Feature of the Week
Since we heard from an environmentally aware Republican this week, Christie Whitman, let’s hear from the original Theodore Roosevelt.
01.29.05 @ 10:10 PM EDT [link]

Silly Christie, You’re Talking about the Wrong Party!
Even a cursory reading of yesterday’s excerpts from former Bush Administration EPA head Christie Whitman’s new book shows the basis for her difficulties with the Bushies. Her first mistake is buying into the rhetoric that Bush is “a man of his word” when she assumed he’d honor his campaign promises relating to the environment. American political policy is littered with the corpses of policies that Bush said he would champion but did not. Let’s start with “I’m a uniter, not a divider.” Exhibit 2 is “compassionate conservatism.” We could go on, but this is not the point of this particular entry, which is where Christie went wrong in assuming she could get some traction for environmental concerns when in fact she ended up “lost in the Bush.” The main reason for her dismal results was mistaken identity. She assumed that she was in the Republican Party, the party founded by Lincoln with environmental legacy defined by Teddy Roosevelt. It’s an easy mistake. That party, the one she thinks she’s in, no longer exists. More properly, the standing of the GOP as the “conservative” party of the US is no longer operational because the term “conservative” has experienced a reversal of meaning in the last two decades. The term “conservative” used to mean “respect for traditional values of honor, morality, and stewardship.” This meaning had a close relationship to the concept of environmental protection. As tirelessly pointed out by TR (and noted in our Teddy Speaks page) it is dishonorable and immoral to deprive future generations of Americans of the rich bounty of natural resources that all prior generations have enjoyed. Stewardship is the actualization of this moral imperative, the means by which the aspiration to preserve is achieved by tangible policy choices. In contrast, the new meaning of the term “conservative” has nothing to do with honor, morality, and stewardship. It has instead evolved to mean “respect for greed and lust for power as the basic components of successful political strategy.” If you don’t believe this, consider Christie’s experiences as recounted in yesterday’s excerpt. She herself said that Bush’s evil twin Republican Party has assumed an “extreme anti-environmentalist posture” in order to “solidify its base.” What motivates this base? Is it love of breathing dirty air and drinking poisoned water? No, it is love of the extra profits that can be achieved by eliminating regulations imposed to ensure that exploitation of natural resources is done in a sustainable fashion. What is greed if not love of dubiously-gained profits, and what is lust for power if not an obsession with controlling the mechanisms by which government power is exercised, specifically laws and regulations? Christie’s ultimate mistake is believing that key figures in the Bush Administration have any interest whatsoever in the welfare of “our children and grandchildren.” In all fairness, their lack of concern for posterity isn’t personal. It’s just that screwing posterity is a great way to make tons of money and use it to buy the power to make even more money. Maybe this sounds harsh, but if I’m off base on this then I need to reconsider some other fundamental questions, like whether the sky is really blue and the sun is really bright!
01.28.05 @ 08:43 PM EDT [link]

Christie as Promised
Christine Todd Whitman, former EPA Administrator in the Bush Administration, has written a book on the experience. As promised earlier in this journal, here are some pertinent excerpts. “in recent years, the Republican Party’s reputation as a steward of the environment has dramatically deteriorated, and the party is now widely perceived by the American public as downright anti-environment. Our efforts have been overshadowed by those in the Administration, and in key leadership roles in Congress, who never seem to miss an opportunity to dismiss environmental protection as a priority. Rather than forcefully and consistently making the case for more innovative environmental policies, the approach in recent years has always been to emphasize instead the party’s sympathy with the concerns of business. This was made abundantly clear to me very early in my tenure at EPA when the Administration abruptly reversed itself in a way that would have serious consequences… a mandatory cap on carbon dioxide emissions was listed as one of the Bush Campaign’s promises in a thick notebook titled “Transition 2001,” the official compendium of the President’s campaign promises, which I was given when I was nominated for the EPA position…I knew the President was facing considerable pressure, but when the White House asked me to hold time early the following week to meet with the President on the issue, I thought I still had a chance to make my case for keeping his pledge. But as soon as I sat down, I realized that I wasn’t there to state my case – I was there to be told that he had decided to reverse himself…By stating that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant, he had issued a stronger repudiation of his campaign position than Hagel and his allies had expected….I believe that the party that succeeds in truly presenting a sensible, moderate position on the environment stands to reap significant policy gains and political rewards. The Republican Party has the heritage and the record over the last four decades to make it the logical party to do so. What remains unclear is whether it has the vision and the will to move away from the extreme anti-environmentalist posture it has assumed in an effort to solidify its “base.” It’s a challenge the moderates must address. To cede the battle for environmental protection to the anti-regulatory lobbyists and extreme anti-government ideologues is to ignore our obligation as stewards of the environment for ourselves, our children and grandchildren.” Tomorrow let’s talk about Christie’s basic mistake.
01.27.05 @ 08:15 PM EDT [link]

Truth in Abortion Labeling
As a site with Safiresque word maven inclinations (but with a moderate rather than hard-right point of view), there’s already been some musings here on a truly descriptive label for the group imprecisely called by one side “Pro Life” and by the other side called “Anti-Abortion.” If you will recall, the difficulty with the term Anti-Abortion is that nobody wants lots abortions to happen. As recently put by Senator Clinton, “abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.” This is in line with the general uneasiness about abortion held at some level by the great majority of Americans. In the same way, the term “Pro Life” is disingenuous. For example, what if I counsel a woman not to have an abortion, but am unwilling to support her doctor’s execution if she does not heed this advice? The new Senator from Nebraska has declared that executing doctors is a Pro Life position. Presumably being unwilling to carry out these executions is an Anti-Life position. While as a Dittohead he would be blind to the irony of this situation, loyal readers of this site will pick up on it immediately. In earlier postings I suggested the term “Pro Criminalization” as the most appropriate term. This is a lot closer to the truth, but it still bears improvement. First, it isn’t clear enough what needs to be criminalized. Right Wingers are big fans of criminalizing all sorts of presently legal activity, ironic considering all the crowing they do about “freedom” and “liberty” (the i word again!) By not stipulating that they want to criminalize abortion rather than, say, flag burning, people could easy be confused. Another problem with “Pro Criminalization” is that, at seven syllables, it’s just too big a mouthful! They need to get the point of any phrase used by their opponents (i.e., us), and they won’t be able to deal with anything that won’t fit on a bumper sticker. Upon reflection, I’ve concluded that the most useful and descriptive term is “Pro Hanger.” It works because when all is said and done the ascendancy of the clothes-hanger as the surgical instrument of choice for abortion will be the primary outcome of reversing Roe vs. Wade. Abortion will become outlawed in Red States but not in Blue States, so any women with the means to get on the bus to either the coasts or to Illinois will be able to get a safe abortion. Thus, the only women affected will be the very poor or the abused, who will see the back alley special as their only option. And “Pro Hanger” not only fits nicely on the bumper sticker, it goes nicely with an ever better bumper sticker graphic - the hanger in a slashed circle.
01.26.05 @ 08:17 PM EDT [link]

Inaugural Virtue Word Exercise
It’s clear that Bush’s inaugural address will have a very special place in history. Not for it’s political content, of course; that would require that the aspirations expressed in the speech be based in reality, and we all know that the Bush Administration takes great pride in not being reality-based. (And we’re not making that up either – they say so themselves!) No, Bush’s speech will go down in history as one of the great language learning exercises, right up there with “the quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog.” Dittohead is the world’s newest language, and the second Bush inaugural address is noteworthy for its inventory of Dittohead virtue words. Virtue words have special importance for students of Dittohead because 1) they are used quite frequently by native Dittohead speakers and 2) their meaning is radically different from their English equivalents. We did a survey of the Dittohead virtue words in the speech and came up with the following examples: commitments, honor, oath, duties, liberty, freedom, rights, dignity, matchless value, ideals, rule of law, protection of minorities, protect, moral choice, reform, decent, justice, trust, progress, friendship, sacrifice, evil, courage, character, integrity, tolerance, conscience, good, and true. My personal favorites are “honor,” “sacrifice,” and “conscience.” These are especially useful as examples of Dittohead virtue word usage because of their total absence from the day to day activities of the Administration even as the Administration holds these up as their day to day obsessions. Some day television sets will have a menu option for Dittohead subtitles, making it easy for English speakers to follow Dittohead speeches. Until then, if you’re not a fluent speaker of Dittohead, you’ll need to rely on resources like SherWright’s Dittohead Dictionary. Perhaps you’ve noticed that over the last several days we’ve been defining Dittohead virtue words used in the President’s speech. We hope you find value in yet another valuable and unique service from this site, and tell your friends!
01.25.05 @ 08:19 PM EDT [link]

Demagnetized Schools
If some parents don’t want evolution taught in public schools, fine. They should have a right to send their kids to special schools where what is taught in science class is not what scientists believe. Instead, these science classes should be based on polls of what everyday people with no background in science would like science to be. This will certainly address the controversy over preferences by many parents for creationism (AKA cretinism), which has the same relationship to science as do alchemy and astrology. This is not an exaggeration – both alchemy and astrology share creationism’s yearning for easy, pretty truths. The appeal of alchemy is that great value like gold can be created from common base elements like lead. The allure of astrology is that the future can be predicted through straightforward calculations that bypass the messy complexities of human nature and random chance. The appeal of creationism is that our ancestry is golden rather than base, so that our future progress and prosperity are ordained in the heavens rather than having to be worked for. Our pseudo-science curriculum shouldn’t be limited to creationism, alchemy, and astrology either; all areas of science should be fair game! For example, math classes would teach that 2-1=3, the formula that the right wing uses as the basis for passing tax cuts with the purpose of increasing government revenues. In geology kids would learn that the center of the earth is full of oil that is continually created from the greenhouse gasses that find their way into the atmosphere, say from driving SUVs. Of course, is it fair that people should be able to have their kids taught things that aren’t true at public expense? To balance the equation, so to speak, we would need to make sure that people who want science-free schools are really sincere in their beliefs. Thus, any couple sending a child to one of these demagnetized schools should have to pledge to not make any use of a labor-saving technology originating in real science. While this means they’d have to live like Amish, it’s a small price to pay for bringing up children with Right attitudes about science, don’t you think?
01.24.05 @ 09:02 PM EDT [link]

Statement to the Ninth Grade
There have recently been a spate of incidents involving recalcitrant school boards acting to mitigate the risk that a student might actually come out of Biology class thinking that there is something to this Evolution idea. In Georgia they are putting stickers in the textbooks, and even in Blue PA a canned statement is being read to students in the 9th grade science class, which happens to have a textbook mentioning Darwin. (Just so you know, this is in Dover, the in Red area outside of PA’s bright Blue cities.) The science teachers have refused to read the school board’s statement, so the assistant superintendent is making the rounds. The statement has not been widely published, but SherWright.com brings you the text as an exclusive scoop! Here is is: “Hello Boys and Girls. I’ve stopped by today to talk about facts and theories. There are some things people know for sure, and some things people aren’t sure about. We call the things we know for sure “facts” or “truth.” For example, I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “Gospel truth.” The things we’re not sure about we call theories. For example, maybe you’ve seen on TV how the police sometimes have a theory on who committed a crime. Of course, we don’t put people in jail because of theories. First there has to be proof, like finding the DNA of the criminal on the crime weapon. Even that’s not good enough. To be absolutely sure we’ve got the truth we get twelve people together in a group called a jury. They have to totally agree that someone is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt before the police’s theory is accepted as fact. Now you learned in science class that science is about facts, so you are probably wondering why we even talk about theories, which as we just said are maybe true, maybe not. You have studied many things in this class that are clearly facts, for example that there are creatures called lions, tigers, and all the other creatures on Noah’s Ark. Why can’t science class just stick to the facts? We teach you about theories just in case some day you want to become a scientist. Scientists spend their day trying to prove and disprove theories. What do we mean by disprove? This means to find evidence that a theory really isn’t true. Showing that a theory is not true is just as important an activity for scientists as showing that the theory might be true. For example, maybe if one of you were to become a scientist, you might be the one to prove that evolution isn’t true. Think how famous that scientist would be! In the meantime, thank God we live in a country where all points of view, even unproven theories like evolution, can be mentioned, even if most people in America believe it is wrong. As a quick review, does everyone remember when I talked about how in a jury every single person has to agree for the verdict to be considered the truth? Good luck with your science studies, and your school board would like you to know how proud we would be if one of you were to become a famous scientist!
01.23.05 @ 08:19 PM EDT [link]