Should George W. Bush be Impeached?

[ShadowTemplar]

It's much easier for example, for a rich person to care about the environment (which sounds paradoxical) because for example a person who's job it is to cut down the trees with his chainsaw to earn his pay probably can't afford to 'care' so much about the virgin forests, etc.

 

Actually, degration of the environment is nowadays mainly done by foreigners (and often over the heads of the local population). The locals living in environmentally sensitive areas are usually very well aware of the fragility of their surroundings.

 

Obviously this is not always the case. And I'm certainly not saying that primitive cultures are 'more aware of the environment' or some similiar 'noble savage' bovine manure. But they are locals - and they have lived there often for centuries.

 

Much as you like to rant about religion being what makes people do bad things, I think it's simply a matter of "how can I get what I want" or "how can I survive."

 

But a great many people give religion as the reason for choices that are contraproductive with respect to those goals. Often blatantly so and often even in the very short term.

[Kurgan]

Actually, degration of the environment is nowadays mainly done by foreigners (and often over the heads of the local population). The locals living in environmentally sensitive areas are usually very well aware of the fragility of their surroundings.

 

Obviously this is not always the case. And I'm certainly not saying that primitive cultures are 'more aware of the environment' or some similiar 'noble savage' bovine manure. But they are locals - and they have lived there often for centuries.

 

What I said isn't 100% I agree. Now that I think about it, I forgot entirely to mention American corporations (or rather multinational corporations that happened to begin over here in many cases or have their power base here) that are major pollutors and exploiters (both in human and environmental terms). These guys can afford to pay the fines or get the legal loopholes in order to keep polluting and make some poor guy do the dirty work who can't afford to argue. While "hippie vegans" for example aren't killing the world, I don't think we in the US with all our automobiles (180 million, for 380 million people?) and huge energy uses have anything to say about it. It's true a lot of those strip mining companies already destroyed the small towns like in Appalachian in Kentucky, but I imagine it's still ongoing.

 

I just see environmentalism as far easier a cause to support when you're wealthy. And yet even our lower class folks are still better off than those in other countries.

 

Do I have a real solution? Not exactly. It seems we'd really have to get everyone on the same level more or less though. And that would either require us (the first world) to give up a lot of our luxuries, or to spend a lot of time and energy to get everyone else "up to speed." I've heard it said that we waste a lot of energy. If everyone in the world used as much energy and created as much waste as we Americans do, the earth would be really screwed up and drained in a very short time. But I don't know how that would really play out... but I see it as "the other folks" are stuck in a cycle, and the only way to get out is to break a few eggs. Since we went that route and we've "made it" why can't we let the do the same? And as long as we make it difficult for people even domestically to get jobs, how can we expect them not to take the dangerous or polluting ones?

 

 

 

But a great many people give religion as the reason for choices that are contraproductive with respect to those goals. Often blatantly so and often even in the very short term.

[toms]

I dunno toms. Depending on how Bush's reign ends out, the "At least I'm not Bush" philosophy could win anyone a Presidential seat.

Maybe the democrats played their "I'm not bush" card too early then. But in general I think you shouldn't always campaign on the basis of what you are not and what you hate, but actually give a vision of who you are and what you want to do.

 

OT: One problem is that laws weren't really set up to deal with multinational corporations. Which laws apply? How can they be enforced? Where do they pay taxes etc? This is really something that the world bodies need to get a grip on if they are serious about globalisation. When its US controlled corporations using poorer local firms that produce pollution and then the US refuses to control polution because the poorer countries won't have to do the same its all messed up.

 

Fun Fact 2: Bush's tax breaks for SUVs mean that when he came to office there were about 3 million of them. Now there are 80 million.

[ShadowTemplar]

Fun Fact 2: Bush's tax breaks for SUVs mean that when he came to office there were about 3 million of them. Now there are 80 million.

 

This may be excessive boolean nitpicking, but you state that W's cuts are responsible for the number of SUVs when he went into office? :-)

 

@Kurgan: I see what you are saying. I'd probably be inclined to claim that the ease with which rich and poor people can choose to pay attention to the environment cannot in fact meaningfully be compared. Often it is the case of the rich being able to afford caring about the environment, whereas the poor cannot afford not to care about the environment.

 

Of course, people can screw up and make unintelligent bad decisions. But only rich people can afford to make intelligent bad decisions, because only rich people can afford to isolate themselves temporarily from the consequences of their environmental policy. Or to paraphrase Jared Diamond: The rich can buy the right to be the last to starve.

 

So, yes, making the choice to ignore the environment is easier for rich people. Screwing up is easier for poor people, because they generally have less access to information. My point is simply that when poor people screw up the environment it is usually due to mistakes - because it is actually contrary to their immediate interests to damage the environment. Of course there are exceptions: The atrociously poor fisherman can be forced to use cyanide and dynamite to fish at the coral reef to support his family through the month, even though he knows that it will utterly and permanently destroy his food source in less than a year/decade. But these are actually the exception not the rule.

[ShadowTemplar]

Hmm...

 

At least the Union seems to be concerned about the illegal, illegitimate, and ineffective way the W regime has been fighting terrorism...

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

I'd like my leaders to be smarter and more sober than me. Those, plus the fact that he was never elected in the first place are my reasons for me wanting him impeached. Also, I think that at the same time as he is impeached, we should change the prerequisites of the presidency, particularly the part about being 35. It should be changed to an IQ test and a polygraph every few months.