Democratic_Strategist . . . here's a winning issue if ever there was one

[OneBlueSky]

if there's on thing that Americans have agreed on over the past 35 years, it's the need to protect the environment . . . the issue crosses all party demographics and even party affiliations, and it's one that people care about passionately . . .

George W. Bush is an environmental disaster! . . . his administration has spent the past 3 years dismantling, diluting, overturning, and otherwise negating three decades of environmental progress . . . and if they're re-elected, their pace will only quicken until there is no protection left for our air, our water, our natural resources . . . and no protection from toxic chemicals and radioactive weapons (like the kind used in Iraq and Afghanistan), either . . .

one of the smartest things the Kerry campaign could do would be to make Bush's record on the environment a central issue of the campaign . . . full-page newpaper ads, television and radio spots, press kits, candidate speeches, the whole nine yards . . . Kerry might even want to convene a conference of scientists and environmentalists to come up with an action plan for his adminstration . . . most people are unaware of just how much damage BushCo is doing and will continue to do if re-selected . . . you folks must let them know, and in no uncertain terms . . .

the environment is a winning issue, and Bush's disastrous record is certainly fair game . . . Bobby Kennedy could be a great resource for you, as well as a campaign leader on the issue . . . and there are thousands of respected scientists and academics (including, no doubt, many Republicans) who would be happy to lend their names to this kind of initiative . . . please encourage the campaign to put the environment at the very top of their list . . . it will get you guys a lot of votes . . .

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. It will work in WV

where they are destroying mountains again and dumping the residue in valleys. Many WV folks are very upset over this. They aren't rich, but they do vote.

[iwantmycountryback]

8. Colorado

I think talking about the environment would play for well for Kerry in Colorado, a state that is certainly in play for Kerry.

[acmavm]

2. I would certainly think Californians would pay attention to that. Here's

a story in the NY Times this morning:

Study Finds Climate Shift Threatens California
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/17/national/17heat.html?th

<snip>
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 16 - A scientific study released on Monday presents an alarming view of climate changes in California, finding that by the end of the century rising temperatures could lead to a sevenfold increase in heat-related deaths in Los Angeles and imperil the state's wine and dairy industries.
-MORE-

NOt a pretty picture.

[NMDemDist2]

3. and if you could get Bobby Kennedy Jr to do some speechs

wooohoo :bounce:

[JI7]

4. robert kennedy jr supported Kerry in the primary and campaigned for him

and continues to do it.

there was an article posted about a week ago on du about how kerry is using the environmental issue to appeal to many different type of voters. some of may not be regular democratic voters . it was very good.

[No Mandate Here.]

5. An earlier thread...

Let's keep this one going.

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2225411>

<>
(from the front page of today's WaPO.

[Catt03]

6. Hers's another one

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x627385

[OneBlueSky]

7. Crimes Against Nature . . . by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. . .

this is the kind of stuff the Kerry campaign should be saying . . . loudly, repeatedly, and passionately . . .

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1120-01.htm

George W. Bush will go down in history as America's worst environmental president. In a ferocious three-year attack, the Bush administration has initiated more than 200 major rollbacks of America's environmental laws, weakening the protection of our country's air, water, public lands and wildlife. Cloaked in meticulously crafted language designed to deceive the public, the administration intends to eliminate the nation's most important environmental laws by the end of the year. Under the guidance of Republican pollster Frank Luntz, the Bush White House has actively hidden its anti-environmental program behind deceptive rhetoric, telegenic spokespeople, secrecy and the intimidation of scientists and bureaucrats. The Bush attack was not entirely unexpected. George W. Bush had the grimmest environmental record of any governor during his tenure in Texas. Texas became number one in air and water pollution and in the release of toxic chemicals. In his six years in Austin, he championed a short-term pollution-based prosperity, which enriched his political contributors and corporate cronies by lowering the quality of life for everyone else. Now President Bush is set to do the same to America. After three years, his policies are already bearing fruit, diminishing standards of living for millions of Americans.

(snip)

The attacks began on Inauguration Day, when President Bush's chief of staff and former General Motors lobbyist Andrew Card quietly initiated a moratorium on all recently adopted regulations. Since then, the White House has enlisted every federal agency that oversees environmental programs in a coordinated effort to relax rules aimed at the oil, coal, logging, mining and chemical industries as well as automakers, real estate developers, corporate agribusiness and other industries.

Bush's Environmental Protection Agency has halted work on sixty-two environmental standards, the federal Department of Agriculture has stopped work on fifty-seven standards, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has halted twenty-one new standards. The EPA completed just two major rules -- both under court order and both watered down at industry request -- compared to twenty-three completed by the Clinton administration and fourteen by the Bush Sr. administration in their first two years.

This onslaught is being coordinated through the White House Office of Management and Budget -- or, more precisely, OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, under the direction of John Graham, the engine-room mechanic of the Bush stealth strategy. Graham's specialty is promoting changes in scientific and economic assumptions that underlie government regulations -- such as recalculating cost-benefit analyses to favor polluters. Before coming to the White House, Graham was the founding director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, where he received funding from America's champion corporate polluters: Dow Chemical, DuPont, Monsanto, Alcoa, Exxon, General Electric and General Motors.

- much more . . . everyone should read this . . .

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1120-01.htm

[OneBlueSky]

9. The Bobby Lobby: An Interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. . . .

Environmental Advocate and Bush Basher
by Amanda Griscom
Grist Magazine
July 13, 2004

http://www.gristmagazine.com/maindish/kennedy071304.asp

Grist: You are well-known for converting celebrities and politicians to the environmental cause through speeches in which you frame environmentalism as a civil-rights issue. Let's start there. How is environmentalism a civil-rights issue?

Robert Kennedy Jr.: The environment is the most important, the most fundamental, civil-rights issue. In the word ecology, the root "eco" is the Greek word for home. It's really about how we manage our home. The environmental movement is a struggle over the control of the commons -- the publicly owned resources, the things that cannot be reduced to private property -- the air, the water, the wandering animals, the public land, the wildlife, the fisheries. The things that from the beginning of time have always been part of the public trust.

(snip)

Grist: We often think of environmental justice as the term that describes the intersection of civil-rights issues and the environment.

Kennedy: That's certainly a critical part of it. In terms of the conventional way that we think of civil rights, the burden of environmental injury always falls on the backs of the poorest people. Four out of every five toxic-waste dumps in America is in a black neighborhood. The largest toxic-waste dump in America is in a community in Alabama that is 85 percent black. The highest concentration of toxic-waste dumps is in the South Side of Chicago. The most contaminated ZIP code in California is East L.A. There's 150,000 Hispanic farm workers that are poisoned by pesticides every year. And God knows what's happening to their families. Navajo youth have 17 times the rate of sexual-organ cancer as other Americans because of the thousands of tons of toxic uranium tailings that have been dumped on their reservation land. So the poor are shouldering the burden for pollution-based prosperity by large corporations who have control of the political process.

Really all environmental injury is an assault on democracy, because the most important measure of how a democracy is functioning is how it distributes the goods of the land, the commons. Democracy must ensure that the public-trust assets stay within the hands of the people.

- more . . .

http://www.gristmagazine.com/maindish/kennedy071304.asp

[wiggs]

10. good point since

....only 7% of the nation appears to think that environmental regulations should be weakened (I forget the poll source).

I remember reading that even RW groups like hunting organizations have been critical of the WH in this regard, because they need large-scale healthy habitat in order to kill the animals that live there.

Environmental issues and our "insensitive", arrogant environmental posturing are also tied to international relationships that Kerry believes are important.

[yellowcanine]

11. WP had a front page article today on mountain top mining and how

Bush used a new interpretation of obscure language in a law to allow mining companies to dump mountain top mining waste into creeks and rivers and basically fill up valleys - mostly in WV, Tenn, and Kentucky. This is one reason why Kerry will probably win WV - people are fed up with this practice.