"The Excuse"
Throughout history, the "Straw Man" has been a time tested instrument of tyrants, despots and just plain power mad bastards.
From the Popes, Bishops and feudal Lords of Medieval Europe to the decimation of the American Indian Nations to the violent reaction of the British Government to the passive resistance of Mahatma Ghandi, the Straw Man has been used to create "the Excuse."
The Indian Moghuls and Chinese Emperors used the trumping up of "Enemies" to impose brutal domination of perceived and convenient foes.
Even in the Land of the Free, the Straw Man has proven to be a useful tool of political control for many now vilified political figures. Sen. Joe McCarthy & President Nixon are simply the most prominent examples, but examples abound.
From W.R. Hearst to Adolf Hitler, those who would control and rule others for their own Power compose an ever present, countless horde. And their excuses are countless as well.
Hitler had the Jews, McCarthy the Communists, and Che Guevara had ... Well, anyone who stood in the way of his thirst for Power. The same for Mao, Stalin and countless others.
Now, the path of the despot isn't easy, and the quest to demonize and vilify for Powers sake requires many collaborators. Hitler had the ruin of the Weimar Republic, a willing Press & a depressed, desperate populace. McCarthy had the Communist "threat" and a Press that was hungry for a sensation and a target. Nixon was afraid of pretty much anyone who spoke out against him, especially the Press.
Which of the above "gentleman" fell with comparative ease, was disgraced and vilified by all and sundry, and spent years in exile? Nixon, of course.
The determining factor in all "successful" despotism has always been a willing and cooperative Press. From the Town Crier to Lippmann & Linkletter, the Media has been key in guiding and sometimes dictating the amount of Freedom the Populace expects and enjoys.
Nixon was taken down by his failure to court, flatter and seduce the Press. There is no doubt that his open distrust and contempt for the Press was his undoing. It wasn't his lies, which the Press are quick to forgive "their" Friends. It wasn't his "crooked" behavior or any incompetence.
Nixon was "taken down" by a hostile & confrontational Press, a supposedly "Free Press" which had openly taken sides, and was determined to prove that no man could become and remain "King" without their consent and approval.
The Medieval Press was controlled by the Church, Bishops, Kings and Lords. The early 20th Century Press was controlled by the "Yellow Journalists," and the euphemistically coined "Progressives."
And the Press proved in the 70's that they could depose "King Richard" and elect President Carter.
And then came Obama.
We've been given a President who enjoys, even in the midst of a continually falling approval rating and despotic (and Constitutionally suspect) legislative collusion, a smiling and proud Press. They crow of his "accomplishments" while ignoring faults, foibles and outright lies, actions that would destroy any Republican or Conservative. They ignore and openly make excuses for the failures to keep his campaign promises of transparency & accountability. They continually, and with ever louder voices, vilify "the Opposition," even though that opposition is currently powerless to stop any legitimate and truly sensible legislation.
So, why the continued acceptance of the crooked behavior of men (and women) named Dodd, Rangel, Stupak & Pelosi. Why the conspicuous lack of fanfare upon the passing of (the openly conniving) Sen. Murtha, compared with the near deification of Sen Kennedy?
The answer; They know who their "friends' are ... At least for today.
The simple fact is that they are beginning to truly understand that We, the People, are now being considered an open threat to the Power of the Press. And those who teach and promote a "conservationist" attitude are vilified for not "giving" what the "Progressive" Press dictates should be considered "entitlements."
"Bread and Circuses for All" is the attitude of the Press. The Press espouses a philosophy of forcing more productive Citizens to "pay for it" since they have been "more fortunate." The reality of confiscatory taxation is now upon us.
The reality is, since I don't have and have not had for over 20 years any health insurance, and have depended upon my self to maintain my health at a minimal cost, I will now be "fined" (i.e. pay a head tax) for my choice.
And it has been by choice.
I am not a VICTIM.
The Press has now openly become the puppet of the "Progressives." And the People have become aware, and are slowly, so slowly, turning away from them.
And, as the People turn to sources of information, commentary and entertainment that are "free" as well as truly Free, the "King making" Press flails and whines over its waning Power and Profit.
The Press now, instead of becoming truly Free, cries over their falling readership, listenership, and PROFITS. They make noises about Government subsidies, since they're so (self) important to the maintenance of the ("Progressives") Power.
The People now hold the Power, the Power to comment, inform and demand the Truth. We the People now constitute the truly Free Press.
So, dear friends, fellows and Citizens, stand ... Well, sit at your keyboards and write.
Stand with your signs, raise your voices, and inform your neighbors. Email your "Representatives" and call and visit their offices and, above all, do so with good cheer and unfailing good manners.
Do as Ghandi taught us: Resist with your voices, and your vote. But do so with peaceful words, and stubborn actions. Don't raise your fist.
Instead, sit down, and decline to move.
And raise your voice as you do so.
Don't give them their "Excuse."
Become and participate in being the New Free Press, and We the People will WIN.
For they rely on our terror, and we're less and less afraid (and more angry) every day.
UP THE VOLTAGE!
Showing posts with label reality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reality. Show all posts
Friday, April 2, 2010
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Two viewpoints, one solution for Water- By Victor Davis Hansen & Jim Boren, w/ commentary
A fishy tale about California water
Sep 27, 2009
Published online in the Fresno Bee
Sunday, Sep. 27, 2009
By Victor Davis Hanson
California is in an uproar over water.
Nearly a quarter-million acres worth of contracted federal irrigation deliveries have been cut from the big farms of the west side of the San Joaquin Valley in central California. The water in large part is being diverted to the salty San Francisco Bay and the Delta to improve marine ecology.
The result of the cutbacks is that many crops in the San Joaquin Valley have gone unplanted. Farm income is down. Thousands of farm laborers are unemployed. Growers and workers are now livid at environmentalists, federal bureaucrats and judges for worrying more about fish than about people and food growing.
Environmentalists counter that the real cause of the cutoff is an ongoing drought. They argue there are too many claims on too little fresh water with no margin of safety in dry years like this one. The problem is not just saving tiny Delta smelt or salmon, but a larger one of living within our means and not polluting our fragile ecosystem.
Emotion colors the arguments of both sides. The west side is not yet a "dust bowl," as claimed on Fox News, and San Francisco Bay and the Delta will not turn stagnant, as some environmentalists fret. The majority of west-side land is still farmed, and the bay is far cleaner than it was decades ago.
The crisis is not over an entire valley, but instead a sizable part of it without regular irrigation deliveries. For those farmers and workers whose livelihoods depend on that parched acreage, the result is undeniably catastrophic.
All this should remind us that Americans have developed a bad habit of avoiding tough choices. Californians could build more dams and more canals, and farm with adequate irrigation, but that would mean fewer natural flowing rivers, fewer fish and saltier deltas.
Few, though, will honestly acknowledge, "I want 10,000 acres of almonds, but I realize that will mean a slightly saltier delta and less marine life," or, on the flip side, "I vote for more Delta smelt but understand that will mean fewer tomatoes."
Instead of making these bad/worse decisions, we dream on about a natural California, with plenty of rain, stuffed with 36 million affluent residents (most of them crammed near Los Angeles or San Francisco).
Amnesiac federal officials and judges likewise are just as unrealistic.
The problems with fish in San Francisco Bay Area water are not just because fresh river water is being sent to San Joaquin Valley farms.
Northern Californians -- sewer districts, businesses and developers -- also are dumping more treated wastewater and run-off into the Delta and bay, and more fresh water is thus needed to flush it out. Yet it seems easier to cut short a few thousand farmers and farm workers than to order millions of Northern Californians to alter their habits.
It was also the federal government in the first place that, rightly or wrongly, built the dams, canals and pumps to provide the vast water transfers for farming. Once upon a time, the government saw public benefit in turning arid land into green productive farms.
So naturally the federal government also provided the crop and irrigation subsidies to encourage a few individuals to create a vast corporate agribusiness out of former alkali wasteland of the valley's west side. Now that its old dream of new productive farms, plentiful food and thousands of new jobs is realized, a different sort of bureaucracy and judiciary has the luxury to renege and question whether the investment was ever worth it.
Californians and Americans, of course, will still eat no matter what happens to this water, as they still drive. But if we do not produce our own food and fuel, someone else will do it for us.
That means we will have to earn -- or borrow -- the necessary cash payments from somewhere to ensure our present standard of living. Good luck with that. Currently the United States is running a $2 trillion annual deficit and a $32-billion-a-month trade deficit. California itself is trying to recover from a recent $42 billion annual budget shortfall.
Unless we cut our population or our appetites, each acre of food we idle in the United States -- just like every barrel of oil we don't pump -- means that we will import what we take for granted from somewhere else.
We can be sure that even if we find the money to pay those who sell us our imported food and fuel, they will produce it in a lot messier fashion than we can ever imagine -- ensuring a poorer America and a dirtier planet all at once.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON IS A CLASSICIST AND HISTORIAN AT THE HOOVER INSTITUTION, STANFORD UNIVERSITY. YOU CAN REACH HIM BY VISITING AUTHOR@VICTORHANSON.COM. HIS COLUMN APPEARS SUNDAYS.
---------------------
There's not much that I can add to this article. Mr. Hansen makes his conclusions clear; Either plan and build, profit & grow, or surrender to a dwindling of our national vitality, influence, and worth.
Or even worse, become a Totalitarian society that dictates how many children its citizens "may" have, and what sex they will be. And that will only be the start of the "decrees."
The "Environmentalists" decry the management attitude of the true conservationist, and invariably advocate the deprivation of someone else to achieve their desires. All one need do is look at their willful ignorance of Delta municipalities continued dumping of partially treated sewage into the Delta. Their attitude uniformly reflects the same attitude that has made recent wildfires so devastating, the denial of intelligent and sustainable management.
This self serving attitude is "countered" in their captive press most often by such mealy mouthed drivel as was recently written by Jim Boren of the Fresno Bee:
Republicans' role in water crisis
Sep 26, 2009
Published in the Merced Sun-Star
Saturday September 26, 2009
To hear all the shouting over the lack of water for farms on the San Joaquin Valley's Westside, you'd think this problem was created solely by Democrats catering to their environmental friends. But the Republicans also played a major role in diverting farm water to environmental uses.
In 1992, then-President George H.W. Bush signed the Miller-Bradley bill to reform the Central Valley Project. Bush did this even after coming to Fresno and promising farmers that he would veto the bill when it got to his desk.
California agricultural interests vehemently opposed the bill inspired by their political nemesis, Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez.
Farmers said it would devastate the state's agricultural industry. Bush signed the measure, which also included water projects for other Western states, just days before the 1992 presidential election.
We're still feeling the damage of that bill 17 years later. The legislation set aside about 1.2 million acre-feet of CVP water every year for environmental restoration, wildlife refuges and rivers. That's a significant loss of water to farmers, and set the foundation for the water losses farmers are experiencing today.
Farmers have every right to blame the environmental movement for their plight, but the Miller-Bradley reform was supported by both parties. For example, the bill passed 83-8 in the U.S. Senate prior to it being signed by Bush.
Republicans blame the Endangered Species Act for causing the diversion of even more water for environmental purposes, and they are correct. But what they don't say is they had the power to change the bill, and didn't. For six years when George W. Bush was president, the Republicans held both houses of Congress but let the ESA stand.
This demonstrates why it's so difficult for farmers to make their case nationally for more water. They may call environmentalists wackos -- or communists in the case of Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia -- but nationally the environmental movement is a lot more accepted than you'd think listening to Valley talk radio.
That's why I believe the strategy of demonizing environmentalists isn't working. The agricultural community needs to stop framing this issue as "fish vs. people" and explain to Americans that they need water to grow the nation's food so they aren't forced to buy their food overseas.
Farm supporters flirt with this issue with signs that say, "If you like foreign oil, you'll love foreign food." But they aren't committed to that as a strategy. Their dislike for the environmental movement seems to trump good political sense on this issue.
I'm also stunned that farmers don't point out they were environmentalists before the movement was cool. They should be explaining how they must protect their land to make crops grow year after year.
What's a better environmental choice? Growing crops on productive land or paving it over for shopping centers?
But farmers would rather slug it out with environmentalists than point out the many things they have in common. So they trot out the tired "fish vs. people" argument.
I agree that the balance in this debate has been shifted to the environmental side because of the Miller-Bradley bill, the ESA and recent court decisions. But the Republicans went along with the bills when they could have blocked them or made changes.
It's time that Valley agriculture revamp their political strategy. Make a convincing case to Americans that they are better off having their food grown on American soil. It sure beats the flawed tactics that have allowed environmental opponents to control the flow of water.
Jim Boren is The Fresno Bee's editorial page editor. E-mail him at jboren@fresnobee.com
----------------------
The fact that Mr. Boren seems to uniformly side-step is that the Farmers have been poorly served by both the Democrat & Republican Parties. With the sole exception of Rep. Nunes, Central California Representatives and Senators have done a dismal job of protecting the interests of their constituents. Many, such as our "lifetime" Senators, have fervently voted to decimate the livelihood of their constituents, attempting to placate their true constituents. Mr. Boren attitude seems to be "Well, what do you expect Democrat's to do?"
Why does it take a lay fellow such as myself, nearly yelling in the face of a Concord City Councilman, to get him to address the "domino effect" that is taking place due to the self serving actions of Rep. George Miller? He already knew that every farm job lost affects at least 8 additional NObama County jobs.
However, he'd missed the inevitable effects that would pose upon his own locality.
The realization that dawned upon his face was astonishing, when, after his "We should have more hearings on storage," I made the truthful statement that silenced him: "We have been debating more storage since before 1973, when I debated it in High School Ecology class. WHEN DO WE MAKE A DECISION TO BUILD?!?"
The time for funding studies and debate is past. Decisions must be made. Dams & canals must be built. Telling us we can't grow, and the unstated "Sorry, you'll just have to move!" isn't an answer.
Absurdly, Mr. Boren preaches that both sides join, yet attempts to evade any commitment to the cause of Agriculture. Sadly, I've yet to see Mr. Boren out at one of the Water Rallies. He has yet to show the slightest bit of real, substantial support, much less impartially informed reportage.
If he'd been present for the trip to the Concord March, much less the march itself, he'd have seen & heard our efforts to tie together the interests of ALL Californians, not to mention all Americans. Our appeals to the Union members and paid "activists" were to come and support their own Union brethren whose jobs had been affected and sometimes lost by the regulatory drought.
Our efforts are not about "winning," as though this were a game. They are aimed at saving our very way of life.
I applaud the honesty and frank discussion of realities that Mr. Hansen engages in, and sadly, must point to Mr. Boren as just another part of the problem. Mr. Boren, let me tell you what we expect Democrat's, Republicans and ANYONE who runs for, and wins public office to do; SERVE THE PEOPLE>
We expect and demand that every Politician will work for ALL Americans. The people who buy our agricultural products expect us to give them our best in return for their money. We must make it clear that we expect nothing less from ALL "public servants."
The feigned and disingenuous outrage of Senator Feinstein is ridiculous and offensive. Her ignorance of the plight of 40,000 NObamans is inexcusable. Her lies are sickening. And the continued "pass" of her captive press make clear that they are simply willing sycophants.
My last word: Politicians, Press & everyone else, stop acting like children playing dodgeball, and GROW THE HELL UP! Look about yourself, and stop choosing the easy, selfish solution. Realize that we will diminish and die as a People if we decide not to grow up and improve the lives of ALL people.
"Water for All" means just that, for ALL. Dams can be built, sewage treatment plants can be built, fish can thrive, farms can thrive, and happiness can be pursued.
And we shall ALL overcome.
Sep 27, 2009
Published online in the Fresno Bee
Sunday, Sep. 27, 2009
By Victor Davis Hanson
California is in an uproar over water.
Nearly a quarter-million acres worth of contracted federal irrigation deliveries have been cut from the big farms of the west side of the San Joaquin Valley in central California. The water in large part is being diverted to the salty San Francisco Bay and the Delta to improve marine ecology.
The result of the cutbacks is that many crops in the San Joaquin Valley have gone unplanted. Farm income is down. Thousands of farm laborers are unemployed. Growers and workers are now livid at environmentalists, federal bureaucrats and judges for worrying more about fish than about people and food growing.
Environmentalists counter that the real cause of the cutoff is an ongoing drought. They argue there are too many claims on too little fresh water with no margin of safety in dry years like this one. The problem is not just saving tiny Delta smelt or salmon, but a larger one of living within our means and not polluting our fragile ecosystem.
Emotion colors the arguments of both sides. The west side is not yet a "dust bowl," as claimed on Fox News, and San Francisco Bay and the Delta will not turn stagnant, as some environmentalists fret. The majority of west-side land is still farmed, and the bay is far cleaner than it was decades ago.
The crisis is not over an entire valley, but instead a sizable part of it without regular irrigation deliveries. For those farmers and workers whose livelihoods depend on that parched acreage, the result is undeniably catastrophic.
All this should remind us that Americans have developed a bad habit of avoiding tough choices. Californians could build more dams and more canals, and farm with adequate irrigation, but that would mean fewer natural flowing rivers, fewer fish and saltier deltas.
Few, though, will honestly acknowledge, "I want 10,000 acres of almonds, but I realize that will mean a slightly saltier delta and less marine life," or, on the flip side, "I vote for more Delta smelt but understand that will mean fewer tomatoes."
Instead of making these bad/worse decisions, we dream on about a natural California, with plenty of rain, stuffed with 36 million affluent residents (most of them crammed near Los Angeles or San Francisco).
Amnesiac federal officials and judges likewise are just as unrealistic.
The problems with fish in San Francisco Bay Area water are not just because fresh river water is being sent to San Joaquin Valley farms.
Northern Californians -- sewer districts, businesses and developers -- also are dumping more treated wastewater and run-off into the Delta and bay, and more fresh water is thus needed to flush it out. Yet it seems easier to cut short a few thousand farmers and farm workers than to order millions of Northern Californians to alter their habits.
It was also the federal government in the first place that, rightly or wrongly, built the dams, canals and pumps to provide the vast water transfers for farming. Once upon a time, the government saw public benefit in turning arid land into green productive farms.
So naturally the federal government also provided the crop and irrigation subsidies to encourage a few individuals to create a vast corporate agribusiness out of former alkali wasteland of the valley's west side. Now that its old dream of new productive farms, plentiful food and thousands of new jobs is realized, a different sort of bureaucracy and judiciary has the luxury to renege and question whether the investment was ever worth it.
Californians and Americans, of course, will still eat no matter what happens to this water, as they still drive. But if we do not produce our own food and fuel, someone else will do it for us.
That means we will have to earn -- or borrow -- the necessary cash payments from somewhere to ensure our present standard of living. Good luck with that. Currently the United States is running a $2 trillion annual deficit and a $32-billion-a-month trade deficit. California itself is trying to recover from a recent $42 billion annual budget shortfall.
Unless we cut our population or our appetites, each acre of food we idle in the United States -- just like every barrel of oil we don't pump -- means that we will import what we take for granted from somewhere else.
We can be sure that even if we find the money to pay those who sell us our imported food and fuel, they will produce it in a lot messier fashion than we can ever imagine -- ensuring a poorer America and a dirtier planet all at once.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON IS A CLASSICIST AND HISTORIAN AT THE HOOVER INSTITUTION, STANFORD UNIVERSITY. YOU CAN REACH HIM BY VISITING AUTHOR@VICTORHANSON.COM. HIS COLUMN APPEARS SUNDAYS.
---------------------
There's not much that I can add to this article. Mr. Hansen makes his conclusions clear; Either plan and build, profit & grow, or surrender to a dwindling of our national vitality, influence, and worth.
Or even worse, become a Totalitarian society that dictates how many children its citizens "may" have, and what sex they will be. And that will only be the start of the "decrees."
The "Environmentalists" decry the management attitude of the true conservationist, and invariably advocate the deprivation of someone else to achieve their desires. All one need do is look at their willful ignorance of Delta municipalities continued dumping of partially treated sewage into the Delta. Their attitude uniformly reflects the same attitude that has made recent wildfires so devastating, the denial of intelligent and sustainable management.
This self serving attitude is "countered" in their captive press most often by such mealy mouthed drivel as was recently written by Jim Boren of the Fresno Bee:
Republicans' role in water crisis
Sep 26, 2009
Published in the Merced Sun-Star
Saturday September 26, 2009
To hear all the shouting over the lack of water for farms on the San Joaquin Valley's Westside, you'd think this problem was created solely by Democrats catering to their environmental friends. But the Republicans also played a major role in diverting farm water to environmental uses.
In 1992, then-President George H.W. Bush signed the Miller-Bradley bill to reform the Central Valley Project. Bush did this even after coming to Fresno and promising farmers that he would veto the bill when it got to his desk.
California agricultural interests vehemently opposed the bill inspired by their political nemesis, Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez.
Farmers said it would devastate the state's agricultural industry. Bush signed the measure, which also included water projects for other Western states, just days before the 1992 presidential election.
We're still feeling the damage of that bill 17 years later. The legislation set aside about 1.2 million acre-feet of CVP water every year for environmental restoration, wildlife refuges and rivers. That's a significant loss of water to farmers, and set the foundation for the water losses farmers are experiencing today.
Farmers have every right to blame the environmental movement for their plight, but the Miller-Bradley reform was supported by both parties. For example, the bill passed 83-8 in the U.S. Senate prior to it being signed by Bush.
Republicans blame the Endangered Species Act for causing the diversion of even more water for environmental purposes, and they are correct. But what they don't say is they had the power to change the bill, and didn't. For six years when George W. Bush was president, the Republicans held both houses of Congress but let the ESA stand.
This demonstrates why it's so difficult for farmers to make their case nationally for more water. They may call environmentalists wackos -- or communists in the case of Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia -- but nationally the environmental movement is a lot more accepted than you'd think listening to Valley talk radio.
That's why I believe the strategy of demonizing environmentalists isn't working. The agricultural community needs to stop framing this issue as "fish vs. people" and explain to Americans that they need water to grow the nation's food so they aren't forced to buy their food overseas.
Farm supporters flirt with this issue with signs that say, "If you like foreign oil, you'll love foreign food." But they aren't committed to that as a strategy. Their dislike for the environmental movement seems to trump good political sense on this issue.
I'm also stunned that farmers don't point out they were environmentalists before the movement was cool. They should be explaining how they must protect their land to make crops grow year after year.
What's a better environmental choice? Growing crops on productive land or paving it over for shopping centers?
But farmers would rather slug it out with environmentalists than point out the many things they have in common. So they trot out the tired "fish vs. people" argument.
I agree that the balance in this debate has been shifted to the environmental side because of the Miller-Bradley bill, the ESA and recent court decisions. But the Republicans went along with the bills when they could have blocked them or made changes.
It's time that Valley agriculture revamp their political strategy. Make a convincing case to Americans that they are better off having their food grown on American soil. It sure beats the flawed tactics that have allowed environmental opponents to control the flow of water.
Jim Boren is The Fresno Bee's editorial page editor. E-mail him at jboren@fresnobee.com
----------------------
The fact that Mr. Boren seems to uniformly side-step is that the Farmers have been poorly served by both the Democrat & Republican Parties. With the sole exception of Rep. Nunes, Central California Representatives and Senators have done a dismal job of protecting the interests of their constituents. Many, such as our "lifetime" Senators, have fervently voted to decimate the livelihood of their constituents, attempting to placate their true constituents. Mr. Boren attitude seems to be "Well, what do you expect Democrat's to do?"
Why does it take a lay fellow such as myself, nearly yelling in the face of a Concord City Councilman, to get him to address the "domino effect" that is taking place due to the self serving actions of Rep. George Miller? He already knew that every farm job lost affects at least 8 additional NObama County jobs.
However, he'd missed the inevitable effects that would pose upon his own locality.
The realization that dawned upon his face was astonishing, when, after his "We should have more hearings on storage," I made the truthful statement that silenced him: "We have been debating more storage since before 1973, when I debated it in High School Ecology class. WHEN DO WE MAKE A DECISION TO BUILD?!?"
The time for funding studies and debate is past. Decisions must be made. Dams & canals must be built. Telling us we can't grow, and the unstated "Sorry, you'll just have to move!" isn't an answer.
Absurdly, Mr. Boren preaches that both sides join, yet attempts to evade any commitment to the cause of Agriculture. Sadly, I've yet to see Mr. Boren out at one of the Water Rallies. He has yet to show the slightest bit of real, substantial support, much less impartially informed reportage.
If he'd been present for the trip to the Concord March, much less the march itself, he'd have seen & heard our efforts to tie together the interests of ALL Californians, not to mention all Americans. Our appeals to the Union members and paid "activists" were to come and support their own Union brethren whose jobs had been affected and sometimes lost by the regulatory drought.
Our efforts are not about "winning," as though this were a game. They are aimed at saving our very way of life.
I applaud the honesty and frank discussion of realities that Mr. Hansen engages in, and sadly, must point to Mr. Boren as just another part of the problem. Mr. Boren, let me tell you what we expect Democrat's, Republicans and ANYONE who runs for, and wins public office to do; SERVE THE PEOPLE>
We expect and demand that every Politician will work for ALL Americans. The people who buy our agricultural products expect us to give them our best in return for their money. We must make it clear that we expect nothing less from ALL "public servants."
The feigned and disingenuous outrage of Senator Feinstein is ridiculous and offensive. Her ignorance of the plight of 40,000 NObamans is inexcusable. Her lies are sickening. And the continued "pass" of her captive press make clear that they are simply willing sycophants.
My last word: Politicians, Press & everyone else, stop acting like children playing dodgeball, and GROW THE HELL UP! Look about yourself, and stop choosing the easy, selfish solution. Realize that we will diminish and die as a People if we decide not to grow up and improve the lives of ALL people.
"Water for All" means just that, for ALL. Dams can be built, sewage treatment plants can be built, fish can thrive, farms can thrive, and happiness can be pursued.
And we shall ALL overcome.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Update from the Front Lines; Visalia, 2.9.09, Pro-Health Care ReForm Demonstration from the "Con" side.
From our Roving Correspondent, C. Brooks Nielsen
Wednesday, Sept 2, 9 p.m.
Just got back from the Visalia street rally. Tea Party folk gathered at the last minute to offer another side to a preplanned organized Obamacare demonstration.
There we were, signs a-waving, cheering the honks and waves of passersby, almost as big a showing on our side of the street as the candle-bearing group that spent most of its time in a huddle listening to speakers in their midst.
We agreed we'll get together again locally on 9/12 to cheer on those of us there tonight who will be representing us in D.C. for the finale of the Tea Party Express.
Life is good when you know it!
cbn
Wednesday, Sept 2, 9 p.m.
Just got back from the Visalia street rally. Tea Party folk gathered at the last minute to offer another side to a preplanned organized Obamacare demonstration.
There we were, signs a-waving, cheering the honks and waves of passersby, almost as big a showing on our side of the street as the candle-bearing group that spent most of its time in a huddle listening to speakers in their midst.
We agreed we'll get together again locally on 9/12 to cheer on those of us there tonight who will be representing us in D.C. for the finale of the Tea Party Express.
Life is good when you know it!
cbn
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
"The Pumps are on!": The Real Truth, the Real Answer.
When that annoyingly liberal, "environmentalist" friend that we all have says "Well, what's the problem? The pumps are already on!" Here's your answer:
When in Fresno for his 'secret' Town Hall meeting, the Secretary of the Interior made the statement that "The pumps have been turned on!" He was greeted with applause, but this wasn't a surprise to those in the know. In fact, it was no surprise at all.
The pumps were on because the smelt weren't 'scheduled' to be near them. Since the pumps were 'clear,' they'd been scheduled to be turned on on that date. Well, then what's the problem?
The problem is that you can't wait until June 1st to irrigate your crops. If you plant in the late winter/early spring, you have to irrigate as soon as the ground warms, plants sprout, and the ground dries.
"Well, why can't they just wait to irrigate?" that annoying friend says, whining ...
Well, why can't you just wait 3 or 4 months to water your lawn, after spring comes? Or water your flowers only every 3 or 4 months? Nature doesn't work that way, no matter what Congress, The Administration, or the Tooth Fairy say.
The simple answer? Things just don't work that way. You have to plant at a certain time, you have to irrigate at a certain time, you have to harvest at a certain time.
So yes, the pumps were turned on June 1st.
3 months late, and scheduled to pump only 10% of the water that was contracted.
That's just the way things work. Or don't.
When in Fresno for his 'secret' Town Hall meeting, the Secretary of the Interior made the statement that "The pumps have been turned on!" He was greeted with applause, but this wasn't a surprise to those in the know. In fact, it was no surprise at all.
The pumps were on because the smelt weren't 'scheduled' to be near them. Since the pumps were 'clear,' they'd been scheduled to be turned on on that date. Well, then what's the problem?
The problem is that you can't wait until June 1st to irrigate your crops. If you plant in the late winter/early spring, you have to irrigate as soon as the ground warms, plants sprout, and the ground dries.
"Well, why can't they just wait to irrigate?" that annoying friend says, whining ...
Well, why can't you just wait 3 or 4 months to water your lawn, after spring comes? Or water your flowers only every 3 or 4 months? Nature doesn't work that way, no matter what Congress, The Administration, or the Tooth Fairy say.
The simple answer? Things just don't work that way. You have to plant at a certain time, you have to irrigate at a certain time, you have to harvest at a certain time.
So yes, the pumps were turned on June 1st.
3 months late, and scheduled to pump only 10% of the water that was contracted.
That's just the way things work. Or don't.
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