May 11, 2010
Tuesday

I would like to present this response to Terri Anderson's opinion letter, "Something's Fishy Here". There are three possible reasons for the coming to the conclusions that you did in your letter:

1.) Blatant misunderstanding or severe lack of knowledge regarding environmentalist beliefs.

2.) For lack of a more sophisticated, professional, or less insulting phrase, you believe everything that Rush Limbaugh (a man who has never held any form of significant office, who flunked out of earning a single college credit, and who is an infamous drug addict) says.

3.) Your words were less intended to provide claims that were supported with substantiating facts, yet instead were mostly written to promote a division between the residents of Southeast Alaska and perpetuate spiteful hate-mongering viewpoints towards environmentalists.

First, let me start by referencing Merriam-Webster Dictionary's definition of Environment, "2 a: the complex of physical, chemical, and biotic factors (as climate, soil, and living things) that act upon an organism or an ecological community and ultimately determine its form and survival".

Strangely enough, Environmentalists are those that would truly believe every aspect of that term. So if somebody excepts that as truth, then it would be a very difficult conclusion to come to that any true environmentalist would be the cause of The Worst Environmental Catastrophe Ever to Happen in the United States.

Sure, there will be a huge change in the views of state legislatures on offshore drilling, and no doubt, regulations will be stricter and many coastline communities will feel less obliged to allow the installation of these offshore drills. If and when that happens, it would be likely that gasoline prices will rise, theoretical employees of offshore drilling sites will be out of luck, and it wont help the economy any at all.

These are all very legitimate concerns. However, they are nowhere near as concerning when one takes into account the jobs that will be lost among the coastal communities of the Gulf of Mexico.

"Behind every industry shutdown, and devastated job markets, that put people in the poor house is an environmentalist group". - The Exxon Valdez oil spill that occurred in our very own state put countless people out of jobs, it affected the fishing industry of all the surrounding communities, and, even now, continues to do so. Not only that, the victims of that disaster have received virtually no compensation from Exxon for their losses. To me, that sounds like people in the poor house, and if there is one thing we can agree on it is that Exxon is not an environmentalist group.

What about the economic housing bubble? The banks on Wall Street that managed to award their CEO's multi-billion dollar bonuses at the expense of the American taxpayer? What about companies like Nike and Reebok who literally perpetuate gruesome working conditions in China? What about the collapse of Oregon and Washington's logging industry due to there being no forest left to log? Are these environmentalist acts?

"...and making our beautiful country into a third world country." How in good faith can you even say that? The United States continues to consume more resources than any other country in the world, and all the environmentalist groups in the world have been able to do little to change that. Have you been to a third-world country?

"Keep an open mind, these environmentalist groups were at their wits end on how to stop the new exploration." I don't know a single environmentalist or living person, for that matter, who would prefer the release of millions of gallons of crude oil into the ocean over offshore drilling. If you think an environmentalist group maliciously caused an environmental catastrophe like this, then that falls directly into Merriam-Webster's 3 b definition of insanity, "something utterly foolish or unreasonable".

That's like theorizing that the Mexican government is behind Arizona's new immigration law, that the fishermen of the gulf coast are to blame for this spill, that the workers in GM's factories are to blame for the losses of their jobs, or that the old woman getting unduly screened and groped in a TSA line is to blame for her own harassment. That is as absurd as proposing that the Pakistani civilian who gets murdered by a Boeing MQ-9 drone bomber was the one behind the controls. It's pure folly.

"It's time to take our country back." Indeed it is time to take our country back, but from who? American environmentalists are as much citizens of this country as you, as much as me. This land is my land, this land is your land.

Please, for the sake of our country, every family in the country, do not speak such malicious dividing words.

"Let them get jobs to support their terrorist activities." This sentence serves only to brood hatred and discontent towards people with beliefs contrary to Mr. Anderson's.

Lastly, I will note that the opinion letter of Mr. Anderson contained some statements that were not only not facts, but total disgraces of the truth. Please, Mr. Anderson, think before you spread along the volatile words of drug addict bigots such as Rush Limbaugh among a community with so many impressionable youth. These are not the type of letters that I enjoy reading on this great community website, Sitnews.

Peter Jacob
Ketchikan, AK

About: "Life-long conservationist and resident of Ketchikan for 14 years."

Received May 04, 2010 - Published May 11, 2010

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Something's Fishy Here By Terri Anderson

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