The Dinosaur Principle

The Dinosaur Principle
By David Glenn Cox


Under the dinosaur principle the bigger the animal gets the dumber the animal gets; eons of success makes them content. Yet any slight change to their environment or their food source and suddenly these thundering behemoths find themselves helpless and lost. Their great size protected them and granted them immunity from attack; the overabundance of food made them lazy and hesitant to survey the landscape or to find out what was just over the next hill. Right here is fine.

All through the roaring 20’s, while Henry Ford was building his empire, with his Model T that had revolutionized the automotive world and held a 50% market share. Half of all the automobiles on planet Earth carried the Ford name, and despite the pleadings by family and company executives Ford was loathe to make any changes in his model T. Only when Chevrolet had matched Ford's sales would he begin listen to reason. The Chevy model offered an electric starter and was available in a variety of colors, for just $50.00 dollars more.

Ford’s success had prompted him to dig in his heels and resist change; change was the enemy to be turned away from the gates. Change however will not storm the ramparts but lay siege to the future, leaving all who resist to waste away. Ford had learned his lesson in the nick of time and began work on a new project. What he anticipated would be another quantum leap in automobile engineering, the Model A. He would take the highly coveted V-8 engine, then only available in pricey luxury cars, and put them in a car for everyman. The buzz for the new car was great; celebrities put their names on waiting lists for the car and it quickly sold a million units.

Ford’s model A was called one of the greatest comebacks in the 20th century, but there was a problem. Ford and his engineers had delivered a good product but the numbers of those who could afford it were falling. Ford was an engineer not an economist; his River Rouge plant in Dearborn was the largest manufacturing facility in the world and would soon be locked and shuttered. The political landscape was staggered by those who resisted change, who resisted acknowledging the size and scope of the problem.

They saw any admission of the problem as the accepting of the blame. How could a good capitalist explain the failure of capitalism without accepting some of the blame? Henry Ford’s answer was to blame the character of the American worker; Herbert Hoover’s answer was to trust in God because it’s really not all that bad. Hoover was against any federal money for direct relief because he feared it would make workers lazy and indolent. Even going so far as to deny that children were starving in America, in Hoover’s day there was no air guitar to play! The thought was there though; Hoover played with a medicine ball on the White House lawn and then had cabinet breakfasts served with fresh fruit and juices, so you see, it really wasn’t that bad.

The dinosaurs lolled lazily, and as long as their own food supply was sufficient, there was no problem. Eventually even they caught on and began to propose, as solutions, the same programs that caused the problems in the first place. Federal loans to industry didn’t solve the problem of rebuilding consumers; the dinosaurs had overwhelmed themselves. Hoover’s famous line that “prosperity is just around the corner” should never be forgotten. It speaks volumes to the character of all those who tell the drowning and hungry to just wait a while.

The experience is replayed over and over again, Katrina, the mortgage mess and the falling income of Americans. Just wait! Let’s just do more of the same! Let’s let the market forces work! They insist we need more free trade yet free trade is what got us into the mess. Incapable of any thought that doesn’t put coins into the pockets of those already overburdened with wealth, they proclaim: let’s make the Bush tax cuts permanent! "Gee, why not?" is the sarcastic answer, they’ve worked so well up till now! They maintain that putting the tax rates back where they once were when our economy was relatively successful would be ruinous.

They stand with pike and sword at the gates ready to defend all that they hold sacred, oblivious to the change that is going on all around them. For more than thirty years they have pooh-poohed energy conservation and higher CAFÉ standards. Even repealing the standards, their only answer is drill for more oil. Like Ray Milland in "The Lost Weekend," their answer is to look for that lost bottle of whiskey and ignore the true nature of the problem. John McCain, the new Ray Milland, offers up a grab bag of bad ideas already tried and failed. He then calls out all of those who oppose it as a “policy of inaction.” He warns us of terrorists attacking oil pipelines, then in the next breath proposes building 100 new nuclear power plants!

When the Hindenburg blew up in Lakehurst, New Jersey, it signaled the end of dirigibles for public transportation. The public no longer wanted to travel on them; they were viewed as unsafe. Transatlantic travel didn’t end, better ways of achieving it were found. After the Three Mile Island accident and Chernobyl the public no longer trusted nuclear energy as safe. The dinosaurs maintain, “Oh, it's better now. We’ve fixed all the problems of the past!” If I rebuilt the Hindenburg with the same arguments yet still filled it with hydrogen, how many seats would you want? Smoking or non-smoking? It’s the system, it’s the fuel, and like the Hindenburg you must take the leap of faith that no one in the next 10,000 years will ever strike a spark or make a mistake.

McCain offers up a 300 million dollar prize for the company that most improves battery development, the same cost as decommissioning one nuclear power plant. We did not reach for the moon by offering cash prizes or by building coal-powered space ships; this is no more then opening the gates of hell for the American public and tossing Tom Edison a nickel if he invents the electric light bulb. A transvestite program of debauchery dressed as the girl next door, rebuilding the Model T while waiting for the Zeppelin to approach the mooring mast. Also in the program is a $5,000 tax credit for buying zero emission vehicles. There’s a good plan for you, you fix it!

Oblivious to the fact that Americans aren’t buying new cars, for the most part, because they can’t afford to buy new cars, Ford, GM and Chrysler are all offering incentives to encourage customers to take these behemoths off their lots, cars that get no better mileage than Henry’s Ford’s Model A. The dinosaurs are shutting down plants and switching to more fuel-efficient models. You have to ask yourself, what were they thinking? How could huge, multinational companies not see what was coming? How could they not prepare for the meteor strike? Like John McCain, it's dinosaur thinking!

It's ironic that McCain should name his new energy program Lexington, after a Revolutionary War battle that American patriots lost. A battle that was followed by a more famous retreat. That is what McCain offers to us, a vision of the past. Hoover economics, Bush tax policy, Teddy Roosevelt charging up San Juan Hill in Baghdad with more gunboat diplomacy and the belief that the corporation is always right. The dinosaurs lift their heads, staring unconcerned at the glowing light in the sky. It doesn’t concern them. They continue on with plans for nuclear-powered Zeppelins, willing to try anything, that doesn’t involve any real change.

And birds are the dinosaurs that adapted, changed and thrived!