Things I don't get: Why does wanting a clean environment enrage rightwingnuts?

[Liberal Veteran]

I have never understood that.

[NC_Nurse]

1. Business.

$ before people/earth.

[DutchLiberal]

2. Bingo!

[ThatsMyBarack]

19. Welcome to DU, DutchLiberal!

:hi: :patriot:

[DutchLiberal]

27. Thank you.

So many people have been so friendly, by welcoming me to DU. It's a great place to hang out. :)

[calimary]

33. Welcome to DU! And don't forget how bush inadvertently tipped his

WHOLE hand awhile back. During one of his press conferences, in answer to a question, he said "sometimes money trumps peace." He was speaking of some other world leader, but it really spoke loudest about himself. That's what bush, cheney, and everybody who marches along with them believes. And note also how bush even said he didn't care about his own legacy because in 50 years, "we'll all be dead." They don't care. They don't frickin' care. Just get what they think is their royal entitlement, and get it now, and get it before YOU have a chance to get some. and tomorrow will take care of itself.

Which is the grossest misconception of all. For heaven's sakes, that's what Live Earth and the rest of it is all about. Tomorrow CAN'T take care of itself as long as we have short-sighted moneygrubbers like bush and his friends trying to monopolize everything and silence or demonize dissent. WE have to seize it, ourselves, and take care of it, before bush and his robber-baron pirate pals decide to "take care of it" their way - rape and pillage and milk the crap out of it and leave a dry, empty, barren shell behind because - they don't care. And what difference does it make anyway. In 50 years, we'll all be dead.

THAT'S the bedrock basic mentality we have to confront and defeat.

Glad you're here. We need you to help us in that effort!!!

[DutchLiberal]

35. Thank you. Don't you think it's a *little* weird...

...that Bush and his 'robber barons' think that way? I know, I know, they only care about the money they can make (no doubt about that), but didn't Bush have two daughters? And didn't Cheney have grandchildren? Are they THAT heartless? They would rather have their offspring die as a possible result of the climate crisis than actually doing something about it? That thought just popped up in my head.

It proves to me how all their talk about Christ and God and religion is SO fake. I mean, I don't know much about the Bible, but I think I learned something at school about the Bible saying men have to care about the Earth, it's gift from God, so treat it well, blah blah? Am I right on this one? And how about taking care of your fellow men? Screwing up the earth is not the way to do it. I can see that, but somehow all the die-hard fundamental Christians can't see how FAKE Bush and Cheney etc. are. Why is that? (See this as a rhetorical question.)

Anyway, thanks for the warm welcome. :hi:

[Gman]

3. But the people that drive POS cars and trucks and

still have that damn W sticker on it. We know they're working against their own interest. They have no money much less a big business.

Yes, it's because of business, but it's because they also drank the koolaid and now will do and say anything against their own interest.

[redphish]

12. I think that it is simply a case of being against anything "liberal".

These knee jerk idiots would light themselves on fire if the Rushbots told them that the "liberals" supported not lighting yourself on fire.

[KAT119]

40. Next they are afraid they may be required to be ETHICAL!!

They think the Bible tells them to DOMINATE (dominion) the earth=rape, pillage,pollute to them!!

[Lorien]

45. Too broad an answer. Most businesses will prosper by going green

A dry cleaners in Michigan saved tens of thousands by installing solar panels, even BP saved one million plus dollars per plant by going beyond Kyoto. But fossil fuel companies don't want a reduction in usage, and fossil fuel corps are among the most powerful-and politically influential- corporations on earth. Losing everything for the benefit of very, very few.

[rusty charly]

4. It means God isn't protecting us

and we have to do it ourselves (ignoring the logic of God telling us to do something. My father was a very religious scientist and he always said: we know things because God wants us to know. If He doesn't want us to know- we don't know it. Ergo: If we know something- how to cure something, how to do something, a warning- it's because God wants us to)

I'm a "fallen" Catholic, however (as Kathy Griffin says: When I fell, I landed in Beijing).

[Kali]

5. to be fair it isn't the clean environment that bunches their panties,

it's the implied government rules and regs (read "interference" of their freedoms) (freedoms = making money, of course)

[InvisibleTouch]

8. That's it, exactly.

They feel that having to consider their neighbors (of any species) infringes upon their personal rights. But gods forbid an alien species were to show up and start treating them the way they've treated every other species on the planet. Then they'd be yowling! Scumbags.

[zonmoy]

20. they wouldn't be yowling for too long, just long enough to be rendered

extinct.

[TheBaldyMan]

11. they're OK with warrantless search and seizure and establishing religion

... if you are a fundie with nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about.

Their main problem seems to be a complete inability to hold two consistent beliefs in their head.

[Donnachaidh]

14. it doesn't matter that THEY are NOT making money or having business threatened

They've been spoonfed such vast quantities of bullshit in regards to any sort of regulation being *un-American* that they automatically see red when you question their right to toss crap-filled plastic Huggies on the side of the road as they drive to the nearest Nascar meet.

So, while THEY may not suffer the consequences, their children probably already have asthma, are on their way to being obscenely obese because of the pre-packaged junkfood they offer to their kids as *healthy food*. And they get to be *good Americans* and continue to pollute everything within their reach. :shrug:

[flvegan]

6. There's no money in a "clean environment"

It's responsibility, something that rightwingfucknuts don't get. At. All.

[Turn CO Blue]

7. This gets to why I can't stand the term "tree hugger" ...I prefer

"air breather" or "water drinker". Even rightwingnuts need to breathe unpolluted air and drink clean water. Tree hugger is a term that belittles and derides the entire conservation movement (which is why they use it in a sniggering manner).

[bbgrunt]

9. It has become so visceral with most of them it's got

to me more than just business. I'm sure that is why Limpballs opposes it, but how does he get those with no direct business interests so indoctrinated? Are they just afraid to face any lifestyle changes? It seems to be like the population growth question--rooted in basic religious beliefs....."the being in the sky will provide" or they are some of those praying for the second coming and are in a full-fledged lemming run towards disaster of all kinds.

[tridim]

10. Because they get off being dicks. n/t

[Bluerthanblue]

13. to some who aren't 'religious' i agree it is sometimes a

twisted view of "freedom".

I think for some of those who are religious fundementalists, it is a twisted view of "god" giving "man" the earth- to subdue???

Either way, it is a pretty sad and revealing thing, when people angrily justify trashing the ground which bears their food, and the waters which quench their thirst.

Humans can be pretty stupid for "highly evolved" beings-

:shrug:

[camero]

15. The love of money

Even if it means making the earth a trash heap.

[Swamp Rat]

16. It reminds them how small are their reproductive organs,

and the hugh!1 monthly note they must pay for their gas-guzzling monster trucks. :)

[sandnsea]

17. Greed

They want to just suck everything out of the planet that is possible and ignore the consequences.

[zonmoy]

18. they worship an evil god that wants to destroy everything

so they want to also.

[SoCalDem]

21. because rightwing pundits have convinced them that if there are regulations

on power plants, manufacturing, etc they will lose their jobs...and that it's just "big gubbmin" meddling in their "biddness".

They have also been told that "everything will cost more" if the environmental standards are enforced..

It's all about the money..all the time.. I often wonder if they get a change of philosophy when a child gets cancer from playing in toxic dirt or form drinking toxic water..

[blues90]

22. It is a threat to their high profits ,

Their power and control too . We can't have no oil now can we ? No war machine to steal resources and no death as a result of it all .

[Golden Raisin]

23. Being told you can't dump hydrochloric acid

into the river next to your manufacturing plant cuts into PROFITS.

[More Than A Feeling]

24. Because they don't want to hear that they can't use up the Earth

as much as they like.

[warren pease]

25. Rush tells them liberal envirofascists want to take away their property rights...

Also, whoever said that they'll have an automatic revulsion to any cause associated with "liberals" was dead on. Honestly, I have the same gag reflex when it comes to any wingnut "ideas," if that's not too outrageous an oxymoron -- I just automatically assume that, considering the source, they will be destructive, fascistic, imperialist, bloody and embarrassing.

The third element is that the fundies really object to the human-caused argument, since they think humans are god's chosen species, gave them dominion over all other species, and they can damn well do what they want to them without heavenly consequences. It's not human-caused because that would mean that their god has been bullshitting them, because everything that happens is god's will, and because if things really get ugly, that's just another sign that the rapture is at hand. Hence, environmental destruction becomes a cause for celebration.

So between the radical property rights crowd, the reflexive reaction to all things labeled liberal, and the influence of the religiously insane, I'd be willing to bet the US stays in the world's top five carbon emitters and retains its world championship in hypocrisy, no matter which party's in the white house.


wp

[pretzel4gore]

26. the 'lifeboat ethic' went underground...

you kids don't know this, but many years ago 'small is beautiful' (so was black too; gay was obviously bootiful!- that was pre AIDS)...'back to the land' was an actual movement ...the freepers of the day hated it then, and KNEW, as did anyone who bothered thinking about it, that it was all a question of systems, which were controllable, and ...and...well the beevers got busy, as we today know. During the early 70's, the 'lifeboat ethic' was a popular subject of discussion in media and out: the idea that only a few humans could hope to survive the disaster earth was headed for, and what seperated survivors and the rest o us was...power and money. The idea was the rich would get into spaceships and settle on planets out in space, or maybe just build big space station as in sci fi stories etc. This was silly, as the survival of a bunch of spacemen/womyn was hardly worth it- no more fishing off Cape Cod? No more trips to New Orleans? hmmm...Thus, the 'lifeboat ethic' disappeared from popular cultural discussion, but (i for one) suspect that it just went underground, and while no one was looking, 'fixing' things has been going on for 30 plus years, in secret. The new environmental awareness paradigm threatens the 'survivors' or those who think they can survive even if our species dies. Global warming might mean Global Action, which necessitates Global Cooperation, and all this affects the 'fix' which must do 2 things simultaneously- effectively prepare the machinery for survival of the chosen few, while hiding the very existance of the machinery from the paying public, at the same time!
can't be done.
no way, hosay
now do you see 911? 911 was ALL about perception management. that it was blatantly obviously staged aint the issue- the issue is the goddam herd is a danger to us, to itself if guarded by wolves

[Spazito]

28. Finding out that most people were born with

a brain and they weren't enraged them and it went from there.

[MisterP]

29. the thought of a 100,000-year-old species maybe having to compensate

after nearly totally destroying a 65,000,000-year-old Cenozoic biosphere. Asking the nearly 7 billion Gods Made Flesh to maybe slow down its poisoning of Earth makes people viscerally angry.
It's the same reason Lomborg's so popular: he can agree with some of the science, but say calmly and moderately that we shouldn't actually DO some thing like restrict swamping the Earth with GM foods, flooding meters of the shore, baking the Earth, or burning and cutting miles and miles of forest.

[pop goes the weasel]

30. irresponsibility

Whether corporate neo-cons or theocrat tools, what they most don't want is to take responsibility for the consequences of their own actions. The bidness types don't want to accept having to include the cost of their messes in the cost of doing business. The religious nutters want a "get out of Hell free" card: not only do they not have to be "perfect" if they have the "right" dogma, they don't think they even have to be good neighbors.

[librechik]

31. they're afraid their trax dollars are goiing to finance the cleanup

and that would be catastrophic!

[Sparkly]

32. They think it might cost them something.

Why THAT always scares the hell out of them, I don't know! :shrug:

[BlooInBloo]

34. Because we're FOR it.

[Annces]

36. shallowness

I once had a philosophy teacher who thought ecology was a silly subject. You can't point out importance of something to some people until it bites them in the ass.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

37. because it's going to cost them money to clean up their dirt!

[Reterr]

38. But the free markets take care of EVERYTHING

Did you not know? We don't need no gubmint interfearing in our lifes....

Or something like that :eyes:.

I think a lot of it is tied in with the distrust and fear of science on the right. "Elitist college perfessors" telling people destroying the eco-system we depend on might affect us too, somehow pisses them off. It is nuts of course-as are they.

[noel711]

39. There's a bizarre Biblical mis-translation...

that many of the far-right fundies subscribe to.... and I believe our esteemed pResident is one of them.

In the first chapter of Genesis (Genesis 1:28 if you are interested)- after God created the earth and everything in it, the old translation says: "Fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over...every living thing that moves upon the earth."

Those to ascribe to a literal translation of the scripture say: It is what it is. Those of us who know that scripture can't be taken literally because of all the translation and formations it has gone through interprete this passage as being 'stewards' of the earth: caretakers.

Going further into this theological misuse of the Earth, Bush, and many fundies, subscribe to what may be called a 'pre-millenialist' view....
There's another bizarre theory (not scriptural... it's some strange extrapolation of scripture, which I find ironic, as those same people are stringintly literalistic when they want to be)... this theory claims that when the temple is re-built on the temple mount in Jerusalem, then Jesus will come again, and 'rapture' into heaven all those who are true believers (like Bush, and FAlwell, and Robertson, and all those who swallow that swill).. and the rest of us will be swept into Hell.

So why bother to take care of the earth when in a few years, all this will be gone? This is why the Far Right and the Fundies are so supportive of Israel.. they want that temple rebuilt!

[Uncle Joe]

41. I believe you hit the nail on the head noel, and I would add

the role of the corporate media in obfuscating or fuzzing up the picture of the looming catastrophic threat of global warming climate change. These two dynamics working together, enable the false prophets to take advantage of the true believer's faith.

[Cobalt-60]

42. their goal is unlimited pollution

Every environmental discussion I've had with these people has ended the same way.
They make some silly claim about how a field of grass puts out more O2 than the Amazon Jungles, then use that as an excuse for unlimited pollution.
Walking away from their garbage is at the core of their philosophy.

[Liberal Veteran]

46. Well, don't forget that Reagan said trees cause more pollution than automobiles!

I guess the old fuck was nostalgic for the days when the bald eagle was nearly extinct and rivers caught fire.

[proud patriot]

43. I think it has something to do with their religion

at least that's the argument used against me in debates .

[Madspirit]

44. I Know!

...because it cuts into the profits of Big Business! It curtails some of their activities and behaviors. It's all fuzzy and lovey and liberal. It might require a wee sacrifice.

Ann Coulter: "God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'"


Lee