A few months back, my brother-in-law sent me a link to go to a website called "BioGems" that Robert Redford started in order to get people to send letters to their elected officials regarding how our country's energy resources are managed. This is an excerpt from the website:
Actor, director and conservationist Robert Redford has been a member of NRDC's board of trustees for three decades. Recently, he sent out the email message below urging concerned Americans to unite in opposition to the Bush-Cheney energy bill, which would ravage our public lands, threaten our health and keep us dangerously addicted to fossil fuels. He urges you to contact your U.S. senators, via this website, and call on them to defeat this disastrous legislation. He also asks BioGems Defenders to help mobilize millions of Americans in protest by forwarding his message to at least four of your friends, family members and colleagues.
So I sent a letter to Senator Craig, telling him that I do not support the Bush-Cheney energy bill. I got a letter back in the mail from the esteemed Senator yesterday. Here's an excerpt:
"Disagreement over how our nation precisely formulates these components into an effective energy policy is to be expected and can be healthy and constructive. However, our nation's energy supply cannot be dependent solely on renewable and alternative sources of energy. It is simply neither technologically feasible, nor commercially possible to meet current demand for energy realities. For this reason, pressuring legislators and regulators to completely abandon fossil fuel use seriously undermines efforts to rationally address energy supply and demand realities. As a result of efforts to abandon or significantly limit fossil fuel use, needed high-capital investments in producing cheap and reliable fossil fuels are reduced. This threatens our economy, which is dependent on cheap and reliable energy from fossil fuels and compromises our nation's ability to compete effectively in the global markets."
Beg pardon? So we're going to sacrifice the future of the planet by allowing rampant and irresponsible use of fossil fuels because it will ruin the economy? Senator, there are just so many things wrong with your line of thinking. It's a typical attitude for a short-sighted Republican conservative from Idaho, I must admit. It's also interesting to note how obviously in the pocket of special interests Senator Craig is.
I should mention that I have something of a history with the esteemed senior Senator from Idaho. When I was 15, my parents bought a small ranch from his parents. You couldn't meet nicer, harder working people than Elvin Craig and his wife. Their son Larry, however, is evidently something of an embarassment to the family. I used to date the Senator's cousin, Walker. Walker noted that despite the fact that ol' Larry runs on a platform of being a good old Idaho rancher, the man never did a lick of work on his family's ranch. He appeared to be allergic to anything remotely resembling manual labor. Perhaps that's why he became a politician. Additionally, I have "met" this pompous ass at least 10 times, sometimes being introduced by members of his own family, and sometimes by members of the Senator's own staff. Each and every time, he has looked at me like I was transparent and said, "Nice to meet you, Cassie." I have entirely given up on reminding him that his parents have introduced me, his cousin has introduced me, and numerous others have introduced me. I think he pretends that he just meets so many people that he can't possibly remember each and every one, but in reality he's just a boor who is in love with himself and likes to feel good by reminding everyone else that they're "the little people."
But I digress, and this post is getting awfully long. This isn't my first experience with writing a letter to an elected official in the state of Idaho and getting a response basically telling me that I am wrong to believe what I do. However, I think it is an egregious breach of the public faith for an elected official, who is there by the will of the voters, to send a voter a response that says, "I'm not going to do what you ask, because you're just plain wrong." Has anyone else ever had this experience? I'm really curious if it's just an Idaho thing, or what.