Obama, SOTU and the environment
I should know better than to compose posts in a browser window: Safari just crashed and took with it about 20 minutes worth of writing on Obama’s miserable-from-an-environmentalist-POV State of The Union address on Wednesday.
Fortunately, Rana has said essentially what I wanted to, and much more economically. She quotes the atrocious moment in the address where Obama calls for more nuclear, more coal, more offshore drilling, and says:
People like to talk about Obama as a visionary, as someone who wants to change the way we do things in this country. I point them to this.
This is not visionary. This is not change. This is more of the unsustainable growth-at-any-cost nonsense that caused the very problems he alludes to when he mentions the climate bill.
Comments
I dunno - I think the red arrow says it quite succinctly.
It is disappointing that the President not only avoided addressing environmental issues being promoted by grassroots and national conservation organizations, but he essentially compromised on some core tenets, such as placating the “clean” coal movement and suggested expanding offshore drilling.
The President has shown very pragmatic tendencies since his campaign, even though some felt misled that he was going to usher in dramatic change. I think his SOTU address reflects a pragmatic response to the changing political climate in the District. All of the focus is on the failure of the health care bill, but the Kerry/Boxer climate change legislation was an even earlier sign that the Democratic legislative agenda was in trouble.
As far as environmental progress, if both parties respond to the Executive office’s pragmatism with a pragmatism of their own, we could see balanced legislation that offers tangible environmental gains, but they will almost certainly be accompanied with the types of compromises the President highlighted in his address. If both parties remain entrenched and stymied by filibusters, we may see neither.
You want to know what’s going on at the top, check out what his minions are doing below.Two days ago, Ken Salazar appeared before a Senate Environmental committee, talking about how all these desert(and other area)solar,wind,geothermal ad nauseum
projects are being fast tracked. Pretty soon you’ll need a microscope to see the desert, the space will be so small between the “clean energy plants”.
Morongobill
President Obama is reminding me of Bill Clinton, especially in Clinton’s second term. His agenda seems to be rapidly switching to whatever will keep his numbers up in the polls. It’s too early to tell but his environmental agenda seems to be taking a fourth row to the wars and the Economy and health care.
The bottom line is we won’t be able to afford anything until we give up on these moronic wars. Their created debt still does not show on our nation’s bottom line, a fact that most citizens seem unaware of.
How ironic that solid domestic policy would make these wars nonsensical. The truth is we know that the corporate world is charge of foreign and domestic policy. War yields profit for big oil, big construction, and international “security” companies. Keep in mind our Supreme Court recently ruled corporations have the same right as individuals when it comes to campaign contributions. This will direct foreign and domestic policy well into the future. Wars and pollution will continue unless we take back our government. We can only do this at the ballot box, so we must all stay educated, active, and aware.
Bill:www.wildramblings.com
Bill - I largely agree with your comment, but did want to question one point: “We can only do this at the ballot box”
It’s tempting to think simply in terms of votes, but the grim truth is that, for many of us, our votes have become increasingly irrelevant. If you live in a state where the two parties vary in practice only slightly, and where between them they have raised the bar so high for new parties to get on the ballot, your vote won’t even address these issues. It’s also dangerous to encourage the kind of thinking that reduces political action to a few minutes in a voting booth (not counting research time) every few years. Our opponents, those corporations and those who benefit from their donations, are not thinking this way, I can assure you.
We can only do this at the ballot box
So like you know… all those environmental activists hanging in trees to stop mountain top coal mining are, like, just wasting their time?? Come on man, there are so many ways to make our voices heard other than voting. Voting is passe’ and outside the point of actual reality. We need to encourage action, civil disobedience, stopping the destruction—voting is for sissies. Okay that may have been too strong, but still.
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