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Sunday, August 22, 2004
I live in a wonderful community. First, the Dean campaign brought out a hidden group of progressives who, like me, have for years tried to maintain normal lives apart from politics. We have been disappointed in the directions of our various governments at time, but other than complaining to family or friends (the few who would listen) we tried to remain private citizens and simply vote our conscience. The 2000 election changed that for most of us, and by the primary campaigns for this year's election we were looking for someone who would stand in strong opposition to the mean-spirited sense of individual entitlement embodied by our current Presidential administration. Dean's campaign brought us together. As this has evolved into a movement from a campaign it has create a most interesting community. We are a mix of professionals, laborers, artists and researchers. In Norman, OK this means some significant numbers of academic researchers who keep our rhetoric honest by their constant scrutiny of our claims and methodologies. Here is tribute I recently posted to our Yahoo Group, DFA Cleveland County. Margaret and Laura (and at other times Mary Beth and others),
I hope I speak for others in DFA Cleveland County when I say that one of the single greatest values in being a part of this group is the sanity and academic rigor you bring to our activism. I'm amazed not only at the reality you inject into the rhetoric on these discussions but the honesty you bring as well. I'm not sure if groups outside a community blessed with a research university could understand the value of your participation. Political arguments are always taken skeptically. Bias is assumed. Often we even see so-called academic research used to promote an idea. In fact, this happens so often that I think many people have given up on trying to tell when science is enlightening the discussion and when it is being abused to cloud or distort the truth. It is refreshing when researchers refuse to dumb down their arguments in a disrespect for the general public. To discern the truth in any claim some detail must be given on the science as well as on the methodology and sources. In all this talk about depleted uranium (DU) weapons, Margaret was the first to explain why DU is used. I had no idea DU is "nearly twice as dense as lead." (statement made at http://www.ngwrc.org/Issues.cfm?NewsTopicID=8) That explains the trade off even if it doesn't justify it. Modern methods of warfare (and I include as far back as Agent Orange in Vietnam) certainly should give us pause before using military solutions. Just because we can do a great deal of killing from a console far away doesn't mean we are engaging in "clean" warfare. We may be poisoning vast parts of our planet, whether by use of radioactive material, or by stripping vegetation, or by releasing massive amounts of crude oil at ground level, or even by spreading deadly mines that aren't easily removed. Can you imagine how often we'd use preemptive rather than defensive military action if we had to do an environmental impact statement first?
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