URGENT! The Pombo mega-land-rape is STILL in the passed House budget

[Nothing Without Hope]

I've just started a new thread on this in the General Discussion Forum:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5403658
thread title (11/19 GD): LAT: Pombo land-grab is STILL IN THE BUDGET BILL that just passed - ACT!!!

So far, not a single response. :banghead: We could lose our treasured public lands forever and almost no one even is noticing!!! This would be far worse than ANWR drilling - but excerpt for the LA Times, almost no national media coverage and the public and apparently most Congress members are utterly igorant of what is happening.

I have to leave my computer for ten days starting TODAY. PLEASE, PLEASE carry on this fight. It is a catastrophe in the making here. Congress's vacation will last only two weeks - we have a huge job to media-blast and congress-blast in so little time. The consequences of failure will be dire - our grandchildren's grandchildren will not thank us for allowing it to happen.

Here is the previous thread with background and some action pages - MORE ARE NEEDED:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5372231
thread title (11/16 GD): PUBLIC LAND GRAB ALERT! LATimes:millions of acres at stake in House bill

I hope that there is some discussion at the so far totally dead new thread on this in GD. Why aren't people listening, when there was so much action on the Alaska drilling and this would be so much worse?

[spancks]

1. I'm listening, and I'm writing my Reps. n/t

[jeffreyi]

2. I am too; am active on the other thread

Folks, this is ANWR to the 10th or 20th power, in other words, catastrophic.
More to come in the way of action items.

[Nothing Without Hope]

3. This is GOING UNDER THE RADAR - unless something is done, we will

wake up only AFTER the legalized selloff of OUR national lands to corporations, many of them foreign, is already underway.

[blindpig]

4. Pretty discouraging.

I think a lot of the blame falls on the corporate media, including NPR. There is virtually no environmental coverage any more. Too much of a downer and too detrimental to business interests. It's a sad testimony to our short attention span society. Poll after poll declare that overwhelming percentages of Americans want more environmental protection yet we sit on our hands even as every protection is rolled back. I also blame the Democratic Party for ignoring this. Where are those members with high LCV ratings like Kerry? Can they not handle more than one issue at a time? I suspect that so many Democratic members are compromised by campaign money that no one will stick their head out for fear of being embarassed by their own side. And I blame all of us who too often talk the good talk until we feel that our lifestyle or convience is being impinged upon.

It may be that the much reviled Nader was right, that people will not get off their asses until they have sufficiently suffered. That may be true but I dread the damage, so much of it permanent, that will be done in the meantime.

What will it take?

[Name removed]

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[Nothing Without Hope]

6. Thank you for this - we need to put together an attention-getting post for

GD on this. I have not yet looked for any other newly available information or articles on this urgent topic. Do you plan to cross-post to GD? If not, I'll do it after looking for additional updates if there are any.

We also need to post in other major blogs and write to anyone who might publicize this. It's much worse than ANWR drilling, and yet most people are entirely unaware of this!!!! I've asked Skinner to make it a DU actiivism topic (and so did Understandinglife), but there was no response. (This was back on Nov 19.) We need to keep pushing this - Pombo and his corrupt cronies are going to get away with this unless we fight much harder.

[pmbryant]

7. Crucial subject that deserves more attention

The LA Times has another article on it today, I notice: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mining4dec04,1,3365324.story?coll=la-headlines-california

I posted about this on my blog a few weeks back. Alas, while I have some readers, I don't have nearly enough.

Thanks for the posts.

--Peter