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| The guacamole thick pollution out of Lake Okeechobee was meant to be addressed by Gov. Rick Scott and the Florid legislature, but what is emerging from the SFWMD is just as revolting |
It is not exactly news: Democracy with the big "D" requires active, educated citizens.
Nor is it any surprise that our current slide to authoritarian rule is accompanied by voter suppression, political misdirection, and the willingness of elected officials to make corporations more powerful than people.
We are in other words where we are because citizens are not voting and they are not willing to travel outside their safe spaces (ie. Fox News, Breitbart, et al.)
Today, Florida Gov. Rick Scott is aiming a Senate campaign to replace incumbent, Democrat Bill Nelson.
Scott is laser-focused on supplying what his key campaign contributors need; doing an even better job than Trump of dressing up policy changes in favor of polluters (like Big Sugar) while making those changes seem palatable to voters.
We've shown how the Rick Scott system works in the case of last year's big ticket legislative item: a vast new storage reservoir south of Big Sugar's 800 square miles of sugarcane.
The legislation -- proposed by Senate President Joe Negron whose district has been repetitively puked on by discharged from Lake Okeechobee -- seemed to address the needs of downstream property owners, taxpayers, and businesses but left details for later.
That "later" is now.
Yesterday, the South Florida Water Management District -- whose governing board dances to Rick Scott's orders -- showed its hand: punting on science-based outcomes because those outcomes threaten Scott's biggest campaign contributors.
The reason? When fact does not match up with the profits of the sugar industry, science becomes the enemy.
It is a vile way to run the state of Florida, but Gov. Scott is sitting pretty. He has a distracted friend in the White House, conservative jurists in the federal courts, a Republican Congress. And he is counting on voters to give him a free pass in 2018 to the US Senate.
The following article is a long read so fair warning, but readers will be rewarded by a clear picture of how the collusion of uber-wealthy polluters like Big Sugar and politicians work. In this case, it's the fossil fuel industry. Click here, for "Instrument of Power: How Fossil Fuel Donors Shaped the Anti-Climate Agenda of a Powerful Congressional Subcommittee."
Recall, voters, that Gov. Rick Scott is the one who forbid his staff from even using the words "climate change" although representing a state that has the most to lose from rising sea levels. Pass the news along to friends, family, and co-workers.
It is time to take our state and our nation back. Unless voters are educated and motivated to get to the polls, rescue will only be a dream.
2 comments:
If Charles Manson was alive he would be a Senate hopeful.
There is nothing in the article on what caused the Green Pollution? Its all political !
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