Discuss: One Nation Under Elvis

I used to read Dr. Suess’s _The Lorax_ to kids in an environmental education program. I think the relationship between environmentalists and rural locals is the best point of that book, and it makes a similar point to this article’s.

The book is narrated by the Onceler, whose industry destroyed the forest but who now lives in regret. The Lorax is the environmentalist who does nothing but accuse and denounce. He parachutes in, screams and lectures, then disappears once the forest is gone. The Onceler rejects him because of the way his message is framed, and doesn’t see the looming consequences of his industry’s actions.

The environmentalist Lorax is as responsible for the disaster as the industrialist, who begins by loving the forest and just wants to keep making a living off of it. If the Lorax had found a bridge, a way to start a dialogue, they could have built common ground over the idea of sustainability and a shared love for the land.

I have a friend who studied theory and production at the Berklee school of music and at one point took it upon himself to listen to and learn to appreciate every genre of music.  He didn’t like hip-hop, for example, but he learned to see the value in it, including the often complicated ways the spoken rhythms meshed and contrasted with the rhythms of the beat tracks, and the way the rhyming schemes evolved fluidly throughout a given song.

But when he got to Country music he was defeated because it was nothing more than a simpler, more predictable, more formulaic form of rock music.  And that’s how I’ve viewed Country music ever since I first heard it: rock-n-roll for retards.  Is it any wonder Johnny Cash’s best work is a NIN cover?  American folk music is a beautiful thing, with a long and varied tradition.  Country, by contrast, is simply dumb.

Rebecca,

Thank you for writing about a topic seldom mentioned in the left’s “polite company”. I suggest you check out Joe Bageant’s essays, if you have not already encountered them.  One of his central themes is the damage done to everyone by the cultural arrogance of many on the left towards rural society; not the least, its exploitation by the Right. I also recommend his book, “Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War”

http://www.joebageant.com

The Right pursues a “divide and conquer” approach to domination. They fostered the Culture War not just to win votes in the short term, but as a means to destroy the possibility of any feelings of community, of “fraternite” between persons with common interests spanning demographic, ethnic and economic borders. 

The “divide” the Right exploited had its roots not only in the Civil Rights movement, but also in the increasing and now almost total neglect of rural society that became biz’ness as usual in the 80s.  Some on the left look down on rural people for being uneducated and uninformed; the fact is that we gave up on them and their children sometime back in the 80s, and our neglect continues unabated to this day.

James

In “What’s the Matter with Kansas,” Thomas Frank explains why people vote values over self-interest.

In “Don’t Think of an Elephant” George Lakoff explains how the sides frame their arguments.  He also points out one of the basic fallacies of the progressive movement - that people base their votes on logic.  You can understand this by watching any of the original episodes of “Star Trek.” The ‘Spock’ character, played by Leonard Nimoy, was logical and emotionless.  Humans, as he was told over and over again, are emotional, and illogical.

People make decisions emotionally, then use logic to justify their decisions.

RM, in talking about the Lorax and the Onceler reminds me of the people who call themselves environmentalists but who oppose wind farms.  The Kennedys come to mind, as some of New Jersey’s Democrats. T. Boone Pickens, the oil guy, is building wind farms in the bastion of progressive lefty politics - Texas. 

New Jersey, for example, needs 7 giga-watts of electric generation.  1% comes from a wind farm near Atlantic City.  Something like 30% comes from nuclear plants, most of the rest comes from coal, and a very small fraction comes from solar. 

We could easily build wind farms offshore - we have some 120 linear miles of shore - but we’ve been talking about it, throwing money at consultants, and arguing.

your imagery is at odds with itself. that area of BC is fascinating to you precisely because it is unpopulated.

it is also consummately puritan to view ‘vacationing’ as reprehensible. how all-american.

otherwise, somehow i am reminded of the deer hunter and annie proulx’s wyoming stories.

Environmentalists that the aut5hor mentions, are the result of academikization and industrialization of environmental issues.
Iwas an activist in the 70’s and 80’s . I saw Prof. Joseph Cummings, Prof. Epstein and others supporting environmentalists activists efforts to deal with issues such as malathaion spraying, in Winnipeg, uranium in northern Saskatchewan, Uranium problems in Pine House, deforestation and other issues. thger academia then, only gave supportive corroboration of the matters.
Then came the organizations and then came the barring of non-academic educated grassroots and now we are in the dead phase of the environment movement. I remember the first canadian environmental meeting in Calgary, where a video was made of the people present. Some people were chosen to be in the video, others not. Who do you think were the ones left out? Non-whites and non-diploma carriers.Environmentalism has been co-opted so badly that I heard a Dean of a Earth Science department respond the following when there was a talk about lifting the moratorium of oil exploration from the waters of BC: “We are well positioned. We can argue in favour and against. The department has experts in both side of the issue.:
So the day we stop writing books, we stop consuming, we stop talking about and we start acting on behalf of mother earth and all species (not just humans). Everything that needed to be written has been written. /we need to act, educate, down size, ask forgiveness to all sentient beings around us, celebrate, change our directions and create a future from the ground up without the academic interference that makes people to snob the rednecks or farmers or whatever. I just finished watching a movie about the life of a civil rights person in the south and how the white southern people killed and raped and pillaged black folks and made the poor (black and white) suffer.
Let’s stop the myth making action of farmers and southerners including black, asian southerner.
The earth cannot wait for this intellectual exercise. We are at the last gasp. Wake up we are fooling around with this non-sense discussion.
When there is no clean air, water or soil, you will regret the steps not taken towards dealing with the crisis in front of our eyes.
Start by creating the road to sustainability in your own community. Be the hero you are waiting for. Vote Ralph Nader for starters.

Policy is too important to be left to the politicians. So in addition to my songs (as XB Cold Fingers), my blogging (here, on DFA, on Furman Files . Blogspot, and on Popular Logistics) I am running for local office. When I win, I will be in a position to put photovoltaic solar systems on the schools.  Because when I tell politicians what to do they nod, agree with me, and ask for my support, and do very little.

As for Nader, his argument that Bush and Gore would have been indistinguishable is, well, for people with the intelligence or the agenda of a Bush. Nader has become as much a part of the problem as the academicians who can argue both sides. While he fought to make cars safer in the ‘60’s, while he fought nuclear power in the late 70’s and ‘80’s, and while he argued for national health care 20 years ago; he helped Bush gain the White House in 2000.  The suggestion that a vote for Nader this year is anything but a vote for McCain is disengenuous at best.