Activism Across America

On Election Day, as Americans consider whether to place Sarah Palin first in line to become President of the United States in the event that the elderly John McCain dies, they ought to consider the advice of Jeannette Lacey:

“We are the constituents who know what her actions have been, what her behavior has been … and we cannot tolerate that for the vice president of the United States.”

Lacey was the organizer of a protest by hundreds of residents of Juneau, Alaska. The protest was against Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for Vice President of the United States.

Sarah Palin had just been determined to have broken the law in her unethical abuse of power as Governor of Alaska, but the message of the demonstration was more general. Alaskans know that Sarah Palin is no reformer. She’s a corrupt, power-obsessed and vindictive politician who has put her own personal interests ahead of the interests of her constituents, over and over again.

America, we need to listen to the advice of these Alaskans. Sarah Palin has been a bad Governor for Alaska, and she would be a terrible choice for the White House in 2008.

As the campaign to become the Republican nominee for President in 2008, candidates Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter like to say that they are in favor of cutting government spending.

That’s not how they have voted as members of the House of Representatives, however. As members of Congress, Tancredo and Hunter have voted for Republican borrow-and-spend legislation over and over again, and they’ve voted against attempts by Democrats to bring Republican spending under control.

Consider, for example, the vote that Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo case in May of 2006 against an amendment designed to restore fiscal responsibility to logging in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. The Tongass National Forest contains natural resources held in trust for the American people. Yet, under the Republicans, the government has been giving the timber away practically for free.

In 2005, for example, the federal government spent more than 48.5 million dollars subsidizing logging in the Tongass National Forest. In return, the government only got back $500,000 dollars in fees from loggers. That’s 48 million dollars worth of services the government just gave away, as some kind of Logging Welfare. And did the loggers then sell us their timber products at a discounted rate, in thanks for the government giveaways? Nope. They’re taking from the American people on both ends.

A bipartisan effort led by Republican Steve Chabot and Democrat Rob Andrews led to an amendment to end federal government subsidies for logging roads into the Tongass National Forest. Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter opposed this effort to restore fiscal responsibility to government land management. Tancredo and Hunter voted to keep the big government gravy train going.

(Sources: League of Conservation Voters, National Environmental Scorecard, 2006; Library of Congress)

Irregular Times writes about the anti-environmentalist absurdities of Representative Don Young from Alaska. Don Young says that environmentalists are “not Americans”, and Irregular Times asks what Don Young intends to do about that. Is he going to have all us environmentalists deported as illegal aliens? Don Young says that public lands are for communists, and Irregular Times asks whether Don Young thinks that Yellowstone National Park is a communist conspiracy.

These tidbits come to us through Drop Don, a web site that chronicles the absurdities of Alaska’s only member of the House of Representatives.

The latest news from the Alaska Wilderness League has to do with a government plan to grant drilling rights to big oil in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in Alaskan waters. These waters serve as the primary habitat for the only polar bear populations in the United States of America, so preservation of this habitat is no small matter - especially not when the polar bears are already suffering under the dramatic shift in climate.

Of course, the megafauna aren’t the only ones suffering in the region. The Chukchi and Beaufort are also critical to birds, fish, and all sorts of other critters. Opening the area up for oil exploration and extraction can only make matters worse in the sensitive waters.

The Alaska Wilderness League has been working hard to defend the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas from the plan to lease to big oil, recognizing all the while that it’s a battle against the odds for as long as the Bush Adminstration remains in office. The lease is scheduled for February, 2008, so there isn’t much time, and we cannot count on a new, more enlightened President to put an end to the deal.

The public comment period on the deal on July 16, but the Alaska Wilderness League promises more for activism on the issue. I’m grateful to have this organization at work on behalf of us all.