Bush is sabotaging the laws that have protected America's environment for more than thirty years By Robert F. Kennedy Jr. George W. Bush will go down in history as America's worst environmental president. In a ferocious three-year attack, the Bush administration has initiated more than 200 major rollbacks of America's environmental laws, weakening the protection of our country's air, water, public lands and wildlife. Cloaked in meticulously crafted language designed to deceive the public, the administration intends to eliminate the nation's most important environmental laws by the end of the year. Under the guidance of Republican pollster Frank Luntz, the Bush White House has actively hidden its anti-environmental program behind deceptive rhetoric, telegenic spokespeople, secrecy and the intimidation of scientists and bureaucrats. The Bush attack was not entirely unexpected. George W. Bush had the grimmest environmental record of any governor during his tenure in Texas. Texas became number one in air and water pollution and in the release of toxic chemicals. In his six years in Austin, he championed a short-term pollution-based prosperity, which enriched his political contributors and corporate cronies by lowering the quality of life for everyone else. Now President Bush is set to do the same to America. After three years, his policies are already bearing fruit, diminishing standards of living for millions of Americans. I am angry both as a citizen and a father. Three of my sons have asthma, and I watch them struggle to breathe on bad-air days. And they're comparatively lucky: One in four African-American children in New York shares this affliction; their suffering is often unrelieved because they lack the insurance and high-quality health care that keep my sons alive. My kids are among the millions of Americans who cannot enjoy the seminal American experience of fishing locally with their dad and eating their catch. Most freshwater fish in New York and all in Connecticut are now under consumption advisories. A main source of mercury pollution in America, as well as asthma-provoking ozone and particulates, is the coal-burning power plants that President Bush recently excused from complying with the Clean Air Act. Furthermore, the deadly addiction to fossil fuels that White House policies encourage has squandered our treasury, entangled us in foreign wars, diminished our international prestige, made us a target for terrorist attacks and increased our reliance on petty Middle Eastern dictators who despise democracy and are hated by their own people. When the Republican right managed to install George W. Bush as president in 2000, movement leaders once again set about doing what they had attempted to do since the Reagan years: eviscerate the infrastructure of laws and regulations that protect the environment. For twenty-five years it has been like the zombie that keeps coming back from the grave. The attacks began on Inauguration Day, when President Bush's chief of staff and former General Motors lobbyist Andrew Card quietly initiated a moratorium on all recently adopted regulations. Since then, the White House has enlisted every federal agency that oversees environmental programs in a coordinated effort to relax rules aimed at the oil, coal, logging, mining and chemical industries as well as automakers, real estate developers, corporate agribusiness and other industries. Bush's Environmental Protection Agency has halted work on sixty-two environmental standards, the Food and Drug Administration has stopped work on fifty-seven standards. The EPA completed just two major rules -- both under court order and both watered down at industry request -- compared to twenty-three completed by the Clinton administration and fourteen by the Bush Sr. administration in their first two years. Continued below: Full article here: http://www.rollingstone.com/features/nationalaffairs/featuregen.asp?pid=2154
I know. "To dream takes no effort, To think is easy, To act is more difficult. But, for a man to act after he has taken thought, This! is the most difficult thing of all." --Charles Olson Thanks for posting the article.
RFK Jr. is a partisan pinko idiot. I thought his shameless duplicity would be stilled after Sean Hannity busted him for owning multiple SUV's and his excessive reliance on private jets. The freshwater fish advisory in Ct. and NY. was issued on June 21, 1999! As for the rest of the article, discriminating crap detectors will recognize RFK's point's for the lies that they are. Air pollution in Houston decreased during Bush's tenure as Governor. Isn't the irony of this article obvious? RFK says essentially, don't import oil from the corrupt anti-American Middle East, don't develop additional fossil fuel resources in the U.S., and don't release crude cracking or coal emissions in the air. So in other words, perhaps we can energize the country by putting up those windmills off Hyannis. Oh no, I forgot, the windmills would spoil the view from the Kennedy compound.
In my opinion, you just perfectly demonstrated Sean Hannity et. al base tactics. Rather than address the points raised in the article point by point, issue for issue, the very first comments from you are to resort to an ad hominem attack. I have watched the interactions between Hannity and those he doesn't agree with on issues, and his very first step is nearly alway a personal attack. I listened the other day to someone who was putting forth ideas that run counter to Hannityism, and then listened to the attempts of Hannity to belittle him personally, sway the crowd in his favor, and even question where the person went to school as if that had any relevance to the issue being raised. This smug self righteous attitude that is projected by Hannity without cause or proper foundation is genuinely revolting to anyone who is fair minded. When you attempt to confuse the audience through name calling and personal attacks, the attempt is to gloss over the issue being raised. Isn't that obvious to to anyone who is watching this style of propagandizing and demagoguery? If you can make a stronger and better point on the issue that speaks for itself, why on earth is it necessary to have these personal attacks? All Hannity would have to do to counter flaws in arguments is to give a counter argument with corresponding facts to support it, or to show that Kennedy was using incorrect data or non-existent facts in his arguments. Since Hannity is unable to do this, what he tries to do is to discredit the man, and hope that the audience will fall into the same type of fallacious thinking. If you can call someone a "partisan pinko idiot" then we would have no choice (if we blindly trusted your judgment) but to ignore or discount what the person being labeled a "partisan pinko idiot" is saying. I really hope that those who still have an open mind, who take a position of deciding for themselves based on facts see this tactic for what it is worth. It is shameless and destructive, and does not invite or promote critical thinking. What does it matter how many vehicles Kennedy has, or if he flies on a private plane, if what he is saying is true? If something is true, it remains true no matter who says it. If a murder is reporting fact, is it any less of a fact? If a pathological liar states that 2 plus 2 equals 4, does that negate the mathematical truth of what he just said? It really is time for people in this country to wake up and understand what technology and mind conditioning is being used to influence public opinion. It is completely unAmerican in my opinion to label people the way you just labled Kennedy. However, since that is all you can do, as you can't counter all the facts that were put forth in the artlcle...then you have to stoop to Hannityisms, Rushisms, Coulterisms, etc., etc., etc. Again I implore people to learn to think for themselves and do their own research, rather than simply swallow the bile of those who oppose the critics of the Bush administration who are attempting to make arguments on a reasonable and factual basis.
Aroguetrader, If you truly believe democrats care about the environment then you have a lot to learn, especially about politics. They couldn't give a shit about the environment just like the average joe in this country doesn't care about the well being of Iraqi's. Whether you want to admit it or not, most people, when you break them down to the most basic levels, they care about their families, their jobs, and their health, not necessarily in that order, not some f*cking tree in California, not some stream in Oregon, or some wildlife reserve in Alaska. I'm not trying to be harsh here or say that I don't care about the environment, but like the trader I am, I live in the real world. And in the real world, the environment, just like the stock market, is all about money. Both sides of the aisle attempt to exploit and profit from an issue that at the end of the day, nobody really gives a shit about. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings here, I'm just trying to pull your head out from deep inside your ass, where the air really is not that bad afterall.
RFK jr got his ASS handed to him on a silver platter a few months ago by Hannity........Kennedy sat their and claimer OVER and OVER that the SUV was ruining the environment and that we have to out law them and put tight restrictions on them blah blah blah.........then when hannity asked him how he go to NYC form Boston, he eventually confessed. "A PRIVATE JET"!!!!!! ......And then later on they found out that ho took a STRETCH F#ING LIMO FORM THE NEWARK AIRPORT TO NYC!!!! what a CROCK or hypocritical B.S.....DO as I say not as I do!!! Kennedy doesn't want me to have a jeep to go to work in but he can use a private jet????? Why couldn't he drive his Yugo form boston to NYC? it's only 4-5 hours......and he couldn't take a taxi to NYC? No a stretch limmo...Just wondering, what uses more gas per mile? JET , LIMMO or SUV??????? The environment doesn't matter when the Kennedy's are plowing down forests and sand dunes to put up mansions all over the country....but god forbid somebody drives a 4 runner?????? Just wondering, how much gas does one of those Kennedy Yachts guzzle??? shouldn't they give that up too??? Hell , I can use 20 gallons of gas on a 26 ft boat here in florida...I'd guess the kennedy boats probably use 10 times that much He doesn't give a crap about the environment anymore then I do....but its a great way to make a political living.
"I'm just trying to pull your head out from deep inside your ass, where the air really is not that bad afterall." I could respond with "Spoken withe the expertise of someone and has an intimate understanding of living with their head up their ass" or some other caustic return of serve. That is really the hope of your comments isn't it, get into a flame war to divert attention from the real issues. Apparently you miss the point. Once again let me say this as simply as possible. Either the issues Kennedy raised are true and valid....or they are not. If they are false and invalid, all Hannity needs to do is to counter with them with valid and factual arguments. Not just counter one point, then assume all other points are invalid, not attempt to dismiss the points because of some potential personal hypocricy of the speaker, but seriously deal with the issues. That is not what happens. What happens is argument via personal attacks and name calling, in an attempt to divert the audience from the issues, and make this about personalities, not principles. Those who can't see through this facade and the tactics being used, or who support these methods are in my opinion unAmerican. It really doesn't matter if they are Republican or Democrat, Libertarian or Socialist. What matters is that we see this process clearly and for what it is. It is avoidance of the issues, in this case what is actually happening to our environment. I really don't understand how people can look at such a simple fact that it is no longer safe to go to a lake, catch a fish and eat it. You think that is normal? You think pollution and toxic chemicals are imaginary? You think that we can simply act as if the environment will eternally repair itself, that there will be no consequences of such actions as we see with easing of regulation so that corporations can increase profits at the expense of the environment? My perspective is that people who question corporate America's role in the environment are immediately labeled anti capitalism, or communists, etc. How can this be so? This sets up a condition where the perspective is that whatever corporate America and government do in the name of profitability is to be placed above any potential risks to the environment. The bottom line is this: Either what Kennedy said in his article is true or false. Why if it is false, don't we simply hear the truth, rather than attack him for saying what he said? Why attack me personally if all I do is suggest reading the article, and point out the methodology Hannity et.al use? Why not refute what I say, rather than use ad hominem attacks and rationalizations?
I am aware of the Hannity/Kennedy debate, and what I heard was Hannity attempt to say that Kennedy has no business bringing up the points he brings up, nor the issues he raises due to his own personal lifestyle. Do you understand that what Kennedy is saying about the environment may well be true, even if Kennedy is personally a great offender of the environment? Can you grasp the concept that the issue is not the same as the personality raising it? Do you blame the mailman who delivers the bills too? Try to focus on the issues, not personalities. Why are you defending Hannity's tactics that are fallacious in nature from a logical reasoning perspective, and are used to divert attention away from fact to personal attacks? Hannity is trying to destroy Kennedy's credibility on the issue of the environment. Why is that? Really, why doesn't he just destroy the position that Kennedy raises? Why is it necessary to attack him personally, to paint him as a hypocrite? We have a commander and chief, and a president who had no combat experience and no experience in foreign affairs....did those facts make him unable to make decisions of a military nature, or render him impotent in the area of foreign policy? I am not saying this to attack Bush, but rather to illustrate the point that one can behave one way personally, and have a personal history of some nature, but that doesn't negate what they say if it is true and factual in the present.
Mr Kennedy is full of shit. The reason all those African-American children have asthma is because liberal Democrats, in their infinite wisdom, decided to cram all these people together in roach infested, modern day ghettos. No hygene training, no positive role models, just put 'em on the dole so you can get their vote. The rule change regarding coal-fired plants is actually a positive. Prior to this change, if a company wanted to upgrade their equipment, they would have to comply with all current regs. This kept many co's from upgrading to more efficient systems. Now, if a company wants to replace a furnace, they don't have to comply with all of the new regs. The end result is less polution. It will be a cold day in hell before Kennedy and his kind ever have anything good to say about American industry...they loathe it. The always will.
Those laws are what just burned up major acreage in California. It was on your TV. The privately owned forests in California did not burn. They are managed, in the manner of thinking where people are in charge of nature and should manage it and make the best of it and use it for their own good. The public forests are run by environmental attorneys whose belief system is that all of our cities and farms should be returned to their natural state because man is just a domineering animal with no more rights than a frog. The inmates are running the asylum when it comes to the "environmentalists". The polar ice is melting so it is man's fault!! Down with mankind, those sons of bitches are killing the frogs too!! The polar ice is melting because there are volcanos under there, ok?? Major upswing in above ground volcanic activity, but no change in undersea volcanic activiy??? I think not. I'm really losing patience with Junk Science and see no reason to fund them. They continue with their publically funded garbage no matter how much evidence is against them. It's about the public funding for attorneys, Kennedy is about the public funding, he's a drunk, he knows nothing about environment probably, who cares about his opinion??