It only takes a few bad eggs

So I was thinking this morning, when I saw the newest musings from the one and only Glenn Beck: how can a few crazy people be so influential? It isn't like they use reason to make their arguments, or even that they are somehow more informed. They are simply given a platform to be louder than everyone else (a la Stephen Colbert's persona). Then, I see this article, courtesy of Nate Silver: apparently the Protect Marriage campaign (i.e. anti gay marriage) has gotten 83% of it's funding from two donors:

This is because Stand for Marriage Maine is exceptionally dependent on just two large donors: the New Jersey-based National Organization for Marriage, from which it has received $1,622,152, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland (ME), from which it has received $529,666. Collectively, these two group's represent 83 percent of Yes on 1's fundraising. In addition, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland accounts for 81 percent of its in-state fundraising; without its contributions, Stand for Marriage Maine would have received just $127,218 in contributions from Mainers.

Pretty appalling, but I don't see any clear answers. It is just way too easy to get the masses to respond to the suggestion that they are somehow disenfranchised. Unfortunately you can't call the loud voices out on their unfounded view like the white house tried to do, or the rest of the media will cry foul. We're just stuck with a system of those with the voice (and/or the money) pushing the country where they want it to go.

A reality check for climate scientists

We are NOT getting through to people. A new poll from Pew states this quite clearly. Apparently, the number of people that believe that the earth is warming has dropped from 71% to 57% in the past year. That's right, despite the fact that major changes have not occurred in climate science, and climate scientists are even MORE sure after another year of research, public acceptance climate change is decreasing. This is pretty scary actually, considering that urgent action is needed very soon, if humans are to slow (or even adapt) to the warming

Why the disdain for environmentalists?

As an unabashed environmentalist, I see this sentiment echoed pretty often. It just so happens that I saw two cases of it in the past few days. First, there is the Alabama congressmen who said, quote:

"We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition."

But worse than that was Limbaugh's newest response to a study promoting sustainabilty through better access to contraceptives to prevent "70 percent of unwanted pregnancies". First of all, why would anyone be for unwanted pregnancies. Second, why the extreme language over something that seems like a pretty common-sense idea. Limbaugh's actual response to the reporter from the NYT's who reported the article:

"The environmentalist wackos are the same way [as terrorists, from earlier]. This guy from The New York Times, if he really thinks that humanity is destroying the planet, humanity is destroying the climate, that human beings in their natural existence are going to cause the extinction of life on Earth -- Andrew Revkin. Mr. Revkin, why don't you just go kill yourself and help the planet by dying?"

The thing is, environmentalists feel just as strongly about protecting the country as the far right - they just have different ideas on how to go about it. I hope that once we get over this conspiracy theorizing about the far left's desire to destroy all that 'real Americans' hold dear, we'll also realize that environmentalists are people too.

A new direction...

I realized today that I really dropped the ball on this blog. I started it as an outlet for political and cultural commentary, where I am others would be able to post stories without cluttering Facebook pages with preachy comments, in other words, keeping my preachy here. It turns out, I just lost the urge to write my preachy comments altogether, or so I thought. In actuality, I think what happened is that I never really had the desire to write long treatises a la Frank Rich's Sunday column. Rather I just wanted to have a quick 2 minute rant with a link to the article that set me off. In light of this new spirit, I present my first post for the Viva Sealand blog... see next post