[Cynus]

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan07/Baldwin24.htm

I think I'm going to have to read this book. I think it might be something like I've been trying to move towards with talk of the "Sustainability Party."

Crunch Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party).

A Crunchy Con Manifesto

1. We are conservatives who stand outside the conservative mainstream; therefore, we can see things that matter more clearly.

2. Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power, and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character.

3. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.

4. Culture is more important than politics and economics.

5. A conservatism that does not practice restraint, humility, and good stewardship—especially of the natural world—is not fundamentally conservative.

6. Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New, and Abstract.

7. Beauty is more important than efficiency.

8. The relentlessness of media-driven pop culture deadens our senses to authentic truth, beauty, and wisdom.

9. We share Russell Kirk’s conviction that “the institution most essential to conserve is the family.”

[Chaparral]

I like it. I was wondering what to call myself after being kicked out of my old haunts by armies of Randroids......eco-libertarian?

Crunchy-Con sounds better.

uhh, crunchy to whom? a great big crocodile? Media sharks?

Do we have too many bones in us to make us palatable to the Repug party? They'll have a hard time swallowing us. Well get caught in their throats, they'll choke and well be coughed back up and pushed to the fringe along with all the other indigestibles. Nothing new for me. Once at the fringe, always at the fringe.

[benzoil]

As a card carrying liberal, I have to say wow. I think you'd make more friends with that creedo at a gathering of liberal Dems than at a similar gathering of Republicans.

Still, it shows that certain things aren't politicized - or needn't be. Good stewardship and skepticism of concentrated power, for example.

Best of luck to you Crunchy Cons! I hope you fare better than the Log Cabin Republicans at building a bigger tent for the right!

[mgibbons19]

Log Cabin Republicans pitch tents all night long...

In Castro!

Ba Da Bing!

[smallpoxgirl]

Sign me up. I decided a while ago that what I really am is an arch conservative. It's all these new fangled European/Christian/Capitalist ideas that have screwed the world up.

[NeoPeasant]

Wow, what a concept. Conservatives with an interest in actually conserving things.

[holmes]

Count me in. Yes I am a serious radical right winger. "Cut em all off" needs to be the slogan of the party.
On a side note the credit card gestapo is lobbying to get a law passed that ALL credit cards charge and annual rate. They are actually in there dictating laws. The credit lobby. They want personal responsible to pay their fair share. Lump all in with the poo and downtrodden irresponsible scum. The slimey credit hoard is getting so big that the half that cant pay and get finance rates is not enough for these jack boots. That industry needs to be violently ended. Hangings, firing squads and beatings and then on to the street to all of them. talk about a petro chemical dependent "industry". They go bye bye soon.
This would be culled in this party right? If not Im out.

[PrairieMule]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NeoPeasant', 'W')ow, what a concept. Conservatives with an interest in actually conserving things.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrairieMule', 'M')ostly conservative Goldwater republicans but hard left on enviromental issues.

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'T')his is pretty much the sociopolitical contingent that gave birth to Earth First. The Eco-Redneck. The early days of Earth First were undeniably filled with flannel, 4wd trucks, beer, and womanizing. Today it's more drop out hippie types, but beards and beer are still very much in abundance and they are still very much scorned by liberals.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', 'I') don't know many other gun-toting treehuggers who listen to Dr. Laura and are a member of their local forest protection group.

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'W')ell...ya had me going there until the Dr. Laura bit. She's an evil cow and should be tied to an ant hill and left to die IMHO.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', 'S')ounds like someone needs a Dr. Laura doll

[ALBY]

i found my home

[Cynus]

It's interesting to hear you guys describe the image of environmentalists around the country. In New England the environment was destroyed over a century ago already so most efforts aren't aimed at protecting it but restoring it. For example, restoring herring runs to rivers that were dammed 200 years ago for some mill that no longer exists. So environmentalists are perceived as trying to add something good and not take anything away. I think that's why there isn't the virulent anti-environmental stance that you find in other parts of the country which I never understand. Also, there aren't any EF!-ers around or dreadlocked hippies (except in Vermont). Environmentalists here are generally professors at the local colleges or some locals who are trying to protect their town from being overrun by sprawl. There aren't any extractive industries to speak of, and the forests were all logged centuries ago (Maine being the exception). The exception is the fisheries where restrictions are fiercely resisted by the few remaining fishermen. They never seem to make the connection between the declining catch every year and overfishing so they continually resist new efforts at restrictions while their numbers grow ever smaller (except for lobstermen). The biggest battle is with sprawl where developers are pitted against suburbanites who want to protect the few remaining greenspaces, and politicians who keep complaining about the high cost of housing making the area uncompetitive. They never realize that the problem is eternal population growth which causes increased demand, with limited space that has been developed steadily for 400 years, resulting in high prices.

[Loki]

Speaking of hippies and Earth First!: Raise Your Fists in the Air and Step Away from the Hippie!
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')lthough many Earth First!ers look like hippies (long hair, patchwork clothes), smell like hippies (the scent of body odor combined with patchouli or sandalwood both precedes and follows individuals as they walk down the street) and live like hippies (co-ops, collective living, farms)....