Does anyone out there have access to today’s “Ann Arbor News”? I just received the following note from Cousin’s Vinyl and I’m curious to find out more:
Did you happen to see the Ann Arbor News letters sections today? Some guy kinda rips on you and says your positioning on Dingell is a little off. It was kind of funny. Just wanted to give you the heads up…
If you have a copy, can you send me a scan, or at least just give me the highlights? I’m not surprised that someone from the Dingell camp responded to our campaign, but I am surprised that it took this long, and I’m curious to hear their spin.
Speaking of our petition drive, someone left another good comment for the Congressman today. Here it is:
It’s real, humans are polluting the air and those who are mostly responsible should be encouraged to be in front fighting pollution and diminishing the damage it has done and is doing to the environment. Our congress people should lead the fight and John Dingell should set an example. I am about his age and I voted for Adlai Stevenson in 1956; I remember he was already aware of the potential harm pollution can do to our health. Now in 2007 let’s insist that clean air is a must for our progeny. Let’s get to work seriously on this matter. Thanks for everything, I know you are a good man, but be a little more independent of the Big 3. -Otto Sellinger
As for Dingell, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that he just introduced legislation to bring all American troops back from Iraq by the time our next President is sworn in. If you get a chance, thank him. It was a bold, courageous move that he took alone, and he deserves our praise… And congratulations to the folks as Michigan PeaceWorks who, for the past several years, have been waging a coordinated campaign to have Dingell do just this. It gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, our effort to get him to rethink his global warming strategy might actually lead to something. (Of course all of this is based on the presumption that this isn’t just another case of the disingenuous John Dingell floating legislation, without investing any political capital to see it pushed though Congress, just to appease a vocal voting block. I’m trying to stay optimistic though and give him the benefit of the doubt.)
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Here’s the letter. Maybe now that you’ve read it you can respond to Mr. Canell. Oh, but then again he probably doesn’t read your blog because he’s too busy writing pithy insults. Oh, but then again you probably don’t even read your blog, Mark, because all you do is write your blog? What do you really do, Mark? I mean, come on. No one else agrees with you. Those signatures on the petition, the support you’ve received for ActDingell: it’s all a sham. Do you just sit around and fake information? I bet Clementine and Linette are pieces of falsified Internet fakery, as well. You snake-oil bitch. That’s all you are.
http://www.mlive.com/news/annarbornews/index.ssf?/base/news-1/119323526911480.xml&coll=2
Why should we be the only ones to pay?
Mark Maynard is so busy writing his blog that he isn’t taking the time to read anyone else’s Web sites and get the facts straight – namely, Congressman John Dingell’s. The congressman has passed one bill that will reduce emissions, co-sponsored another and is working on two more – all that will have a significant impact on the fight against global warming. Maynard and Kerri Pepperman, in their Sept. 23 Other Voices essay, seem to think that a mandate of 35 miles per gallon by 2020 for all cars sold in the United States is the only way to reduce greenhouse gases.
There are two things I know – their plan will not alone solve our global warming problem and it will cost Michigan jobs. Why should our state be the only state paying to fix a problem that all Americans share responsibility for?
Robert A. Canell, Ann Arbor
“Maynard and Kerri Pepperman, in their Sept. 23 Other Voices essay, seem to think that a mandate of 35 miles per gallon by 2020 for all cars sold in the United States is the only way to reduce greenhouse gases.”
Oh really? Directly from our essay (http://actdingell.com/AANews.html):
“Thirty-five miles per gallon by 2020 isn’t a silver bullet. We know that.”
And that’s about all of the energy I’m going to put into that one.
If you read the op-ed again, Robert, you’ll notice that we at no point said that a mandate of 35 miles per gallon by 2020 was “the only way” to reduce greenhouse gasses. What we said was that it seemed to be a vital component to any plan that hoped to ultimately be effective in curbing global warming. I personally like the idea of a gas tax. Dingell, however, had already called for a gas tax. It’s been argued by many that he did so disingenuously, but, none the less, he has gone on record saying that he supported the idea of a gas tax. The reason we took him to task on fuel economy and renewables in our op-ed is because those are two specific areas where the Congressman was clearly not on the environmental side of the debate. I full well realize that our struggling auto companies make most of their profits on large vehicles. The general rule is, the bigger the SUV, the more the profit. That doesn’t make it’s right though, and, just because it works today, doesn’t mean that it will work tomorrow. Like it or not, the world’s oil supply is diminishing. The prices are rising. And the politics around it are becoming even more dangerous. As that’s the environment, it seems criminally negligent to me to continue making vehicles that get 12-14-16 miles per gallon when the technology exists to do better. We need a new vision, and we need a leader who can take us there. I was hoping that Dingell might be that man. Sadly, however, I don’t see much sign of it. He, from what I can tell, is more interested in political gamesmanship than in finding real sustainable solutions to our problems. Michigan should be leading the world in environmentally friendly transportation. Instead we’re fighting it with everything we’ve got. In the end, it will kill this state.
Mark is much more than a snake-oil bitch, Mr. Canell.
He is my snake oil bitch.