Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Happy (well, at least a DETERMINED) Earth Day, Arizona!

As you know (from recent blog post), the REACTIONARY Arizona Legislature was working on imposing a plastic bag ban ban, SB1241. The ALEC-model bill passed and Scrooge McDucey signed it into law.

Fast forward a few weeks, and here we are on Earth Day. Scrooge McDucey conducts himself in office with utter disregard for the will of the voters on environmental, economic and educational matters. In light of his disrespect for Main Street Arizonans, local environmental activist Stacey Champion today established an IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign to manufacture and distribute reusable grocery bags.



McDucey clearly believes that for the next three years, he does not have to answer to the citizens of Arizona. That's not necessarily a correct assumption on his part. We can turn public perception and help people understand what plutocratic lawmaking and public policy means to everyday Arizonans.

Please join me in supporting this excellent campaign.

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When the legislature confronts controversial issues, if it seeks to actually represent the people and fairly legislate the matter, it may need (and often does incorporate) study committees to gather differing perspectives and insights. In this case, it was not done. SB1241 was changed late in the legislative session without adequate public hearing.

Instead, this was a raw power play on the part of the ALEC-owned GOP leadership to circumvent sound government (municipalities which have the duty and responsibility of managing trash collection and processing). SB1241, with dubious justification, preempted cities', towns' and counties' authority.

In other words, it was a REACTIONARY move contrary to the health and safety interests of Arizonans.

Therefore, in order to provide necessary study materials for the legislature and governor, I now ask you to begin sending your USED single-use plastic grocery bags to Scrooge McDucey, Andy Biggs and David Gowan. the more, the better. We can help them understand why it's important for municipalities to have the authority to properly fulfill their responsibilities.

Scrooge McDucey, governor
1700 W Washington St, 9th Floor
Phoenix, AZ 85007

Andy Biggshot, senate president
1700 W Washington St.
Phoenix, AZ 85007

David Gowan, speaker of the house
1700 W Washington St.
Phoenix, AZ 85007

One friend recently told me she was concerned that sending the bags to leadership at the capitol would prevent the bags from being recycled. However, if we adequately get the attention of political leaders at the capitol, we can eventually win and therefore enable Arizona cities and towns to make the best decisions on this important issue.

Today it is a case of the grasshopper pitted against the elephant. But tomorrow the elephant will have its guts ripped out. Le Loi, Vietnamese emperor, 15th Century.

7 comments:

  1. kookooracharabiosoApril 26, 2015 at 1:57 PM

    We have been recycling our store bags for years - as garbage bags. Please correct me if I'm wrong but has anyone challenged the city requirement that all non-recyclable garbage must be in plastic bags? I'm of the opinion that if a grocery store size bag is full - it's time to take out the trash. Other than Seattle (?), which I believe requires even apartment dwellers to compost on penalty of fines I am not aware of any city that does not require plastic bags. The douchebag is cute but since I pay either way - why not just recycle the store bags and encourage supermarkets to not purchase bags with holes in the bottom towards this end?

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  2. Arizona EagletarianApril 26, 2015 at 5:12 PM

    Good for you on recycling your grocery bags already. <3

    However, your excellent example has apparently not caught hold enough to prevent widespread (worldwide, AND in Arizona) ubiquitous littering of these bags onto our parks, roadways and wild places (wilderness areas). Not only that, but if what you've done to recycle them is to deposit them in your home collection recycling bin for regular pick up by your municipal government, that presents additional problems about which I blogged earlier.

    http://stevemuratore.blogspot.com/2015/04/why-is-az-legislature-intent-on.html

    One last point, wild birds crapping on your laundry is completely unrelated and contributes nothing to this discussion except to suggest that you really aren't suggesting any real solutions to anything.

    But thanks for your feedback. :)

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  3. Marshall McLuhan "the medium is the message" and the message is anti-populace? Here is one of the populace with an idea to make lemonade out of lemons. I understand that the bags strangle the rollers and slows processing. I'm still failing to find information stating that Arizona cities are intent on changing their requirements to have juicy garbage enclosed in plastic bags. Since I as a member of the populace understands that I will have to buy plastic bags to comply with my city's directive once supermarket plastic bags are outlawed, my suggestion is to ensure that supermarket bags are not just single use. We the populace currently pay for supermarket bags, we'll pay for garbage bags separately when supermarket bags disappear unless the cities are willing to no longer have some garbage types enclosed in plastic bags. To this end we can request stores to not purchase bags with holes in the bottom as some of them already do. Plus many of the green bags still have high percentage of plastic and they don't last long.

    The wild birds analogy is demonstrative of how many of our attempts to go green are futile which is exactly what the supermarket bag ban is unless we also get rid of plastic garbage bags. I know you are capable so your alternately smiling snarky response tells me much about you, your intentions, use of communication paradigm that has brought our nation to a stand still to stifle someone with legitimate question who also could be in your corner for sharing many of your likes and dislikes. Naaaahhhh. Linda Valdez can keep calling us un-American for not voting but once again you prove that you are part of the problem because a solution is not your real goal - getting the opposition is.

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  4. Arizona EagletarianApril 27, 2015 at 4:00 PM

    Do you really think that lashing out -- by declaring that you know there's something wrong with me because of how I replied to you -- will help get people to take your message to heart?

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  5. kookooracharabiosoApril 27, 2015 at 8:13 PM

    No. You lashed out, including misdirecting me to a post that does not answer my question. You covered the bases with smile, snark, misdirect, snark and closed with smile. My point is that even by following the lemmings and banning supermarket bags, unless we have alternative to plastic bagging garbage we will pay now by







    having to purchase garbage bags and we will pay later by still having plastic



    pollution. I did not appreciate my state being ridiculed once again in the international media. I presented you with a potential work around that could be advantageous to all and much less harmful to working relationships than the douchebag and you chose to patronizingly marginalize me and my idea without bothering to answer my legitimate question. I'm supposed to just suck it up so I can stay? This is your space to be sure so hey, don't accept constructive feedback but don't accuse me of lashing out when in fact I am responding to what you put out. That's called creating your own reality and yes, it's your space, you have every right to do it. But me and lot's of folks like me just don't bother exactly because of the behavior that occurred here. Stupid me. I tried. Waste of time to have an idea all your own. Kinda like 35 years ago when I wanted the VA to have solar panels. Noooooo......nobody's got enough brain to consider an idea unless it comes from authorized source. Some of us don't mind giving our ideas away because the end result is most important. Now if I offended you from the get go because I'm not a tweeter and that's your preferred medium . . . Hey, I'm sorry - I misjudged - thought you could cope. Don't ever let me catch you whining about public apathy or slinging character assassinations about your fellow citizens when they are smart enough not to step in it like I just did. Yeah, I'm a gonna go crawl back under my rock now.

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  6. Arizona EagletarianApril 27, 2015 at 8:38 PM

    Kookoo... you are perfectly welcome to establish your own blog and complain about me there to your heart's content. Thanks for coming. :)

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  7. Complain or legit feedback for how the rank and file is treated when they reach out and try to engage in the process. Patronizing snark deserves feedback. There's altogether too much of it going on which is why those who engage in it have no business whining about the results. Yes there's something very wrong going on in this nation and communication style serves its purpose, defines purpose and intent.

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