Wednesday, January 28, 2004

You liberal hippie tree hugger

Why is that a bad thing? I really don't see the insult in being an environmentalist. Or as my dear right-of-Rush brother (may he rest in peace) always said, damnedenvironmentalist, as though it were one word. How did environmentalism come to be equated with a deranged cultism? Oh, let me guess - demonized by the Man of God of Man, along with all things in nature, to wrest the minds of men from the laws of nature and put them to work for the laws of man.

Mark Morford:

Bush is the worst environmental president in the nation's history. Period. The proofs are irrefutable, and the list of his administration's sinister assaults on the pale blue dot we all call home is painful and tragic and punishable in the afterlife by seven billion years of listening to Lynne Cheney being scraped across a chalkboard.

...This is what has happened: The GOP has succeeded, woefully, viciously, in demonizing nature. Right now, to love our unlogged forests or to wish air quality to be protected or to hope our leaders don't allow monster crony oil companies to jam their snarling proboscises into our country's nature preserves for a handful of crude is now to be thought of as a dreadlocked Greenpeace-Earth First!-tofu lover.

It's true. You cannot think solar power is cool without being labeled a hippie. You cannot want the U.S. Navy to knock it off with the goddamn high-powered sonar that damages whales without being cast as some sort of New Age freak. You cannot drive a Prius without being deemed some sort of nutball geek who probably feeds your kids only hemp seeds and homemade sproutburgers with a side of fresh mulch.

...So duped is the nation that to even hint that you care deeply about safe drinking water for kids or the direct connection between toxic big agribiz and the increased rates of heart disease and cancer in this nation is tantamount to spitting on the flag.

...No natural resource has been left unmolested: From forest management to air quality to water pollution to emissions standards to land management to industrial farming to reduced controls on heavy polluters to global warming to nuclear waste to our energy policy, BushCo has made atrociously efficient progress in decimating, in just three short years, 30 years of staunch environmental protections.

Dubya, by way of his industry cronies, have initiating more than 200 major rollbacks of America's most significant environmental laws. Hey, it's nothing new: As governor of Texas, Bush made his state No. 1 in thick smudgy black air and water pollution that makes babies gag and eyes water and cancer cells flourish. He had the ugliest enviro record of any governor in the state's history.

...During Dubya's State of the Union speech, the environment received not a single mention. According to Environment2004, not since Bush Sr.'s 1992 State of the Union address has a president failed to acknowledge that a healthy environment is essential to the survival of our species. Dubya did, however, scowl at steroid use by athletes. Now, there's a pressing issue.

...Here's how successful the GOP's antienvironment brainwashing has been: With the exception of Dennis Kucinich, not one of the major Demo presidential candidates has truly focused on environmental issues in the debates or in their campaign speeches, for fear of being labeled "too liberal."

...This, then, is the ultimate BushCo credo: No sanctity. No reverence for that which is larger and more ancient and more divine. No concern for that which provides beauty and nourishment and sustenance. Mother Nature is not a source of life and inspiration and vital health -- she's just a lowly wench who needs to be put in her place.

And this, then, is the only possible response: If there was any better time in American history to proudly announce yourself as an environmentalist, this is it. It really doesn't matter where you stand on other issues. Because when that beautiful bitch Mother Nature really begins to strike back, nothing else will matter.

  article

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

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