MOVEMENT DOESN'T LIE, MR. PRESIDENT
I am in a bit of a quandary. In my last blog, I acceded to the fair but firm suggestion of trusted friends that perhaps – however accurate my critical substantive assessments of the Obama Administration may be – the style of my reportage is too strident, thus turning off people before they can hear the (what I believe to be) validity of my critiques, and posted a “kinder and gentler” blog, conceding my overly strident past, but asking that the President’s defenders be open to a reality that flies in the face of their unconditional approval of Mr. Obama.
Now I am faced with the difficulty of trying to emphatically condemn yet another recent anti-environmental decision by Mr. Obama’s Agriculture Department, without sounding harsh and strident, but succeeding in bringing it to the attention of remarkably uncritical supporters of almost all the President says and does.
A dear friend once told me that “movement doesn’t lie.” I didn’t understand, so he explained that when confronted with a contradiction between what one says and what one does, go with what s/he does, because a person’s truth is shown in his or her behavior, not pronouncements. From the moment I heard that line, I have taken it to heart and I feel very strongly that in the case of President Obama, it is imperative to remember “movement doesn’t lie.”
This week, Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture, under which department resides the U.S. Forest Service, and an employee of Mr. Obama, who makes decisions at the behest and under the “veto” power of the President, approved commercial logging and the necessary road-building that attends such activity within Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. This forest is a seventeen million acre pristine temperate rainforest that is the habitat of several endangered species, home to members of native Alaskan indian tribes, and an ecological treasure we are blessed to have in the United States. During his campaign for the White House, Mr. Obama promised that he would preserve the “roadless rule,” that essentially says pristine National Forests, meaning those that have not been previously developed, logged, or had roads built in them, will not be subject to logging and road-building.
(In pursuit of intellectual honesty, I hasten to add that Salazar, in an environmentally sound move, also repealed Bush Administration approval of logging in certain national forests in Oregon that are home to the endangered and once notorious spotted owl, but admitted to doing so because he was sure the permits would not withstand legal challenges under the Endangered Species Act.)
Once again, however, Mr. Obama has gone back on a campaign promise. (The previously strident journalist in me would have said he lied.) Once more, Mr. Obama has allowed his Interior Department to act in a strongly anti-environmental way, for the benefit of corporate giants, a practice that no longer surprises anyone who follows the President’s “movement” in regard to ecological matters.
What then, is one to do? Not mention this? Act as if it’s an aberrant incident? Or worst of all, go along with what passes for conventional wisdom among the vast majority of Obama supporters who will claim that it’s a small negative blip on the screen of vast good he is doing? Precisely where is this vast good the President is doing? It escapes me. Relatively few will ever know of this latest betrayal of the environment, let alone what a “roadless rule” is, but they will have seen the President’s superb speech to the NAACP this week, solidifying his reputation among liberals as what I used to admittedly bitterly call The Savior. Talk is cheap, movement doesn't lie.
Barack Obama is not the great progressive leader people apparently need him to be. We are suffering a dangerous case of politico-cultural dissonance, the minimum price of which is yet another unaffordable delay in placing this country on the truly progressive path it must steer in order to survive, if not flourish, in this century.
I close by repeating the good faith modest proposal I made in my last blog: I shall keep my critiques of Mr. Obama substantive, rather than ad hominem, if you, dear friends, will please, please judge this president on the basis of what he is and does, not what you want him to be.
Now I am faced with the difficulty of trying to emphatically condemn yet another recent anti-environmental decision by Mr. Obama’s Agriculture Department, without sounding harsh and strident, but succeeding in bringing it to the attention of remarkably uncritical supporters of almost all the President says and does.
A dear friend once told me that “movement doesn’t lie.” I didn’t understand, so he explained that when confronted with a contradiction between what one says and what one does, go with what s/he does, because a person’s truth is shown in his or her behavior, not pronouncements. From the moment I heard that line, I have taken it to heart and I feel very strongly that in the case of President Obama, it is imperative to remember “movement doesn’t lie.”
This week, Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture, under which department resides the U.S. Forest Service, and an employee of Mr. Obama, who makes decisions at the behest and under the “veto” power of the President, approved commercial logging and the necessary road-building that attends such activity within Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. This forest is a seventeen million acre pristine temperate rainforest that is the habitat of several endangered species, home to members of native Alaskan indian tribes, and an ecological treasure we are blessed to have in the United States. During his campaign for the White House, Mr. Obama promised that he would preserve the “roadless rule,” that essentially says pristine National Forests, meaning those that have not been previously developed, logged, or had roads built in them, will not be subject to logging and road-building.
(In pursuit of intellectual honesty, I hasten to add that Salazar, in an environmentally sound move, also repealed Bush Administration approval of logging in certain national forests in Oregon that are home to the endangered and once notorious spotted owl, but admitted to doing so because he was sure the permits would not withstand legal challenges under the Endangered Species Act.)
Once again, however, Mr. Obama has gone back on a campaign promise. (The previously strident journalist in me would have said he lied.) Once more, Mr. Obama has allowed his Interior Department to act in a strongly anti-environmental way, for the benefit of corporate giants, a practice that no longer surprises anyone who follows the President’s “movement” in regard to ecological matters.
What then, is one to do? Not mention this? Act as if it’s an aberrant incident? Or worst of all, go along with what passes for conventional wisdom among the vast majority of Obama supporters who will claim that it’s a small negative blip on the screen of vast good he is doing? Precisely where is this vast good the President is doing? It escapes me. Relatively few will ever know of this latest betrayal of the environment, let alone what a “roadless rule” is, but they will have seen the President’s superb speech to the NAACP this week, solidifying his reputation among liberals as what I used to admittedly bitterly call The Savior. Talk is cheap, movement doesn't lie.
Barack Obama is not the great progressive leader people apparently need him to be. We are suffering a dangerous case of politico-cultural dissonance, the minimum price of which is yet another unaffordable delay in placing this country on the truly progressive path it must steer in order to survive, if not flourish, in this century.
I close by repeating the good faith modest proposal I made in my last blog: I shall keep my critiques of Mr. Obama substantive, rather than ad hominem, if you, dear friends, will please, please judge this president on the basis of what he is and does, not what you want him to be.
posted by david hoch at 7:57 AM
2 Comments:
Lest we forget-the Democrats are now the Republicans and the Republicans are crazy (it was Bill Maher who said it and I'm paraphrasing)so what can we expect!
Damn right great post!
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