Another problem with having a blog for me at least is its so hard to narrow down what to rant about first. We are living in interesting times. I'll start off with something small and simple and begin ranting tomorrow. "Never do today what you can outsource tomorrow.", thats my all American motto. So until tomorrow enjoy this previously viewed on another blog tame political post:
read a fair amount of enviroblogs regularly. And one thing I am getting tired of is how most of them lump all Republicans and conservatives in with “the radical right”. First its inaccurate, second its misleading. Third its unwise. Its inaccurate for several reasons; 1) Most Americans feel very strongly about two or three key issues and tend to vote for candidates that they feel will represents them on those issues. That doesn’t make them radicals. 2) There are many different types of conservatives and Republicans. Including non Republican conservatives.
The inaccuracy is misleading in that all it does it paint a black and white picture of the political landscape. And politics is rarely ever black and white. Additionally it helps to promote an us vs them mind set which is one of the last things we need. But maybe this is a reflection of the mind set of environmental leaders.
Finally its unwise because environmental leaders need to make new allies wherever they can. Want to shoot down a budget full of logging and oil subsidies? Fiscal conservatives are against those. Want to pass a bill to strengthen environmental protections? Many conservative evangelicals are for that. I probably just confused you on that last one. There’s a really fascinating interview in Grist with the VP of the National Association of Evangelicals (which is here) about their view on the environment.
Environmental leaders should be building new inroads and making new allies whenever and wherever possible. Not alienating moderates and other potential allies.
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