that the earth is indeed becoming warmer, that the icecaps are melting, and that this warming trend is in fact causing bizarre weather patterns. So it's certainly not a stretch for any half-intelligent human being to come to the conclusion that there is a connection between the two - UNLESS YOU SIMPLY REFUSE TO MAKE THAT CONNECTION.
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“Listening to so much local radio as I make this drive across the Good Ol' USA (for the umpteenth time!), I find myself innundated with Right Wing Talking Heads... Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and many more... as they continue to push their radical agenda... yes, RADICAL.
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“I believe for these folks, it's deeply personal, not in a way to make the world better for humankind, but to make it better for themselves and their immediate friends. For them, it's really all about money and power, both the same really.
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“To make themselves right, they constantly strive to make others wrong. The facts are bent to fit the agenda, and the agenda becomes exactly the opposite of what their ‘enemies’ believe. Because SEPARATION is key – ‘divide and conquer,’ an age-old strategy.
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“It is a war to them, a big game, where there are only winners and losers. To be wrong is to be a loser, and losing is intolerable, devasting, and annihilating. Their fragile egos cannot take it. They'd feel personally destroyed.
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“So to avoid this awful feeling of being ‘less than,’ they constantly strive to be ‘better than.’ And what better way to do that than to put somebody else down, to make the other person wrong, to attack constantly, pre-emptively... it is war, after all.
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“If you once spouted and loudly shouted to the world that global warming doesn't exist, you can't go back on that. You'd be admitting that you were wrong, and being wrong is losing, and losing is intolerable. So they continue to insist they're right, even if the facts don't support that. But facts can be cherry-picked, so cherry-picked they are. ‘Look at all this snow (show snowman in TV news picture)....no global warming here! Al Gore is wrong, see, his whole movie is a Left Wing piece of propaganda...I told you so.....I WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG!’
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“That's the beast that has emerged in the past 20 years, it's self serving, it's everywhere, and it's destroying the country. The truth has become a casualty of personal greed. The ego has triumphed. The other side, unfortunately, in its attempt to counter the falsehoods, engages in a similar energetic, and the escalation continues.
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“To me it's very sad, to watch our beautiful planet cry out for help, and to have the powerful few ignore our ‘Mother’s’ pleas, because to do so might take something from them - money, power, everything they've been able to accumulate.
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“But mostly it's a sense of self that they never really had, a sense of self that had to be created on the "outside" with material gain, all feeding the ego. ‘INNER WORK - what's that? Hey, I'm fine....just look at me, I'm really successful!’
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“Yes you are, Rush. Yes you are, Glenn. Yes you are, Sean.You're all really successful on the outside. But in my book, you are all losers. Because you're not team players, you're selfish, you're greedy, and when it comes to Global Warming, or shall I say Climate Change - YOU'RE WRONG!”
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“Peace, FREEBO”
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You may have noted Freebo’s use of the word, “separation” in his essay. Freebo’s CD, “Before the Separation,” has received fine critical acclaim:
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Nashville Shake Magazine says “[it] deftly transports the listener into the eye of a hurricane to quietly observe, while Freebo calmly describes the spiritual storm that rages on all sides.”
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While The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Nick Cristiano wrote, “‘Before the Separation’ flows with a compassionate spirit rooted in '60s ideals, but packing a gently urgent relevancy.”
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You can reach Freebo at freebo@freebomusic.com
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