Kerry Vows Business-Friendly Program to Reduce Pollution

[DeepModem Mom]

Los Angeles Times:

Kerry Vows Business-Friendly Programs to Reduce Pollution

By James Rainey, Times Staff Writer


TAMPA, Fla. — Dismissing "the same tired, old arguments" that environmentalism and commerce cannot coexist, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry said Tuesday that he would embark on a new era of pollution protections while simultaneously promoting business and industry.

Standing beside a haven for manatees and herons along Tampa Bay, Kerry told an audience of about 150 that President Bush had reversed three decades of environmental gains while relying on eco-friendly slogans that "would make George Orwell rise up in fear."...

***

Kerry said that as president, he would restore many Clinton administration initiatives Bush had reversed, including ones that would lead to greater preservation of open space.

He said he also would embark on new programs in four areas: improving the quality and health testing of public waters; reducing mercury and other harmful emissions from power plants; decreasing pollution runoff from farms, factories and residential neighborhoods; and increasing spending to form coastal preserves....


http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-kerry21apr21,1,7867885.story?coll=la-home-politics

[JI7]

1. clean environment IS JOBS

that's one of kerry's best messages. that to keep the environment clean does mean jobs. investing in new technology, building new things such as automobiles which do not cause pollution as many vehicles now do etc.

[Tansy_Gold]

2. Why do I feel uncomfortable with that phrase "business-friendly"?

I don't disagree at all that there are many many jobs to be created in an environmentally conscious economy. And I accept that the whole "business-friendly" rhetoric may be media spin. But I also accept the possibility that it's part of this dreaded centrist-leaning insanity that I've seen too many otherwise-liberal candidates adopt in the name of gaining votes.

I'm tired of candidates who think they have to be centrist to win, and who in the process ditch their truly liberal base. The phrase "business friendly" is not going to win right-wing corporatist voters. They aren't going to be suckered in. It's not going to win swing voters who have far more sensitive balancing points. What it's going to do is turn off the left-wing voters, the ones who lean toward Nader and will either vote Nader or no one.

Damn it, Kerry, we NEED those liberal voters and we can get them a whole fucking lot easier than we can get some flip-floppy "swing" puke voters who are more worried about protecting their stock portfolio or buying a bigger SUV.

Tansy Gold, mildly disgusted at 4 in the morning

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

3. Business Friendly

Do you have a job? Then you really ought to be business friendly. The problem with many folks in the Democratic Party is that they have a knee-jerk reaction against corporations. Now I'll grant you that most of the time it's warranted -- but the fact is that with a reasonable degree of regulation, people and corporations can co-exist peacefully.

And those "flip-floppy swinge puke voters?" They're the ones who are gonig to decide the outcome of the next election, so please to go out of your way to piss them off.

[0rganism]

4. Kerry's running to the center

I think a Kerry presidency will be far more to our liking than that of the shrub. At heart, he's not the centrist he's positioning himself to be during the election; even if he were, at least he'd be a competent centrist.

Just bear with it -- my confidence in Kerry's strategy has increased steadily since January. He was barely a player before the Iowa primary, multiple accounts spoke of his campaign as disorganized, yet now look at where he sits with the delegate count.

John Kerry is smart and knows how to operate "under the radar".