Letters to the Editor
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dimwitted jackasses
how stupid is karl pope? what possible good does it do for the environmental movement (for which I worked, for the sierra club in particular) to provide cover for so-called moderate republicans?
kos---who I often find shrill---is right about this: this is a tactical question. chafee is GOP. the GOP on balance is entirely hostile to greens---just check out congress's voting record on cafe standards, etc., etc.. as long as the GOP controls congress, it will determine what bills do and don't see the light of day, meaning nothing but regressive environmental legislation. pimping for chafee helps the GOP maintain its control of the senate, and ergo, dooms any good environmental bills. didn't pope take a civics class in high school?
here's a radical thought. if the sierra club weasels are so paralytic w/ fear at being cast as partisan, maybe they should have stayed out of endorsement-land.
it's really disappointing when even environmental groups feel the need to show slobbering fealty to being "balanced." screw balance, you either play to win or you shouldn't play at all.
pope, if these are the fruits of your leadership, it's time to call the game and head home.
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It's simple, really
You don't have to get all uppity about party philosophies and things like that. But given the "Clear Skies" initiative, an atheist position on Global Warming, very oil-industry-centric views on everything, if you're an environmentalist, endorsing any Republican makes absolutely zero sense. I don't know how to explain this to Mr. Pope or Ms. Griscom Little. The Republican Party wants to rape the planet. That's not "partisan," that's just looking clearly at the past 5 and a half years. A small cluster of Democrats and moderate Republicans have been able to hold back the very worst of it, but that's the way it is.
To work with Republican moderates, fine. But any lobbying organization that somehow regards the R or the D after a congress critter's name is irrelevant needs to go back to Poli Sci. Endorse a Green, if you want to be idealistic, and make a brave, losing gesture. Endorse the Democrat in 2006, you morons, to have any chance of regaining environmental sanity. Don't you know the game you're playing?
But maybe I shouldn't be surprised by such dunderhead plays from the elitist Sierra Club, whose membership recently barely turned back, twice, the proposition that illegal immigrants are a form of pollution.
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The problem...
..is that if the Sierra Club were to reject Chaffe just for being a Republican, then the Sierra Club would lose their credibility on the environment. People would rightly begin to regard the Sierra Club as being merely a partisan arm of the Democrats.
Furthermore, now Daily Kos loses their credibility on the environment as well. How can Daily Kos claim they care about the environment when obviously all they really care about is the partisan label?
Saying that Democrats are 'better' than Republicans on the environment just isn't a credible statement, given that there are plenty of Democrats who are not particularly good on the environment at all.
'Democrats good, Republicans bad,' just isn't a serious political platform. It's wrong on its face and voters see right through it. Democrats need to stand for something bigger than just being non-Republicans.
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Would you vote for Martin Luther King if he was a member of the Nazi Party?
I exaggerate, but that's much the case here. Chafee is a nice guy and taken some good positions, but his support of and position in the Repub Party allows them to wage their vicious Neanderthal campaign against all things sacred, esp. the environment. If greens want anything but the scraps off Exxon's plate, they must help Dems take back America.
Bush hasn't a clue on what to do with the energy crisis (more tax breaks?). An immediate campaign for conservation could quickly cut our oil usage 5%, and partially relieve it, because America uses so much oil that a 2% drop in demand immediately lowers prices.
Meanwhile, huge methane hydrate deposits at the bottom of the ocean that were once released 55 million years ago (methane is much more potent greenhouse gas: 8-23 times more than CO2), raising temperatures 15-20 degrees over today (North America was a tropical jungle, redwoods grew to the top of Greenland, and one could swim at the North Pole), caused a mass global extinction where 40% of oceans fauna died, the ocean was heated from top to bottom, and ocean currents reversed. This could happen again if temps get raised enough, because only thing keeping methane hydrate solid is extreme cold and pressure. Melting the arctic tundra would also release massive amounts of methane from decomposing peat moss and organics. CO2 is about 30% higher than it's been in millions of years.
http://scicom.ucsc.edu/SciNotes/0301/warm/index.html eocine warming 55 mil ago
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A modest proposal for the Sierra Club
I posted this on the very forum Amanda Grissom Little referenced, but I feel it might also have some value here:
his record may/may not be relevant
...given the Republican leadership in Congress and the White House.
He might vote with the Sierra Club 100% of the time -- it doesn't matter. The GOP is (currently) monumentally hostile to environmental issues, and having Chaffee as a token moderate gives them just enough cover to go on raping the environment with their corporate-friendly "voluntary compliance" and Newspeak policies.
And I say this not to cast undue aspersions to the Senator. He very well might be a standup guy on many environmental issues. But as long as the Republican leadership is hostile to environmental issues, the Sierra Club should not be endorsing him for the general election.
Admittedly, it's a tough spot if indeed Chaffee has a decent environmental voting record. The Sierra Club needs to appear nonpartisan, and provide incentives to "moderate" Republicans so that they will support an environmentally-friendly agenda.
I would think the savvy endorsement would be to give a glowing endorsement of Chaffee for the Republican primary. List the many things he's done, both as a legislator and as a committee chair. And then say that the Sierra Club, regretfully, cannot give him their endorsement for the general election because while Chaffee has been a standup guy, his party's leadership has been the antithesis. As long as the GOP's positions on the environment are this bad, no Republican -- good environmental voting record or no -- can qualify for a Sierra Club endorsement. For those races, they should choose to regretfully abstain from endorsing either candidate.