Bush's decision to open the Tongass National Forest (in Alaska) to logging has officially bitten him in the ass. From USA Today:
The tree-huggers fume that government subsidies to the timber industry cost taxpayers hundreds of millions, and the nearly 5,000 miles of existing logging roads are enough. But a powerful rumble of discontent is growing from what seems, at first glance, an unlikely source. Just weeks before the exemption was declared, Dale Bosworth, chief of the Forest Service, received a petition from the Northern Sportsmen Network of Juneau, Alaska. It was signed by 470 gun clubs from across the USA, 40 of them based in President Bush's home state of Texas.
It makes me feel a whole lot better to know that there are some right-wingers that are pro-wilderness. With all the ANWR argument, I was starting to wonder.
The wilderness is part of our legacy, and it would be a shame to destroy some of the last remaining bits of it. Our culture gets more intense all the time, it seems, and I like to know the wild is there to refresh me when I need it. Living in the eastern mountains has taught me to enjoy the woods and share it with the sportsmen who love it as much as I do.
There are plenty of pro-hunter & pro-2 admendment people who care about the wilderness. I'm not sure that it's fair to call them "right-wingers" though. I am assuming "pro-wilderness" does not mean being in lock-step behind "earth first".
Posted by steel at February 3, 2004 04:41 PM