Strawmen!
Want more proof that the arguments by FAQ are less and less credible?
Consider this letter by Pat Priest which flatly states that because he simply didn't believe the answer given by the scientific expert on how officials will close down the Plum Creek facility, this whole thing is moot. Mind you, Priest offered not one shred of evidence that would contradict the statement offered by said expert, but rather that he just didn't believe it.
This project has the support of liberals and conservatives, UGA officials and local business leaders, the local government and the state government ... for a handful of few to concoct false arguments against it is more than disappointing, it's irresponsible.
And I don't think they're 'rotten human beings' ... but I do think they're deliberately misleading the public on this issue simply because they don't want any type of growth to come to Athens-Clarke County.
Consider this letter by Pat Priest which flatly states that because he simply didn't believe the answer given by the scientific expert on how officials will close down the Plum Creek facility, this whole thing is moot. Mind you, Priest offered not one shred of evidence that would contradict the statement offered by said expert, but rather that he just didn't believe it.
This project has the support of liberals and conservatives, UGA officials and local business leaders, the local government and the state government ... for a handful of few to concoct false arguments against it is more than disappointing, it's irresponsible.
And I don't think they're 'rotten human beings' ... but I do think they're deliberately misleading the public on this issue simply because they don't want any type of growth to come to Athens-Clarke County.
posted by Jmac at 8:10 AM
11 Comments:
And I don't think they're 'rotten human beings' ... but I do think they're deliberately misleading the public on this issue simply because they don't want any type of growth to come to Athens-Clarke County.
Really? You don't think it's because they're just freaked out about a facility studying animal diseases? If it's because they hate growth, why didn't they organize sooner and protest, say, the Eastside Lowe's?
Pat Priest is a "she", not "he"
I think the biggest problem in most people's minds is that it is Homeland Security that is playing the lead, even though those opposed probably don't know that the biggest tenant will actually be the USDA and that DHS may not even end up running it --they haven't decided yet whether they will do it or get someone else to do so. But, why wait till the facts are in to oppose something when it's so much easier to oppose something without knowing the facts, right?
The Pat Priest I know is a female, an expert in media,
and very active in the Oconee Democratic Party. She also volunteers w/WUGA, and numerous other orgs. I am glad that a non-fanatic put the middle of the opposition in such clear terms.
I think it's a good point that how they intend to dismantle their former site is a real good indication of how they'll treat Athens. There are environmental concerns re this facility, it doesn't mean all the folks who raise them are kooks!
I agree w/Nicki, it's a leap to assume that because someone opposes this project he or she opposes all growth. Opposition to one project doesn't mean anti-everything, lol, but nice try.
I would feel better if this were in a more rural area, like the Orkin site.
Two counties could share the infrastructure investments/incentives, whatever they're planning, and it would reinforce the whole 316 as technical corridor concept.
This whole deal is straight anti-Bush, anti-Homeland Security. If the FDA or CDC was in charge of this structure, nobody would bat an eye. If this were 2009 when Obama resides on Pennsylvania Avenue, nobody would bat an eye.
And, I protest the East Side. Not development, per se, but everything really. How East Siders treat their home is a real good indication of how they'll treat the rest of Athens. So, I protest them. Dirty rotten scalawags. I wouldn't trust them if I were you. They undermine us West-siders' quality of life.
I have to say that I know and love Pat Priest. She's a wonderful person!
On the other hand, I'm disappointed and a little saddened that after asking a perfectly valid question and getting a perfectly logical and reasonable answer, she decided that she was being lied to - on no evidence whatsoever - and decided that everything positive she was hearing from people in a position to actually know must be, therefore, false and a "charade". That simply makes no sense at all to me and is surprising from someone so bright and educated. Honestly, I can't figure out what caused her to react in such a way other than a general distrust of DHS. Of course, if you have a great bias against DHS and anything and everything they do is considered evil then, why waste your time coming to any meetings with them.
I just can't see that as anything remotely reasonable or defensible. I have a great dislike for Bush, Cheney, and company and don't like many of the things that DHS is pushing but I cannot as a rational, reasonable person, characterize everything they do as "bad".
The thing I find most disturbing about the FAQ group is that the campaign they are running is based on classic Republican tactics. Straight out of the playbooks of Karl Rove and Ralph Reed. It's really scary to see some of my liberal-Democrat friends embrace these truly abhorent tatics. That is what shakes me up - far more than any aspect of NBAF.
Here's hoping for some healing.
Al
Odds are Athens won't get NBAF anyway. And I use the word "odds" literally. Put the names in a hat and draw the winner, and odds are against us, 4 or 5 to 1, depending on how you look at it.
So losing NBAF, in and of itself, won't be all together bad--just making the list of finalists and getting the national exposure in the circles that matter is, in fact, a good thing that could portend well down the road.
But how we lose it matters. If we are perceived to have lost NBAF because it was shouted down by an alliance of NIMBYs and Luddites, the repurcussions will echo for a generation or longer.
No one who posits the notion of Athens and UGa as a bio-science and high-tech research setting will be taken seriously, ever again.
This is Eckerd's in Five Points writ large.
Reggie
Put it on the Orkin site instead
This is Eckerd's in Five Points writ large.
And was Five Points destroyed as a commercial center because Eckerd didn't locate there? Or do you mean that the Eckerd was opposed and something worse ended up on the spot?
Re Eckerds in Five Points:
If you don't get that that whole affair reverberated around the state, you're missing a pretty significant point.
Five Points is fine, so long as you don't mind the prime spot in Athens real estate being sopped up by a tax-soaking as opposed to a tax-paying government entity.
But if you think there were no long-range consequences for how that thing unfolded in public--consequences that have a lot to do with a lot of things beyond Five Points (God, look up "provincial" in the dictionary and you get a picture of Athens) then you need to talk to some different people. People who actually know things about economic development.
Non-tenured types.
Reggie
Is there only one prime spot in Athens real estate?
I read Priest's letter as saying "I don't believe" not in the sense of "That is not the state of affairs that is the case," but rather in the sense of "I am incredulous that this was offered as a response." The rhetorical point is that even if it is true that dismantling a high security facility can be done quickly, that is not a reassuring answer because all it gives is an account of the timetable for dismantling, not anything helpful in terms of where the demolition debris will be taken, what state the terrain will be left in, and what the ecological effects such a rapid alteration will be. It suggests, as an answer, that the perception of concern is in how quickly we can bail out of something, rather than what kind of return for the investment will be given to a community that had hosted the site for such a long time. I'm not sure, since I was not there, if the "luckily" is Pat's addition or Johnson's own phrasing. It's a little thing such as that that is telling. As in, why should the success of a demolition be put up to luck or fortune?
To be sure, I'm not knocking rhetoric, as it has its purposes and ends that are neither ignoble nor suspect. But, I think we should expect Priest to give a "shred" of evidence when the point is to showcase the response for what it was from Priest's perspective: an insight into the kind of bureacratic thinking that focuses on timetables and rapidity rather than quality and development.
Anecdotal: it's been my experience that people who take a position in favor of environmental sustainability or cultivation against development or infrastructure tend to take a long view, perhaps because much of what has happened in the environment over the billions of years it has been around occurs over many, many years. Such people tend to judge impacts on the environment by questioning what these impacts will do in the long run, and responses and criticisms that emphasize present or immediate benefits or consequences of any environmentalistic strategy miss their mark with such people. It is, to them, besides the point to stress the immediate economic benefits in jobs, particularly if the children or grandchildren of those jobs suffer negatively with increased rates of cancer or worse.
An environmentalist's concerns have to be addressed, if it is to be done so charitably, from the standpoint of the environment. So, to answer a question about how Plum Island will be treated when it shuts down should be done by noting what steps the state will take to reinvigorate the ecological systems in place, the minimal impacts of demolition in the environment, and how long term post-site analysis will be conducted to further study the impact such a facility's operations have had on the environment.
I mean, speaking from a very pragmatic position here, it doesn't seem that inconceivable to me for someone from DHS to simply make up this kind of response just to say that we are addressing the environmentalist's concerns. If we were prepared to deceive the public in a time of war about wire tapping or torture or seizure of assets for the sake of national security, easy public relations campaigns should be the first most obvious step in disabusing people of their fears. But we don't get that. This is why I tend to move away from any notion of an insidious government conspiracy when it comes to our war on terrorism: it is quite simply just not as ruthless as the worst in Stalinism. Instead, what we have is just standard American incompetency covered up with absurdity.
The land for NBAF will be conveyed to DHS. The Orkin tract is owned by private owners, and so conveying it to DHS would be potentially lenthy and full of uncertainty. The NBAF site is owned by UGA, so there's no third parties to have to deal with and it can be transferred to DHS very easily. This, btw, is what happened to bring the USDA facility here however many years ago that was (it was on UGA-owned land that was given to USDA).
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