Re: Politics by another means? (from Peter Rauch)

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Date
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Date: Tue, 1 Aug 1995 09:57:52 -0700
From: peterr@violet.berkeley.edu (Peter Rauch)
To: paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Politics by another means?
Status: RO

Norm,
My take on what's going on "over here" in the colonies:

A significant group of politicians who represent major business enterprises
(in the sectors affected in immediate senses by environmental legislation)
are ruthlessly exorcising America from the devil --Environmental Protection
Agency, with its Endangered Species Act and a number of other terribly
egregious laws against Man. (No, elected representatives don't represent
the People --whatever gave you that idea? Your king been reading some
upstart document we sent him?)

The businesses represented by those politicians include major natural
resource users in the West: forestry, grazing, mining. Those industries
employ a good number of the residents of these many low-population
States, and they capitalize on terrorizing the citizens with stories of
the dire consequences of environmental protections on their personal
livelihood and welfare. So, that results in a fair degree (or, at lease,
a vociferous segment) of popular support in the West for degrading our
environmental legislation.

In the East, the situation is a little different. There are many small-
acreage landholders, who expect to "develop" (or sell to developers)
their properties some day.  Many others are currently using/converting
their lands for/to concrete/agriculture/pulp logging. These landowners
and various industries don't want _any_ constraints on what they can
do with their property, e.g., fill/drain swamps and coastal waters, pollute
rivers, create new urban regional centers from agrarian/forest zones, etc.

How can such patent attacks on the environment be successful? Well,
we don't know yet that they will be, but so far the current Congress
is steam-rollering a serious path of destruction. They are doing so
by what has been characterized as a "stealth attack" on environment
legislation. They are burying their legislation in bills that have little
or nothing to do with the particular environmental issue under attack.
They did not mention the E word in their electoral campaigns, so no
one suspected the onslaught until it was already underway after the
elections last year. In fact, _no one_ mentioned Environment in
the campaign --it was a non-issue.

On top of the Congressional attack, we have a President whose position
on environmental protection is unknown. He has two strong environmental
advocates in his Vice President and Secretary of the Interior, but he
has effectively neutralized them by his personal lack of stand, and his
spineless retreats on important environmental issues. He occasionally
mutters the E word, but always buried in some "more important"
non-environmental issue, and never with follow-through.

So, those of us who find all this situation devastating do what we can
to raise the warning flags, and hope that the damage isn't too immediate
nor durable.

Of course, the above is a cariture of (my personal) reality, but it's
not funny, and I'm afraid it can have serious environmental consequences
that reach beyond the Colonies.

I didn't address the rest of Science and Technology. It is affected
as well by the owners of material wealth. There seems to be serious
confusion --and therefore caution-- about who should control the keys
to knowledge. Much of that knowledge can be patented and traded in the
free marketplace for a very unfree price, so we gotta make sure that
we don't lose control of it to some do-gooders. The pork barrel has
found new feed in recent years in the biotechnology fields. The same
mentality that argues that our (publically held) natural resources are
best managed by private hands argues that much of science should also
be in private hands.

I don't think anyone is fighting over who controls rocky bones yet
(with the possible exception of the petroleum folks), but they
certainly would like the money that would go there to be distributed
elsewhere. And, definitely don't talk to me about protecting the
rocks on my ranch!
Cynically yours,
Peter