Re: [ENTS] Re: A little story That said in recent years things have always been much worse for land preservation, forests, etc. when Republicans have had control. They are all (dems, repubs, even many independents) beholden to special interests, but the Republicans SI's tend to be much more the sort on average to make a mess of the natural world. I really think Ralph Nader was quite wrong when he said it wouldn't make any difference at all whether it will be Gore or Bush or who controls Congress, etc. although he did have a general point that had truth to it.
The 'liberal press' gave a good deal of coverage (well actually pretty much the press as a whole tends to give these sorts of issues very little coverage, so this is relatively speaking and forget the nightly news be it CBS or FOX or whoever) to the stuff that Clinton didn't care enough about to 'waste' political capital on. I know a great many northern easterners who were relatively disenchanted with him when it came to forest issues. That said it is very misleading to make it appear as if though the Republicans and Bush were no worse or maybe even better than Clinton and the Democrats. Let us not forget who it was who wrote all those salvage riders and such and not forget that some critical bit of funding that pretty much everyone supported would be attached to all the forest destruction bills.... by who? Now Clinton didn't have the deep love for forests in his heart enough to bother standing up and getting into huge fights and was afraid of turning down bills loaded with lots of other important stuff for fear of being labeled as caring more for trees than the country, etc. etc. and even despite the pressure and difficulty standing up against such things he was a little wimpy about it all at times no doubt and yes many on the coasts even liberals even democrats were fairly disappointed but at least he was at the level of not bothering to fight too much rather than actively trying every last thing in his power to get such things carried out and at least when it was safe for him to do so he did create the roadless rule! Let's be real, there is no way Bush would ever have used his executive privilege from the antiquities act to enact something like the roadless area protection even in his last weeks. In fact, he was doing his hardest to scuttle as much forest protection as he possibly could right up to the very last day. In particular, from what I've read, he developed a real chip on his shoulder against environmentalists apparently dating back to his times at Yale and was said to relish doing things that would upset them, no matter the cost. >From everything I have seen it is terribly hard to imagine voting Republican >above the county level or so if your sole issue of focus was forest >preservation (although there are notable exceptions, Governor Pataki of NY had >been quite good as far as I could see and I trusted him in terms of forest >protection more than many Democrats and although I haven't really looked in >much detail The Governator appears to be pretty decent when it comes to >environmental issues), not that the Democrats have been terribly great much of >the time but they have been poor (although FOX news and Limbaugh and all might >have you believe they are all extreme radical tree-hugger raging dangerous >anti-USA eco-terrorists or something) but poor is better than god awful beyond >belief. Also there is extreme political pressure to vote along party lines and >the Republicans are particularly prone to whip those out of line back into >shape or kill their positional advancement so many times you'll have >Republican senators or members of the house vote against some preservation act >not because they even believe in it but because they don't care enough to not >risk getting in trouble and if the bad part of the bill is tucked into >something largely useful then between that and pressure to tow party line you >can forget it. On the local town level I have found party affiliation to have >ziltch to do with how a candidate feels towards local land preservation vs. >development in NJ, it might vary in other states, I imagine a few where it >might be another story. I guarantee you if the Democrats had controlled congress and Gore had been president from 1992-2000 there would be a heck of a lot more acreage of old-growth forest left. As for the media they do stink at covering environmental issues even the most so-called liberal coverage actually barely covers much other than global warming despite all the cries by the right. In fact, these days in many cases global warming seems to be consider the sole environmental issue and someone can be proclaimed and environmental champion so long as they say something about global warming even if they are for dumping dioxin into school milk or clear-cutting all state parks containing old-growth.... anyway, I better not get sucked into this thread.... On Dec 22, 2009, at 9:31, Paul Jost <[email protected] <http://us.mc562..mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]> > wrote: Come on, open your mind. CNN and MSNBC are horrible reporters, as horribly liberal slanted as Fox is horribly conservative slanted. Excluding the shock shows, Fox tends to more accurately report both sides while still slanting conservative while the others put in only token efforts to report the conservative viewpoints. None of the national press sources are even close to being balanced. Both state many truths mixed with omissions and distortions. If you believe otherwise, than you only accept lies that support your view point, which is not necessarily a good thing, but maybe to you it is. The truth is that the press on both sides has an agenda and slants their reporting accordingly. Both parties have good points and bad points on their platforms. Neither is the right choice. Unfortunately, the other choices aren't realistic winners any time soon. This is why many midwesterners tend to be middle of the roaders, handpicking moderate candidates that lean their way. For some reason, the more urban coast dwellers feel the need to be more polarized and are condescending to eachother regarding their viewpoints, both arrogantly asserting their correctness over the other. Admit it. There is not perfect party, and at different levels, local, state, national, the right choice is not always from the same party. ...and with the level of corruption that increases at the higher levels, I'd argue that most of the time, there is no right choice. We have all heard many examples of anti-environmental policy by conservatives, but the liberals are guilty of similar practices at times, too. Here is one example that comes to mind, out of many. Hopefully, all my recollections are accurate. Many liberals champion Clinton's environmental policy, while many at regional and state levels that were affected by his poorer environmental policies, chastised him. There was a western old growth preservationist group called something like Environmentalists Against Clinton, or something like that. There were others like the Siskiyou Regional Education Project. Easterners never heard about them. The liberal national press didn't give them or their issues any coverage. They were angered by Clinton's signing of legislation with the Salvage Rider which re-enabled logging of forests that had only months earlier been protected, or assumed to be protected by the nationally publicized spotted owl protection effort. Once things quieted down, he reopened logging under another name. The roadless area protection that Clinton is credited with was passes as an executive order during his last days as president so that he wouldn't have to deal with it's negative political impacts against rich lobbyists until after the election. At least through the end of Bush's first term, more old growth forest was logged during the Clinton years. With what was reported at the time, you would think that in Bush's first term, he would have surpassed the Clinton era's logging of old growth forests in the west. A quick internet search came up with this text from that time: http://www.fireecology.org/research/post_rider_salvage.htm <http://www.fireecology.org/research/post_rider_salvage.htm> There is NO right party. Both of them really stink!!! Stop the superiority complex attitudes and open your minds a little.. Geez! Given the lessons of the past, and all the rhetoric coming from the current administration, I won't believe that Obama is any better until he accomplishes something significant without continuing to ruin our economy. (Yes, continuing down the path of economic self-distruction of ALL the recent past presidents during my lifetime.) Paul J. -- Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected]
