Another four miles in 34:35 with sore knees and headphones that are on the fritz. It made listening to Alejandro Escavedo’s The Boxing Mirror a bit difficult.
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Every time I turn around, the Corzine administration proves to be a disappointment. He promised to tackle the budget and ethics issues, but has taken only the smallest of steps. And now, the governor is taking a page from the Republican regulatory book, creating a task force to review the development permit process.
Lisa Jackson, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection, dismissed the attacks as she unveiled the task force proposal today. She said it may find ways to expedite and streamline DEP reviews of urban redevelopment projects, for example, that aid the state’s economic growth.
“It’s not about weakening or changing our environmental regulations or protections….First and foremost is the protection of human health, the environment and our natural resources,” Jackson said. “But the way our process is now, every permit is treated the same, and that doesn’t seem to be the smart way to go.”
Task forces like this almost always tend to back industry — a fact that environmental groups understand from their time fighting the Whitman administration’s anti-environmental agenda. Gov. Whitman eliminated the public advocate, gutted the state Department of Environmental Protection and created a business ombudsman charged with helping businesses navigate red tape — moves designed to privilege business over the state’s average residents.
The first President Bush used a similar task force, headed by Vice President Dan Quayle, to gut regulations.
Jackson says that won’t happen, but the timing of the proposal was curious, coming
two weeks after a Department of Community Affairs subcommittee report surfaced recommending environmental regulations be eased to allow the construction of affordable housing in suburban and rural areas.
That report said DEP regulations are skewed against builders and recommended giving the state Planning Commission the power to override DEP rules and local building laws.
“The DCA joined the builders in cynically blaming environmental regulation for the economy hurting, and this task force is the administration’s cover for an environmental roll-back in New Jersey,” said Bill Wolfe of the New Jersey chapter of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
Has the governor decided to place business interests above the interests of state residents? He has not done much of late to dissuade me from this fear.
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Managed four miles to open the short week — I’m out of commission starting Thursday for a couple of days. Time: 34:20. Music: Bruce Springsteen, Magic
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Chris Hedges, on Truthdig, expresses a level of frustration and disgust with the presidential candidates — especially the Democrats — on the war in Iraq and militarism that I can understand. Five years in and the war still rages. Republican John McCain talks of an extended military campaign, while Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton speak of an extended presence in Iraq.
But I’m not sure that his prescription is the right one.
Those of us who oppose the war, who believe that all U.S. troops should be withdrawn and the network of permanent bases in Iraq dismantled, have only two options in the coming presidential elections—Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney. A vote for any of the Republican and Democratic candidates is a vote to perpetuate the occupation of Iraq and a lengthy and futile war of attrition with the Iraqi insurgency. You can sign on for the suicidal hundred-year war with John McCain or for the nebulous open-ended war-lite with Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, or back those who reject the war.
He says Democratic voters need to be honest about what their votes might accomplish — i.e., that the results will change nothing on the ground in Baghdad.
But the results of this election will matter. The eight-year presidency of George W. Bush proves that a mediocre liberal is better than a conservative anytime. Basically, my concern is that voting for Nader (which I did in 1996 and 2000) or McKinney would turn the election over to McCain. And as flawed as both Obama and Clinton are as candidates, a McCain presidency would be a disaster. The Arizona senator is, as either Howard Fineman or Jonathan Alter said on Countdown (I can’t remember which), not a “detail man” and he has shown a bloodthirstiness on matters of war that should give more than pause to the folks I’ve talked with who see him as less likely to do something stupid than the Democrats.
And then there are the domestic issues, of which he has interest — especially health care and poverty.
Not that the Democrats are likely to make the kind of major changes in government needed, but at least they are talking about expanding healthcare and making some noises about the war.
I agree with Hedges that the war is a moral issue, but electoral politics requires that we temper our moral expectations with pragmatism. Allowing the Democrats to continue the war while drawing it down certainly falls far short of the goal, but given the options it is not nearly as bad as it could be. Ethics sometimes requires a balancing act. That is the case here. When I weight my difference with Obama and Clinton against my fear of what a McCain presidency might sow on the international stage, I only can come to one conclusion: to vote against McCain and hope that those of us who oppose the war can convince Obama or Clinton to do the right thing.
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Response to the Obama speech on race and the entire Wright affair appears more nuanced and varied than the TV shows are portaying — at least according to this CBS News poll.
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