No Wonder !
There are so many republicans! Glen Rose says this often, usually in response to some incredible stupidity, the ignorant and vulgar on our side have perpetrated. And I, being ape-like, though not quite so ape-like as Lomo, ape this expression in similar situations, just as I am at the nonce, aping it. No wonder there are so many republicans.
Ever since the inception of NEPA the progressives, or whatever you want to call them, of these Yore Nited States have been attempting to get NEPA to work right, or work at all. Clean air, clean water, culture, nature, environmental justice; lots of people wanted to see these attributes conserved and improved upon, and NEPA was the umbrella law to conserve and improve these attributes under. And lots of us starry eyed progressives,hmmmm, let's call us, whatevers, got jobs in the agencies, in our particular specialties doing NEPA.
All the laws under the NEPA umbrella had opponents though, who did not like the laws, for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons were; 1) NEPA infringed on private property rights, 2) NEPA cost too much, 3) NEPA caused project delays, 4) NEPA increased paper work, 5) NEPA was impossible to understand. 6) NEPA cost jobs. And actually all these reasons were, to some extent valid, and with a little hyperbole on the part of the republicans, this validity did leaps and bounds. And soon with the hyperbole mill at full slosh the republicans had the government, theoretically, seizing private property and squelching private enterprise with bureaucratic entanglements. Meantime though, no private property was actually ever seized and the economy grew apace, despite NEPA, and no doubt due to the republican hyperbolic vigilance.
Coincidentally, as is usually the case, the republicans who created the most hyperbole over NEPA were the very same republicans who had their snouts neck deepest in the federal treasury and who wanted to get paid off and not do any paper work fer it, and not leave a paper trail. This is why pork is called pork because pig snouts are neck deep in the federal treasury. This is also why the republicans, even though they say they want to diminish government, really don't, because if they got rid of the government, no one would be around to slop them, the republicans with their pig snouts in the national treasury, I mean trough. (The preceeding really is a dreadful extended metaphor. I know that deep down, but I am weak and just sometimes can't control myself).
In addition to the hyperbole (lyin'), the republicans hit upon a second strategy for rendering the laws of the land null and void; to whit, establish a managerial job corps program for republicans so that republicans could obtain oversight level positions in the NEPA responsible federal and state agencies. This worked really well because republicans generally incapable of doing any honest work impeded and misdirected anyone trying to do NEPA work at the responsible agencies. In addition, these insider oversight republicans facilitated the transfer of slop to the hungry republicans at the trough, and, as a bonus, got slopped themselves (paid nice delicious salaries) from that same trough. So now we have republicans running agencies they don't believe should exist, dolling out federal money as part of a process they are against, and both the dolling and the government gets bigger and bigger, more slop in more troughs for the greedy snouts. (Again,I must apologize for the porcine metaphors, but after all I am known in these part by many names, and one such name is the Shoat Skitter Wrangler).
Meantime, what did the whatevers do about all this lyin', and gluttony going on before their shocked progressive eyes. Well, let's see. Hmmmm. I'll have to really think hard about that and it could take awhile. I know we had lotsa meetings and conferences on tangenitally related subtopics and we voted for democrats, but what else, what else did we do?
Some people, who did not necessarily know they were progressive, but who had property adjacent to a polluter, or were scheduled to have their properties actually and not theoretically seized via condemnation, formed groups to seek redress from the pollution and redress for their violated property rights. With the republican hyperbole snorting merrily along these groups were termed NIMBY in the press, standing for Not In My Back Yard, and everyone was supposed to get from this that NIMBYs were a bunch of selfish ludite assholes, standing in the way of some republicans requiring expedited access to the trough.
To be fair, though, much good work was done under NEPA, and much worse evil than has occurred to date, was delayed because of NEPA and NEPA workers. And the work was what we were hired to do. However, it should have been obvious to more of us, that we could not do our jobs without simultaneously neutralizing the republican hyperbole (lyin'). We did not do this, and now we may not have many jobs either, anon, because those will go to more of the piggies.
Which fetches me up to a pivot point and one of my favorite subtopics, lyin'. As you know by now Druids don't like lyin' or liars and we also believe in payback. But payback is a two-edged sword that always rebounds on a liar and glutton. Here's an example, one of the hundreds of examples I have memorized.
There is a genus of orchids called by the Latin name, Spiranthes. There are lots of different kinds of them, maybe, and the different kinds are hard to tell apart. One of these, the Navasota ladies' tresses (NLT)(Sprianthes parksii) was designated as an endangered species and it was one of the ones that was very hard to tell apart from some of the other ones. In fact, some in these parts and elsewhere, said it was impossible to tell it apart. Nevertheless, it was listed as an endangered species with no evidence that it was a species, and a great deal of hyperbole was vented all around on account of it. Even I participated and that's indicative of my slow and intermittent progress from the perspective of the White Goddess.
Anyway, now the genetics is in on these, pretty much, and the NLT has the very same genes as another, much more common and widespread Spiranthes orchid. Oops! So the republicans were right all along and the govenment was out to ruin them? Naw, they still made out OK. They kept their snouts right in the trough.
But what about our side, the whatevers. We, some of us, who knew better, for a good cause maybe, protecting a bit of the post oak savannah, lied. And some of us are still trying to lie about this. I actually heard the proposition uttered that "Genetics can prove a species, but not disprove a species". I have heard this same proposition uttered as "Habitat can be proved as occupied, but not disproved as occupied". The second of these may be logical, if not biologically true, so only a partial lie, but the first is certainly a whole hog lie.
The justifcation for this kind of lying is that we do not have a tool to protect the landscape unless the landscape has an endangered species in it. (Even this protection is dubious, because these days, the burden of proof is upon us to find dead bodies of an endangered species, slain directly by the action). Not easy that.
But is it justifiable to create an endangered species for the purpose of protecting a landscape that needs protecting? Easy that. No.
Instead, we need to organize and fight for what landscape features we want to see preserved, and we need to do this at a scale sufficient to house the maximum number of threatened little wonders. Otherwise, we will lose thousands of the little wonders forever.
To do this we need to seize the moral high ground. Stop lyin'. Challenge the piggy lies, publicly on every occasion. Don't let them get away with anything. Build political alliances with those adversely impacted by NEPA disfunctionality,that is almost everyone, but especially the working class, the service class and the little bosses. Convince them that it is in their interest to have clean air, clean water, nature, culture and environmental justice.
For reasons that are obvious to the Druidry in these parts, the mechanism for exposing the piggy lies and buildng alliances with others afflicted by their lies is "follow the money trail". Use the money trail to expose their lyin' natures.
Ever since the inception of NEPA the progressives, or whatever you want to call them, of these Yore Nited States have been attempting to get NEPA to work right, or work at all. Clean air, clean water, culture, nature, environmental justice; lots of people wanted to see these attributes conserved and improved upon, and NEPA was the umbrella law to conserve and improve these attributes under. And lots of us starry eyed progressives,hmmmm, let's call us, whatevers, got jobs in the agencies, in our particular specialties doing NEPA.
All the laws under the NEPA umbrella had opponents though, who did not like the laws, for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons were; 1) NEPA infringed on private property rights, 2) NEPA cost too much, 3) NEPA caused project delays, 4) NEPA increased paper work, 5) NEPA was impossible to understand. 6) NEPA cost jobs. And actually all these reasons were, to some extent valid, and with a little hyperbole on the part of the republicans, this validity did leaps and bounds. And soon with the hyperbole mill at full slosh the republicans had the government, theoretically, seizing private property and squelching private enterprise with bureaucratic entanglements. Meantime though, no private property was actually ever seized and the economy grew apace, despite NEPA, and no doubt due to the republican hyperbolic vigilance.
Coincidentally, as is usually the case, the republicans who created the most hyperbole over NEPA were the very same republicans who had their snouts neck deepest in the federal treasury and who wanted to get paid off and not do any paper work fer it, and not leave a paper trail. This is why pork is called pork because pig snouts are neck deep in the federal treasury. This is also why the republicans, even though they say they want to diminish government, really don't, because if they got rid of the government, no one would be around to slop them, the republicans with their pig snouts in the national treasury, I mean trough. (The preceeding really is a dreadful extended metaphor. I know that deep down, but I am weak and just sometimes can't control myself).
In addition to the hyperbole (lyin'), the republicans hit upon a second strategy for rendering the laws of the land null and void; to whit, establish a managerial job corps program for republicans so that republicans could obtain oversight level positions in the NEPA responsible federal and state agencies. This worked really well because republicans generally incapable of doing any honest work impeded and misdirected anyone trying to do NEPA work at the responsible agencies. In addition, these insider oversight republicans facilitated the transfer of slop to the hungry republicans at the trough, and, as a bonus, got slopped themselves (paid nice delicious salaries) from that same trough. So now we have republicans running agencies they don't believe should exist, dolling out federal money as part of a process they are against, and both the dolling and the government gets bigger and bigger, more slop in more troughs for the greedy snouts. (Again,I must apologize for the porcine metaphors, but after all I am known in these part by many names, and one such name is the Shoat Skitter Wrangler).
Meantime, what did the whatevers do about all this lyin', and gluttony going on before their shocked progressive eyes. Well, let's see. Hmmmm. I'll have to really think hard about that and it could take awhile. I know we had lotsa meetings and conferences on tangenitally related subtopics and we voted for democrats, but what else, what else did we do?
Some people, who did not necessarily know they were progressive, but who had property adjacent to a polluter, or were scheduled to have their properties actually and not theoretically seized via condemnation, formed groups to seek redress from the pollution and redress for their violated property rights. With the republican hyperbole snorting merrily along these groups were termed NIMBY in the press, standing for Not In My Back Yard, and everyone was supposed to get from this that NIMBYs were a bunch of selfish ludite assholes, standing in the way of some republicans requiring expedited access to the trough.
To be fair, though, much good work was done under NEPA, and much worse evil than has occurred to date, was delayed because of NEPA and NEPA workers. And the work was what we were hired to do. However, it should have been obvious to more of us, that we could not do our jobs without simultaneously neutralizing the republican hyperbole (lyin'). We did not do this, and now we may not have many jobs either, anon, because those will go to more of the piggies.
Which fetches me up to a pivot point and one of my favorite subtopics, lyin'. As you know by now Druids don't like lyin' or liars and we also believe in payback. But payback is a two-edged sword that always rebounds on a liar and glutton. Here's an example, one of the hundreds of examples I have memorized.
There is a genus of orchids called by the Latin name, Spiranthes. There are lots of different kinds of them, maybe, and the different kinds are hard to tell apart. One of these, the Navasota ladies' tresses (NLT)(Sprianthes parksii) was designated as an endangered species and it was one of the ones that was very hard to tell apart from some of the other ones. In fact, some in these parts and elsewhere, said it was impossible to tell it apart. Nevertheless, it was listed as an endangered species with no evidence that it was a species, and a great deal of hyperbole was vented all around on account of it. Even I participated and that's indicative of my slow and intermittent progress from the perspective of the White Goddess.
Anyway, now the genetics is in on these, pretty much, and the NLT has the very same genes as another, much more common and widespread Spiranthes orchid. Oops! So the republicans were right all along and the govenment was out to ruin them? Naw, they still made out OK. They kept their snouts right in the trough.
But what about our side, the whatevers. We, some of us, who knew better, for a good cause maybe, protecting a bit of the post oak savannah, lied. And some of us are still trying to lie about this. I actually heard the proposition uttered that "Genetics can prove a species, but not disprove a species". I have heard this same proposition uttered as "Habitat can be proved as occupied, but not disproved as occupied". The second of these may be logical, if not biologically true, so only a partial lie, but the first is certainly a whole hog lie.
The justifcation for this kind of lying is that we do not have a tool to protect the landscape unless the landscape has an endangered species in it. (Even this protection is dubious, because these days, the burden of proof is upon us to find dead bodies of an endangered species, slain directly by the action). Not easy that.
But is it justifiable to create an endangered species for the purpose of protecting a landscape that needs protecting? Easy that. No.
Instead, we need to organize and fight for what landscape features we want to see preserved, and we need to do this at a scale sufficient to house the maximum number of threatened little wonders. Otherwise, we will lose thousands of the little wonders forever.
To do this we need to seize the moral high ground. Stop lyin'. Challenge the piggy lies, publicly on every occasion. Don't let them get away with anything. Build political alliances with those adversely impacted by NEPA disfunctionality,that is almost everyone, but especially the working class, the service class and the little bosses. Convince them that it is in their interest to have clean air, clean water, nature, culture and environmental justice.
For reasons that are obvious to the Druidry in these parts, the mechanism for exposing the piggy lies and buildng alliances with others afflicted by their lies is "follow the money trail". Use the money trail to expose their lyin' natures.
posted by ray pistrum at Friday, September 16, 2005
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