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The emphasis of your comments seemed to be that the dems might have forgotten that Gore had abandoned environmental issues, thus a rememberance would find dems voting for a republican. That could bear out.

You mentioned that the teachers in Florida teach the kids about the environment. While I appreciate the reasons why, I'm having a real problem with what's happening as a result of this, and other pushes to "heal" and "save" the environment.

Several months ago I viewed the movie, "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within." What I came away with was the feeling that I had just witnessed a religious event.

The premise of the movie was that the "world spirit" of another planet had been hurtled to earth when it's home world was destroyed. It's conflict with our own world spirit was creating a massive world threat to humanity.

Ghia (sp?), our earth spirit was essentially attributed "god status" in this movie. Ghia was the world's spirit and the benevolent entity of the planet. From it all positive life flowed. The planet could not exist without it.

This may not be the prevailing thought by the teachers who promote environmental knowledge, but I'm begining to think that for at least some, it is.

I recently had a discussion with my 24 year old son. This movie came up and we had a short discussion on the premise. Before our conversation was over, I had to express my opinon that the earth "does not" have a spirit. It is a physical object. It is not a living being in the sense that humans and animals and plants live. It is NOT alive. It does not have a spirit in the conventional sense. It does not have a soul.

We can make a self containing biosphere in a small container. We can balance out the oxygen producers and burners. Life can exist in this closed environment. But that does not create a spirit. The world is no different. It's a living echo system yes. It is not inhabited by Ghia.

Our schools, Saturday morning cartoons, movies, leftist organiztions and people, special interst ecological groups, NGOs, the United States government and even the United Nations and other global concerns have contributed to the brainwashing of our youth on the topic of planetary management.

It has now come to the place that the earth is attributed a soul, Ghia. This is a religion. In differing levels, it is being taught or at least the foundation is being laid in our public schools. What they don't teach is being provided by the prevalent media bias. The result is that our young people are if not practicing Ghiasts, at the very least incredibly sympathetic to the message of Ghia's truly devoted clergy and disciples.

I grew up on a farm. I have seen the hurdles farmers have to overcome to be successful. I have read about homeowners being forbidden to do just about anything on their own property. I have seen damms destroyed exaserbating energy shortages. I have seen people's familys, homes, farms and regions destroyed by lies, manipulations and fraud. I have seen grizley bears and wolves reintroduced in areas where there is bound to be conflict with cattle and humans. I have seen the statements by environmental managers that admitted that humans would die as a result of some of these actions. And this despite the reality that these bears and wolves have a solid balanced existance today in other non-human inhabited regions.

I respect our natural resources. Only a fool would wish to do harm to them. I respect animal life and the reasonable efforts to protect these entities. What is being taught to our children today is nothing less than the absolute rule of nature over man. God put man in charge of nature, not the other way around.

I do not attribute to you the things that I have addressed here. But I have to tell you that when I hear a treacher admit that they teach children a respect for, or reverence for nature, my entire being goes on red alert.

Our children can be made to understand the need to respect nature with very little effort. But they can be turned into environmental Nazis with only a smidgen of additional effort. And that additional effort is demonstrated constantly. It's my opinion that we have crossed that line and left it in the distance.

Excellent comments. Jeb cowtowed to the envirals, but they will demand their pound of flesh in the future. He's playing with fire and it won't be long until he gets burned.

Re your post #17 -- DoughtyOne, Thank you so much for taking the time to share your insgihts, opinions and concerns. You made so many interesting and thoughtful comments. I have to take more time to ponder what you said before I respond. But again, thanks. Sincerely, summer :)

And, BTW, DoughtyOne, what you said below was exactly the intended point of my editorial here:

The emphasis of your comments seemed to be that the dems might have forgotten that Gore had abandoned environmental issues, thus a rememberance would find dems voting for a republican. That could bear out.

The "goddess's" actual name is Gaia ("Guy'-ah"). It's kind of a New-Age catch all for any kind of feel-good nature-worship, earth-worship, random BS "spirituality" divorced from the paternalistic "evils" of logic and reason. It was a religion before this little movie was made and I think somebody is trying to make it into the universal World-Religion which is supposed to supplant all the traditional religions. You are definitely right that it is being promoted by all the organized groups you listed. I agree with you that there is a difference between a genuine respect and concern for the environment and the whack-job enviroNazis' agendas. The red alert should be going full blast.

Summer, this isn't necessarily aimed at you. I don't know the specifics of your issues and so will not comment on them. My reply was to DO's concerns as raised by this movie and LOTS of other related stuff flowing through our schools and everywhere else. You've probably heard it yourself. IMO it's an attempt to co-opt a reasonable and important area of interest--and to twist it into something else.

You mentioned that the teachers in Florida teach the kids about the environment. While I appreciate the reasons why, I'm having a real problem with what's happening as a result of this, and other pushes to "heal" and "save" the environment.

The Florida geography/geology is unique. It isn't a big chunk of grassland (Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, etc.) or rolling hills and low mountains (Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, etc.). It's essentially a giant, water-laden, limestone sponge with a north to south water flow. Much of what happens to the state depends on what happens to the flow of water through the state (and under ground). If you pull too much fresh water out, you'll get saltwater intrusion and some extremely long lasting damage (you can also exacerbate tendencies for sinkhole formation). It's just a matter of being prudent to make sure that the quality of life in Florida (and it's tourism industry) isn't undermined by damaging the environment that makes Florida a place that people want to move to or to continue to visit. There's nothing wrong with intelligent care of the environment. The problem comes from two directions: from earth-worshipping wackos who believe man to be the essence of evil and define the ultimate good as an environment free from man and from people reacting against such wackos and defining the ultimate good as the opposite of whatever the environmentalist wackos want. This makes it difficult for people to see another kind of environmentalism which is to make crappy places nice and keep beautiful and productive places beautiful and productive. We'd be a lot farther along in repairing damage done to south Florida had it not been for price supports for the domestic sugar industry which couldn't compete with cheaper Caribbean imports. Because of this, it has continued to use up land which could be used to grow other vegetable crops. Why didn't the sugar producers just grow these other crops? They'd have to compete with other domestic growers. Besides, why actually have to compete when you can continue to live off government largesse?

Also, Gaia is the earth goddess or the name for the idea of the living earth. Ghia is the last name of a car. ;-}