What Would Teddy Do?

I had a great conversation at lunch today with my regular noon time buddy, Tim Flynn-O'Brien. He related a discussion with a friend of his yesterday about the current players in the White House and the controlling GOP majority in Congress. Democrats like Senator Landrieu in Lousiana have helped them.

The discussion centered around the fact that this crew in DC are primarily concerned with instant gratification. Tax cuts for the rich, war profits for the favored corporations, development over conservation, and the eradication of social safety nets.


Think back to that Republican Teddy Roosevelt. According to the National Geographic, the area of the United States placed under public protection by Theodore Roosevelt, as National Parks, National Forests, game and bird preserves, and other federal reservations, comes to a total of approximately 230,000,000 acres or about 84,000 acres per day during his Presidency! See it here.

Think now about george bush reversing a policy that has for decades protected the wetlands that protected New Orleans in the favor of developers. Think about his cutting flood control budget dollars for New Orleans to fund his war in Iraq.

Theodore Roosevelt embarked on his remarkable conservation odyssey at a time when many people would have thought it unnecessary, because the United States at that time had untold vacant lands that had not been exploited. So why worry? Well, Roosevelt had something in his character and sense of ethics that bush and his cronies have totally lost, and that is concern for the future. bush and his buddies will not be able to worm or spin their way out of this malfeasance. The hurricane was not their fault, but some of the aftermath can be pinned directly upon them and rightly so.

"The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others."---Theodore Roosevelt