NOTE: The
Washington Examiner ran a half page by a "Blog Board Member" and
"director of the Center of Citizen Media" about a joint project
("The
Sunlight Foundation" and UC Berkley) with unidentified funding sources to
"create and manage a website" and disseminate
"information" about the
Congressional race in the 11th District of California. Pombo is perhaps
the
best friend of natural resource users and conservationists in the House and
he has a host of political opponents and environmentalist and animal rights
supporter in the country after his scalp.
Your Commentary article "Citizen journalists to focus on
California Race" is
a great example of the old carnival tricksters
"watch-the-pod-with-the-pea"
ploy.
To write three columns about a "university-based initiative"
"demonstration
project" that is presented as "an experiment in democracy and
journalism"
when it is a scurrilous political strategy is disingenuous at best and pure
propaganda at worst. One need not hold a graduate degree in journalism
to
suspect that the "Graduate School of Journalism at the University of
California" might not be exactly unbiased in such an endeavor. The
subject
California Congressional race (11th District) is purposely described in a
misleading way and the subject of the "initiative" is nothing like
you or
the "Citizen journalists" describe.
This Congressional race is a vote not just for an incumbent Republican
(Pombo) or a Democrat challenger (McNerney) or control of the House of
Representatives. This vote is a down and out national fight between
those
that support the sustainable use and management of natural resources and
those that oppose any use or management of any natural resources.
Intimately interwoven in this issue is the growth of Federal power to force
states and property owners to continue surrendering rights and authorities
to un-American environmental and animal rights laws that are ineffective and
destructive of Constitutional freedoms.
The incumbent, Pombo, is the Chairman of the House Resources Committee where
he has fought with bipartisan support to make the Endangered Species Act
protect both species and American citizens while holding Federal
bureaucracies accountable to the citizenry. He has also tried hard to
establish limits for incidental take of marine mammals to protect commercial
marine fisheries and commercial fishermen. For this the environmental and
animal rights groups are unforgiving and are pouring millions into defeating
him. His opponents are running a windmill company owner to challenge him in
hopes of winning a seat and defeating a proactive and visible Committee
Chairman.
The "initiative" you so positively describe is a thinly-veiled
political
ploy to further distort the incumbent's sound proposals as "raping the
Endangered Species Act" or "killing marine mammals",
etcetera. This will
then be contrasted with the "windmill" fellow who will wax poetic
in casual
clothes against a backdrop of windmills on picturesque California ridges
about "species" and "wilderness" etc. while going
unchallenged about the
deadly and unmentionable impact of windmills on both migrating and nesting
birds or how he would provide for America's energy future while protecting
it's wild resources.
Whatever the reason for such shallow reporting, please refrain from such
misrepresentation in the future. This race and the issues involved are too
important to the future of this great nation to allow hidden agendas to
triumph without a fair and open dialogue.
Jim Beers
19 September 2006
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