But the implications of the above story about the Sierra Club at work in the New Mexico Senate to squelch and vacate an otherwise apparently excellent appointment of a climate change denier with the best possible credentials: this truly proves that if you want to survive politically, that you have to count your votes, if you want to have any real effect at either the state and the national levels. This may sound obvious, but it must be stated for the benefit of the disgruntled and powerless political idealists, who are generally outside of the process entirely.
Even despite the lobbyists glutting the system in DC (and now we will very soon have an even stronger presence of lobbyists, serving in Cabinet positions) and despite the complexity of facing large majorities in both Houses of Congress, there is still a chance to get things done correctly by micro targeting swing votes in particular committees and appealing to the higher more historic instincts of some Republicans in the Senate and in the House. I am hoping this will be the case in what confronts us most severely in the American West, and that is the use and exploitation of Native American Reservations and the threatened privatization of National Forests for oil, gas, and energy manipulation.
At least that will be a working theory for a while, until and unless proved otherwise....
(Article changed on December 20, 2016 at 10:49)
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