It’s Time for Great Lakes Voters to Flex their Mussels

Mon, 11/05/2007 - 08:36 — Cameron Davis

Federal elections will be a year from now yesterday, on November 4, 2008. When we walk into those voting booths, we need to vote for the Great Lakes. Today and for the rest of the week, I’ll tell you why keeping the Great Lakes on your voting card makes sense.

Let’s talk politics right now. In any given presidential election there are about a dozen swing states. And about 1/3 of those states have one thing in common. You guessed it; the Great Lakes. Over the past several decades, at least one Great Lakes state has proven critical for any presidential candidate to succeed.

If you think the Great Lakes are too parochial to be a national issue, think again. They hold about 95% of the country’s fresh surface water. If you were to drain the Great Lakes, they would cover the Continental U.S. with 9 ½ feet of water. And, recent polling shows that 96% of Great Lakes state residents want to see the Great Lakes restored. When was the last time a public policy priority ever reached that kind of virtual consensus? Clearly, the time for the Great Lakes to be on the national stage has come.

In the coming days, I’ll tell you

•Tuesday How you Can Review the Candidates’ Records
•Wednesday Water as a Campaign Issue
•Thursday A New Standard of Care for the Great Lakes
•Friday Congress’ Next Step for Great Lakes Restoration

Voters love the Great Lakes. Because of that, whoever commits to being “the Great Lakes candidate” will lead the pack.

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I'm curious...

Submitted by Alan Maki on Mon, 11/05/2007 - 11:37.

Do you think the "pack" has a leader right now?

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Alan L. Maki

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Phone: 218-386-2432

Blog: h

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Great Lakes Voters - a fragile voting block

Submitted by bob james on Tue, 11/06/2007 - 09:47.

Cameron, thanks for raising this issue. Between national issues that receive the most pandering, oops I mean attention, from the candidates I would have to rank the Great Lakes as so far down the list that this site may be the only place where we will hear anything about the issue. I notice that Rudy has not even responded to the questionnaire. He must be looking for a tie-in to 911. Could there be a “terrorist in every pleasure boat” policy paper to be rolled-out for the primaries in the Great Lakes states.

Pardon my negativity but consider the following: We are almost 6 years and counting into a war that saps the resources needed for all really worthwhile projects. Our health care system is a joke when compared to the rest of the world. The economies of the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio are in the tank. We can't even get state budgets passed in Michigan and Wisconsin. Global environmental issues have been attacked by every nutcase in the current administration that will even go so far as to alter scientific reports on the subject. Even when an issue bubbles to the surface all we seem to be able to do is to fund another "study" that will do little but postpone any real action. Any real action on Great Lakes policies will face the daunting army of lobbyists that have so far been very successful at halting any real action. Lobbyists seem to be able to prevent even technology from driving nationwide benefits. For example, we live in the most advanced country in the world and have not been able to break the top 20 in global issues such as internet speed and cellular communications. And, I won’t even get going about health care.

If we look forward to the 2008 general election and past the silly season of winter primaries are we more likely to see another burning issue like “911 revisited fear” or God help us “banning of gay marriage” or the issue of the Great Lakes? Let me think!

Maybe the place to start is in the state legislatures where someone can actually raise this issue and not get laughed out of the room.

political lobby

Submitted by Gail Krantzberg on Tue, 11/06/2007 - 11:02.

"Maybe the place to start is in the state legislatures where someone can actually raise this issue and not get laughed out of the room."

i think this is the beginning of a strategy to get political insiders who have the ear of the candidates engaged in the Great Lakes. Does anyone want to share ideas as to how to prime the political pumps?

Thanks for Making the Lakes Great.

I am not so optimistic about State Legislatures, either

Submitted by Alan Maki on Tue, 11/06/2007 - 11:15.

As long as we are stuck in this two-party trap which promotes and accepts capitalism I don't foresee much change.

Evidence of this is everywhere, not just on issues of importance to the Great Lakes... but issues which may be more related than most people understand.

Recently the Governor of Michigan, heavily backed by "organized labor" negotiated another "Compact" for another casino which ignores the fact that casino workers will be employed in a smoke-filled casino at poverty wages without any rights under Michigan of Federal labor laws.

Now, let me ask you, do you really think the more than 20,000 casino workers presently employed in Michigan are going to step forward and participate in a discussion of the future of the Great Lakes when many of the "investors" in these casino operations are the same corporations doing the polluting? An example is Station Casinos now partnered with the Gun Lake Tribe. And guess who the big man in Station Casinos is supporting for president? Rudy Guliani. Now, would you expect any employee of the Gun Lake Casino to step forward and participate in any kind of struggle to save the Great Lakes with an employer like this when they are working without any rights?

It is no wonder the plight of the Great Lakes is held in the balance by corporate funded philanthropical efforts where a "study" is the only solution to "well framed" problems.

There is at present a climate of fear in our country which has been created by the same corporations that send their pollution high into the sky made to appear as pretty clouds. People are afraid to participate. They are worried their phones will be tapped by the FBI and National Security agencies that view the word "organize" as a potential terrorist threat to national security.

It was recently exposed that the Minnesota Legislature uses "keywords" to screen out unwanted e-mails... any words associated with single-payer, universal health care and socialized health care were automatically dumped as "spam;" other emails that had the dangerous "keywords" including "protecting freshwater aquifers" and "mercury contamination of our waters" were similarly deleted by the spam system which had to have been programed by a human but no one will take the credit for doing these dirty deeds.

Oh, in Michigan, after I raised the issue of people having to go to work in smoke-filled casinos in spite of all the medical and scientific evidence that second hand smoke kills (I am sure you have seen the billboards), well, one lone Republican woman state legislator had the moral and political courage to suggest an amendment to the House approval of the Governor's negotiated "Compcat" with the Gun Lake Tribe and its partner--- Station Casinos, that the casino should be a smoke-free environment for workers and patrons... Standing to speak in the Michigan House, she turned to her Republican colleagues for a second, heard none... she then turned, tears dripping down her cheeks, to the Democrats (who we would expect to protect the Great Lakes and working people?) and there was no second to her motion for this amendment.

Really, I doubt whether the present two-party political system which can't even act in a responsible manner to protect 1,800 workers from the health and life threatening perils of second hand smoke can be expected to help us protect and save the Great Lakes watersheds.

Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

Note: I am proud that our Organizing Council is one of the few labor unions to have put several thousand dollars into a grassroots initiated campaign aimed at preventing United States Steel from sending their MinnTac plant pollution down the St. Louis River into Lake Superior at Duluth... our only stipulation was that the money not be used to fund further studies but used to foster direct citizen participation and action in the process at all levels.

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