Friday, April 1, 2011

WORTH SHARING

I recently talked about survival and my friend Allan Willard sent me an absolutely amazing video about urban sustainability, actually raising your own food, fish, and using digested gases for some fuel needs. Quite amazing. It may come to this for all of us as the planet struggles to support its demanding population.Check it out:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyRMvXZIKaw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

But, disturbing to me, since sustainability seems to be a positive thing in our society, how that word could be so misused.
Check this out:
Calaveras is a small county. Citizens here are very supportive of business.  At a recent board of supervisors meeting, during a discussion over hiring of a consultant firm to design bridge upgrades, a member of the audience Tonja Dausend of Burson told the board that the company under consideration, Stantec Consulting Services, Inc., claims the firm has touted itself as a world-class leader and innovator in the delivery of sustainable solutions on its website. Here is the cruncher.  Dausend claims that in her opinion, "sustainable development" is anti-American. Wha??? 
She believes sustainable development is part of a United Nations effort to impose control over local governments like ours.
If that isn't kooky enough for you, Darren Spellman, the newly elected "Tea Party"supervisor agreed with Dausend. He wants to avoid hiring firms with anti-American principles. What anti-American principles? He'd like firms to have some kind of "litmus test" to pass before being hired.
If it looks like McCarthyism and sounds like McCarthyism, its close enough to call. American firms judged by a claim to something as proper as sustainability on a website instead of  whether they are qualified to do the job? Since when is it the Board of Supervisors duty to not consider a bid on the opinon of someone from the audience that sustainability is part of some United Nations conspiracy? We are surely the laughing stock of the mountain counties. We have a republican and a libertarian who voted with Spellman to reconsider. Remember that the next time you are in a voting booth. If it can happen here, it can happen where you live to.
In my opinion the well funded Tea Party is anti-American. Its all about power and money instead of people.

No comments: