One of the silliest talking points Bluestem has been following in the emerging Republican "DFL overreach" frame is the "Scary MN enviro extremists at the Environmental Quality Board" frame that Steve Drazkowski and various bloggers at the True North group home have been pushing.
It taps into overt fear-mongering on the right about environmentalism, while dog whistling to less polite phobias about the planning and permitting process nurtured in Tea Party meetings about Agenda 21. Paranoia about sustainable planning predates the Tea Party, of course, with folks like Michele Bachmann and Allen Quist creating exemplary Hofstadterian rants in advent of the post-2008 coming of Barack Obama, but it's gotten its realhead steam in the profound critical thinking that comes out of Teabaggery.
In the fractured fairytale told by Draz and the group home bloggers, the Citizens Forums across the state that began last week and continue through December 17--as well as next year's Environmental Congress--have only been promoted among extremist environmentalists, while the hard working yeoman farmers and small business people at the core of our democracy have been left behind like wretched sinners at the Rapture. The most laughable iteration of this fabulist fiction is the claim that Environmental Congress was planned only after the DFL legislative victories in the 2012 elections last month--rather than a year before.
According to this clarion call against DFL "overeach," citizen statements gathered at the Forums and shared at next year's Environmental Congress will simply end with former Dayton spouse and current liberal deep pockets Alida Messinger in control of all your property rights via the EQB.
Can "all your base are belong to her" be next?
It's profoundly inventive in a purely bonehead way. Boneheaded because the Citizen Forums and the Congress were widely promoted across the state---and to groups representing the farmers and business interests the right supposedly defends, as well as to environmental organizations.
In short, Draz and company have simply been making this shit up.
Yesterday, Ag Commissioner Frederickson and Dayton advisor Ellen Anderson sent the following letter to Representative Drazkowski explaining that tens of thousands of Minnesotans had gotten emails announcing the forums and congress, and the Minnesota Farm Bureau, the Minnesota Farmers Union, the AgriGrowth Council, and local and state chambers of commerce had been sent notice while being asked to encourage their members to attend.
Frederickson andAnderson also write:
In addition, we convened two Advisory Groups, which included farmers, farm organizations, and other business and industry groups, along with a wide range of other Minnesotans, to review the draft Environment and Energy Report Card.
Here's the letter.
12 3 12 Letter to Rep Drazkowski Re Citizen Forums Outreach
Surely, Draz and the Group Home bloggers will continue to pimp their Snopes-worthy urban legend about the EQB. None of the rest of us should.
Instead, Bluestem recommends that readers weigh in on the process in person or online.
Photo: Steve Drazkowski, R-ALEC, complete fabulist.
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"Group Home bloggers" ... OMG ... awesome.
Editor's note: We so want someone to start a hip-hop collective called Draz and the Group Home Bloggers.
Posted by: Eric Pusey | Dec 04, 2012 at 02:23 PM
Their warm up act should always be Jesus and the Dinosaurs.
Posted by: Eric Pusey | Dec 04, 2012 at 06:06 PM