
Reflecting on the past week, it seems like it’s very difficult to separate the specific issue we’re dealing with from the overall perspective of this Admin and its intent (thought by some to be unequivocally bad). I don’t remember having the same problem in the past. We could disagree about, say, the Public Lands Rule, note that people as diverse as PERC and some ENGOs were against it, and yet didn’t dive into who funds either group, or back up to how that matches with the Center for American Progress’s policy agenda.
At the same time, funding of people who put out documents or research is interesting, and relevant, and we can’t not talk about it. And equally at the same time, we know that say, Headwaters Economics generally has a point of view different from that of, say, PERC. So it might get tedious to talk about that every time we mention the group that puts out a study or news release. Still, everyone who gets paid has some kind of angle, so there’s that.
Let’s take the climate website issue. Apparently the memo was leaked to some outlets, but we are unable to get a copy, so we actually don’t know what it said. We could trace the memo and the apparent reaction and whether it makes sense to us or not. I think we all pretty much agree that while it is a symbolic act of some kind, it’s not a good idea. So we could move on from there. It seems to me that we are going to have many of these in the future (ideas of questionable value from the new Admin) and if every time we go back to Project 2025 or the Federalist Society, it might also get tedious. Granted, yesterday that was partially my fault for posting that part of Andy’s interview. Mea culpa.
The way I look at it is that there are many ideas out there. It’s like the two bags in the graphic. Some ideas are currently in the blue Democratic bag, some are in the currently Republican bag. Who determines what’s in each bag? People with political power of various kinds, and we can safely say.. not us. Then there is the plain burlap, ideas from groups outside the current red or blue bags, and finally just ideas from the rest of us, think tanks, citizens and others. Of course, within each bag are different groups jockeying to determine which ideas are in and which ones are out. As an observer, I think the pundits have it wrong when they say that people in the blue sack have moved to the red sack. They have simply rejected the content of the blue sack and decided to make their own way. I could write more about that, but not here. Certainly what’s in and out of each bag changes through time, as do people.
Sometimes, and I like to highlight these, Ds and Rs in Congress agree. I like to see people with different views working together toward our common good. Nevertheless, without being cynical, sometimes bi=partisan simply means “you get your pork/grift and I get mine, and it all balances out.” To everyone but the taxpayer, of course, who are footing the bill for pork mountains. So there’s always a need to examine these deals closely as well.
In my view, the role of The Smokey Wire is to, within our relatively small area of federal lands and forests, examine all the ideas produced by anyone and try to figure out if we (individuals) think that they are wholesome grains or rocks or chaff that gums up the works. To change analogies, each of us gets to make our own necklace of policy choices and in many cases, these won’t fit neatly into a particular set of ideas that unknown parties have put in the red or blue bag. Our role is to highlight the pros and cons of picking that particular bead for our individual policy necklaces. The point is to inform, and to share views about specific topics. Not to lecture or to castigate, which I grant is partially a tone thing.
After some reflection, I notice that some people here seem to want to go farther and bring in Project 2025 or USAID. I wonder if that’s because people really want to hear other opinions and at TSW they know they’re privy to folks hearing news and views from all kinds of sources. Maybe people who are despairing about the election really want to hear from people who are not despairing because while we are not in the blue sack, we are not in the red sack either.
For me, I won’t let anyone else select things for my policy necklace. I would like to hear from readers, here in the comments or at my email sharon at forestpolicypub.com. Because, after this week’s experimentation, I’m going to tighten up a bit more for The Smokey Wire and return to the prior focus. If people really want to talk about the other stuff, and hear from folks with different views, I can host that discussion on my Substack. So that’s a possibility.
Anyway, we actually missed quite a bit of non-new Admin news. We also haven’t looked at some of the actions of the last Admin that deserve a closer look. So next week we’ll be back to that. Please let me know what you think!