Monday, January 30, 2006

When the Levee Breaks Again.

Yesterday, I published my opinion on the need for more a great focus on the problems of the Delta. It is in almost every regional paper to the point that you begin to wonder why it does not resonate with readers more than it does. I will give you a list of stories and editorials since last Friday (Jan 27th) at the bottom of the page.

A portion of the problem lies with the media themselves. Too often, as did the Sacrament Bee, they buy in to a prevailing meme that something must be true if enough people keep on saying that it is. This is sort of like believing Rush Limbaugh when he talks bout Democrats not having any ideas. In fact, it is exactly like believing Rush Limbaugh.

The Sacrament Bee repeated this idea in the editorial liked below.
The environmentalists, who oppose just about everything the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations do when it comes to water policy, have yet to offer a specific, coherent plan on how they would run things if they were in charge.

They generalize about a nebulous group of environmentalists instead of getting specific. If they had mentioned the Sierra Club, that organization could have pointed to their organized efforts to put delta land into conservation trusts. It just isn't so. I have watched enough of the editorial comment that comes out of the Sacrament Bee to know that this is just sloppy work and deserves to be challenged.

I can think of no single set of issues where Green Values can be of more use than here. It touches everything, from Social justice for indigenous nations to sustainable Economic Development, from Environmental Wisdom to Personal and Global Responsibility. If the Republican won't and the Democrats can't then maybe the Greens should.

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