Posted on 11/05/2007 7:41:19 PM PST by Graybeard58
WASHINGTON — Charlee Lockwood has never heard of Rush Limbaugh or listened to his radio program, and perhaps it's just as well.
On Monday, the talk radio king told listeners that Democrats were exploiting the 18-year-old Yupik Eskimo, and that her emotional testimony that day in front of a U.S. House committee on global warming made him "really want to puke. I just want to throw up."
"It's the Democrats exploiting a young child, ladies and gentlemen, for the advancement of a political issue that will grow the size of government and increase their control over everyone," Limbaugh told listeners of the 600 stations nationwide that carry his show.
Lockwood didn't let Limbaugh's comments faze her. Her upbringing in the community of St. Michael included learning "about respect and treating people the way you want to be treated," Lockwood said, during a brief interview just before she got on a plane to return to her village on Alaska's west coast.
And she had plenty of people willing to defend her.
"For Rush Limbaugh to make fun of young people coming in and trying to be a part of the political process, it really shows a disdain for political discourse and for the role of young people in that political discourse," said Eben Burnham-Snyder, a spokesman for the chairman of the committee, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass.
Limbaugh's attack on the teenager was "outrageous and grotesque," said Deborah Williams, an Anchorage environmentalist who accompanied Lockwood on the teen's first trip to the nation's capital in 2005. It's one thing to take aim at a public figure, Williams said, but it's quite another to attack someone young and eager to participate in the democratic process.
"I know Charlee really quite well and she is her own person," Williams said. "She got involved in this because she feels a big moral commitment to protect her community. She is passionate about this issue, and she has so much invested in this issue."
Lockwood was among 5,000 teens and young adults who descended on Washington Monday in what may have been the biggest lobbying day ever on energy and climate issues. Ten other young people from Alaska attended the event, through Alaska Youth for Environmental Action.
Organizers described the Washington gathering, known as Power Shift 2007, as "the first national youth summit to solve the climate crisis."
Lockwood, who hopes to study to be a health aide in rural Alaska, has already become something of a veteran environmental activist. She traveled to Washington two years ago to deliver 5,000 signatures from fellow Alaska high school students who sought to draw attention to the effects of global warming in the state.
On Monday, she and other students met with a staffer in Alaska Rep. Don Young's office, and with both of Alaska's senators, Republicans Lisa Murkowski and Ted Stevens.
Stevens hadn't listened to the Limbaugh program Monday afternoon, although an aide burned a CD for him to listen to later at home. The senator had no comment on the program, said Aaron Saunders, a spokesman for Stevens.
The young people from Alaska spent about an hour Monday engaged in a "lively and frank conservation about climate change and global warming" with Stevens, Saunders said.
The senator and the students weren't in total agreement, Saunders said. Stevens has repeatedly questioned the causes of global warming, but acknowledges that climate change has had a disastrous effect on the state's remote villages. Last month, Stevens accompanied the chairwoman of the Disaster Recovery subcommittee, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., to Shishmaref to survey the damage from coastal erosion.
On Monday, Lockwood offered an eloquent description of the effects of global warming on her own village of St. Michael. Moose once walked by the village; now, they've migrated farther north and are rarely seen. There are fewer fish each year at the family's summer fish camp, Lockwood said, and their favorite berry-picking spots aren't producing as much fruit anymore.
"Our traditional ways of life will die like the food we grew up eating, our hunters will have to travel farther to keep food in their homes," she warned in testimony submitted to the committee. "Our culture will die because everyone will have to move someplace and there will be no one to teach them to."
South Park as always nailed this phenomenon:
Voice-over: What is the future of America? Is it the money we make? [a $1 bill] The quests we conquer? [the Moon shot] No, it’s children. [head shots of Tweek and the boys] So what do children have to say about Prop. 10?
Kyle: I don’t like big corportations.
Stan: I like small businesses.
Cartman: I believe in the family-owned enterprise.
Kenny: In my family, it’s a silly enterprise.
Tweek: Aaaarh!
Voice-over: It’s time to stop large corporations. Prop. 10 is about children. Vote Yes on Prop. 10, or else, you hate children. You don’t hate… children… Do you? Remember, keep American business small, or else. [the kids’ heads combust and only their skulls are left in flames, with charred caps.] Paid for by Citizens for a Fair and Equal way to get Harbucks Coffee kicked out of town forever.
[On Monday, the talk radio king told listeners that Democrats were exploiting the 18-year-old Yupik Eskimo,]
You can’t call them Eskimos. They are to be referred to as “First Nation”.
She was disgustingly uninformed and stupid. What a parade of frikkin idjits.
A møøse once bit my sister.
 |
Charlee Lockwood, Saint Michael (Youth Member)Cheryl “Charlee” Lockwood attends Mount Edgecumbe High School, a public boarding school in Sitka -- about 800 miles away from her home in Saint. Michael village on Norton Sound. During her involvement with AYEA, she has worked on many issues and in 2006 traveled to Washington, D.C., as part of AYEA’s Global Warming delegation. Charlee is now the chair of the Mt. Edgecumbe (MEAYEA) AYEA chapter. Charlee received the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes honor roll recognition in 2006 for her work on global warming. She fears spiders and bugs, but she likes food and watching comedy shows. When she’s not busy as the chair of MEAYEA, she likes to hang with friends, swim, hike, bike, and go camping. |
And you’ve never spent 10 minutes as a radio talk show host.
What’s your point?
Charlee Lockwood, aka Useful Idiot
[They are using her, and when she is used up they will discard her.]
They did the second she was done whining. Soon to be lost in the bin of abused dim sock-puppets.
It happens all over the world, every second of every day. To be amazed by that is no different than saying:
"I'm amazed and alarmed how time is robbing me of my youth, every second of every day."
RUSH: He is taking an argument that I have made about this and turning it around, the scientific consensus. When you have consensus, there is no science. It is not up to a vote. Now, he’s right about one thing, this business, this habit of journalists, no matter what the story, no matter what the fact, they’re always going to go find some wacko critic somewhere, and that’s just part of the formula. But Algore wants to suspend that on his issue. He doesn’t want both sides covered because his side cannot stand, cannot deal with the exposure it would get from the critics, and there are many of them. This is just amazing. We gotta get rid of anybody who questions this. Comparing this to people who think the Earth is flat, I can remember using that example countless times, but not in the discussion of the media, but in the discussion of consensus and science. Suppose that there was a consensus and some group of scientists said the Earth was flat? That’s the equivalent of what’s happening here with global warming, and yet, if you ask me, it is the other side of this issue, our side, my side, that is getting short shrift. Let’s move to the final sound bite in this roster. This is this morning at the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming hearing with Ed Markey of Massachusetts. Student Charlee Lockwood of the Alaska Youth for Environmental Action testified, and here is a portion of her remarks. This is this morning, before a House committee.
LOCKWOOD: (crying) Just in my lifetime I’ve seen so many… changes in our community that it just hurts to (sniffle) not be able to have our... (voice trembling) It’s really scary to lose our tradition, our culture, and we’ve been living here for thousands of years (sob) and it’s not just that we’re losing our food, it’s losing our homes, and — because we are spiritually connected, and emotionally and (sniffle) physically connected to our homes, and (sob) there are so many — so many — communities that are in trouble.
RUSH: So once again, it’s the Democrats exploiting a young child, ladies and gentlemen, for the advancement of a political issue that will grow the size of government and increase their control over everyone. I really want to puke. I just want to throw up.
Maybe the moose don’t walk by their village any more because they are scared of snowmobiles and atv’s. Maybe there are less fish because they took too many. Maybe it’s just been a bad couple of years for berries or the bears ate them all. Maybe their culture will be assimilated by their reaching out to Washington for help.
[However, she is obviously inserting herself into the public eye by her actions and therefore perfectly open to criticism from those that disagree with her.]
I challange her to offer proof of her lying comments.
Be careful what you ask for...Having visited Alaska I can tell ya that while the place is exceptionally beautiful, the "native" people are not!! hehe.
Why should anyone listen to this child?
Just a joke.
That’s about what I thought.
The beaches south of the breakwater were losing their sand, and the beaches north were gaining it.
Har, it has to go somewhere!
Maybe it is the sand that is raising the ocean level so high that Nevada has ocean front property now.
Oh and yes, our youth is robbed from the aged and is deposited on the young.
"Bogus. Phony."
Might not be bogus facts - the conclusion is totally bogus. Climate change has caused migration of flora and fauna for eons. Her weeping reminded me of Sally Fields and Jane Fonda and somebody else testifying about the plight of the farmer before a legislative committee in the 80s. They had just appeared in movies with related plots. They could present compelling emotions but that should not be what legislation is based on.
Hey, Lockwood it looks to me that you are a part of the problem, by living in that environment!
What the hell are you doing there...
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