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Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Where'd all the greens go?
Below is an image posted on Twitter by a friend of mine who attended the Obama inauguration yesterday. He took it shortly after the event while leaving the DC Mall.
It would appear from the evidence that the greening of the earth does not place high on the list of priorities for those in attendance, despite the heavy (and self-righteous) talk during the campaign by the president and many of his supporters. Maybe the event was infiltrated by thousands of earth-hating freedom-loving types.
I wonder how much it cost the American taxpayer to clean it up...
Posted by Isaac Morehouse on January 21, 2009 in Current Affairs | Permalink
Comments
Not nearly as much as it cost to throw the party as a whole.
Posted by: dan | 2009-01-21 8:36:31 AM
I will bet $1000 that if McCain were being inaugurated, you would not see this mess. People with a sense of responsibility clean up after themselves.
Posted by: epsilon | 2009-01-21 8:40:56 AM
Hah! Anyone who's hiked the Grouse Grind knows just how seriously these "enlightened, healthy, progressive" types take their own rhetoric. The evidence, in the form of thousands of discarded Dasani bottles, is there for all to see.
Memo to the Left: Plastic is RECYCLABLE!
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2009-01-21 9:00:26 AM
When you have that many people attending that large of an event, you will get garbage on the floor.. Is this really the end of the world or the breaking point of the Obama presidency?
Posted by: Rum | 2009-01-21 9:12:43 AM
The trash is not a big surprise (though it seems a very high volume). I do wonder if all the greens organized massive voluntary cleanup efforts. Haven't heard anything about it yet...
Posted by: IMM | 2009-01-21 9:19:30 AM
Hardly, Rum. But it does offer proof that the preaching classes are not as morally superior as they'd like us to think.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2009-01-21 9:19:53 AM
That's from more than 2 million people? Doesn't seem like much at all. Man, talk abut nit-picking. The right is really reaching to find any negatives it can, and I guess this is the best you can do.
I saw a news report of a few people voluntarily picking up the trash, but 2 million people waiting in the freezing cold for hours will generate a little trash.
Posted by: Communications Guru | 2009-01-21 12:20:51 PM
It's not nitpicking, it's just a funny observation. Lot's of Obama supporters are furiously advocating all kinds of "green" policies, often with the implication that OTHER irresponsible people need to be forced to do environmentally sensible things. It's just one of those images that makes a subtle yet cutting point - police yourself before you start policing everyone else.
There is nothing about the site of this trash that makes the event bad or Obama bad or his policies bad. It's just funny. Same way it would be funny if a bunch of advocates of mandated nutrition and exercise programs handed out Twinkies at a rally or something.
Posted by: IMM | 2009-01-21 12:30:54 PM
CG, two million people waiting in the cold should generate NO trash. Certainly none of it would have come from me. Granted, the amount of trash would not likely have been much different had it been a Republican who was sworn in. My point is that while Republican voters don't generate any more trash than Democratic ones, they certainly generate less hot air about the evils of pollution.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2009-01-21 12:39:13 PM
Are you serious? More than 2 million people in the cold "should generate no trash?" That's ridiculous. If it had been a Republican sworn in, there wouldn't have been more than 2 million people, but the trash would have been the same or more. You don't think stripping away the protections for air and water are not harmful?
Posted by: Communications Guru | 2009-01-21 12:57:39 PM
Typical! I have yet to find a "green" who practises what he or she preaches and this includes Gore and Suzuki.
Posted by: Alain | 2009-01-21 12:59:41 PM
I've seen worse at outdoor rock concerts.
Posted by: Bob Peloquin | 2009-01-21 1:04:19 PM
The trash was the furthest thing from my thoughts as I watched clips of this spectacle yesterday. What kept haunting my thoughts was the amount of energy (gasoline, jet fuel, heating fuel, and oil or coal used to produce all the disposables) that was consumed to throw this and parallel extravaganzas all over the U.S.
Great: Let's all turn off the lights and use low-energy bulbs all year, let's all buy locally grown vegetables -- and then let's emit 100 times as much CO2 than what we are saving by rallying around the President who inspires such greenery. How do you escape the conclusion that this is more about feeling good (i.e. morally superior) about yourself than any real self-sacrifice for a higher -- if not the the highest! -- cause? (The highest cause: Gaia, the Mother Earth.)
The trash is insignificant in itself, but it is symbolic. People need their bread and circuses, their self-congratulatory pats on the back.
Posted by: Grant Brown | 2009-01-21 2:03:26 PM
CG wrote: "Are you serious?"
Dead serious.
"More than 2 million people in the cold should generate no trash?"
Absolutely none. What you pack in, you pack out, absent medical emergency. And what difference does the temperature make?
"That's ridiculous."
Says who and based on what?
"If it had been a Republican sworn in, there wouldn't have been more than 2 million people, but the trash would have been the same or more."
Conjecture. And biased conjecture at that.
"You don't think stripping away the protections for air and water are not harmful?"
Which ones?
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2009-01-21 2:10:39 PM
Grant Brown wrote: "The trash is insignificant in itself, but it is symbolic. People need their bread and circuses, their self-congratulatory pats on the back."
Direct translation of "panem et circenses." It worked for the Romans too. It's amazing how little human nature has changed in 2,000 years, isn't it?
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2009-01-21 2:12:46 PM
You will see this sort of mess wherever Liberals have been.
They all PLEDGE to deny it though.
Posted by: John V | 2009-01-21 3:50:13 PM
Why should I pay for this mess
Posted by: THV | 2009-01-22 2:26:23 PM
I was at an event where several hundred thousand men gathered in the same mall. (The estimated 2 million last Tuesday were all over D.C., not just the mall.) Trash was at a minimum afterwards according to the park officials and park police. So this shows that it does depend on who was in the crowd of people. If you want to check out my statement ask the park people about the crowd numbers and trash left after the assembly on October 4, 1997.
Mac
Posted by: Mac McFatter | 2009-01-23 4:14:11 PM
I read elsewhere that the trash cans were removed for security reasons. I have mixed feelings about the whole "mess". I think some are looking for negatives. I agree with other posters who have pointed out that there is much trash at many types of events, and I believe that organizers of outdoor events should provide proper receptacles.
Posted by: Shai | 2009-02-09 7:26:37 PM
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