Orwell Lives!

AUSTIN, Texas -- "The aide (a senior adviser to President Bush) said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." -- Ron Suskind, New York Times Magazine, Oct. 17, 2004.

And the greates impact will be on the environment. The Administration's Empire status notwithstanding, the problems of global warming and environmental degradation will accelerate under another four years of Dubbyuh's gross mismanagement. Among other things, the following are being stripped from Clinton-Era enviromental law:

-- Reducing risk to human health and the environment by identifying, evaluating and, where necessary, remediating contamination resulting from past DoD activities.

-- Protecting, preserving and, when required, restoring and enhancing the quality of the environment.

-- Conserving and restoring, where necessary, the natural and cultural heritage represented on DoD installations within the United States.

There has been no public debate or congressional review of the new policy. The policy was written by the man who watched the looting of Baghdad and said, "Stuff happens."

Also, sewage treatment regulations are being relaxed to allow sewage treatment plants to routinely mix partially treated sewage with treated sewage for discharge into our waterways. This normally should only happen during emergencies like...oh...a hurricaine. Now it can happen anytime it rains. The impacts to public health from this policy will result in higher incidences of disease and death in the elderly, children, and those who are otherwise at risk, from bacteria, viruses and parasites contaminating our watersupplies as a result of this routine sewage discharge.

These, and other environmental issues are not being subjected to congressional scrutiny or public debate. It's just Dubbyuh puttin' out for his corporate pimps and johns. So the Administraion's Orwellian double-speak like, the Clear Skies Initiative, Healthy Forests Initiative, etc. are just that, double-speak. The oligarchs are in control, and the rest of us are just plain fucked. Orwell was right.