Fishermen’s fear: Public's 'right to fish' shifting under Obama?
The Obama administration has proposed using United Nations-guided principles to expand a type of zoning to coastal and even some inland waters. That’s raising concerns among fishermen that their favorite fishing holes may soon be off-limits for bait-casting. In the battle of incremental change that epitomizes the American conservation movement, many weekend anglers fear that the Obama administration’s promise to "fundamentally change" water management in the US will erode what they call the public’s "right to fish,"
http://news.yahoo.com/...
Well, this fish tale is a crock of sh*t.
I like to fish and I've been doing it since I was a little kid.
Thank God for Media Matters debunking this but they say that a lie will get around the world before the truth can get out of bed.
Right-wing media eagerly spread absurd claim that Obama plans to "ban sport fishing"
Following the lead of an ESPNOutdoors.com opinion writer, who provided no evidence for his claim that a federal strategy "could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing," right-wing blogs have advanced the outlandish charge that Obama "wants to ban sport fishing." These media outlets cited the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force's interim report on coastal and marine planning, but the task force has proposed nothing of the sort.
Hoft: "New Regulations Will Ban Sport Fishing." On March 9, Gateway Pundit blogger Jim Hoft posted a blog titled, "Obama's Latest Assault on Freedom-New regulations Will Ban Sport Fishing." Asserting that Obama "wants to ban sport fishing," Hoft quoted from the ESPN column and further stated, "Barack Obama has a message for America's 60,000,000 anglers- We don't need you."
ESPN column, right-wing bloggers provided no evidence to substantiate claim
ESPN column doesn't support claim that Obama plans to ban sport fishing. Montgomery speculated about "collusion" between "green groups," who "would like nothing better than to ban recreational angling," and the Obama administration, but did not provide any evidence to support his assertion that the federal strategy "could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation's oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters." In fact, later in his column, Montgomery wrote that "the task force has shown no overt dislike of recreational angling," adding, "but its indifference to the economic, social and biological value of the sport has been deafening."
Task force plan seeks to "better manage," not ban recreational fishing alongside other uses of ocean, coasts, lakes. In its September 10, 2009, interim report, the Interagency Ocean Policy task force recommended that the administration implement "coastal and marine spatial planning," which has been described as ocean "zoning." The interim report states that such a system "will allow for the reduction of cumulative impacts from human uses on marine ecosystems, provide greater certainty for the public and private sector in planning new investments, and reduce conflicts among uses and, between using and preserving the environment to sustain critical ecological, economic, and cultural services for this and future generations." A December 9, 2009, task force report discussing coastal and marine spatial planning in more detail states that "CMSP provides an effective process to better manage a range of social, economic, and cultural uses, including" commerce and transportation, commercial fishing, conservation, mining, oil and gas exploration and development and recreational fishing, among many others. Nowhere in the September 10 or December 9 reports does the task force propose a ban on recreational fishing.
Fishing columnist Jeffrey Weeks: "ESPN should be ashamed." Charlotte Fishing Examiner columnist Jeffrey Weeks wrote on March 9: "In what may be the worst example of outdoor sports reporting in the history of America, ESPN has claimed that President Barack Obama is on the verge of banning recreational fishing." Weeks added, "Am I going to agree with everything that this task force does? Probably not. Issues like access to fishery grounds and over-regulation of species without sound scientific data are legitimate concerns. However, in no way shape or form is the task force President Obama created about to ban recreational fishing. That is silly. ESPN should be ashamed."
http://mediamatters.org/...
NOAA statement
Statement from Eric Schwaab, NOAA's Assistant Administrator for NOAA's Fisheries Service
The Ocean Policy Task Force has not recommended a ban on recreational fishing.
The draft reports by the Ocean Policy Task Force do not contain a zoning map and do not establish any restrictions on recreational fishing, nor make any judgments about whether one ocean activity or use is better than another. Instead, the reports set up a policy and framework for effectively managing the many sustainable uses of the ocean while upholding our responsibility to be stewards of our oceans, coasts and Great Lakes.
As a member of the task force, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, has said, and I echo her on this, that saltwater recreational fishing is vital to this nation and NOAA is committed to building a strong partnership with America’s saltwater anglers to ensure that Americans have opportunities to fish sustainably for generations to come.
Saltwater recreational fishing matters to me on a personal level as a recreational fisherman, it matters to millions of Americans who enjoy this great sport and it matters to our economy. Our most recent economic report shows it supports a half million jobs and generates $82 billion in sales each year.
NOAA is committed to adopting policies that will ensure that current and future generations have the opportunity to enjoy the great tradition of recreational fishing.
From the editor of ESPN
Firestorms get started in a variety of ways, especially on politicized issues.
ESPNOutdoors.com inadvertently contributed to a flare-up Tuesday when we posted the latest article in a series of stories on President Barack Obama's newly created Ocean Policy Task Force, a column written by Robert Montgomery, a conservation writer for BASS since 1985. Regrettably, we made several errors in the editing and presentation of this installment. Though our series has included numerous news stories on the topic, this was not one of them -- it was an opinion piece, and should have been clearly labeled as commentary.
And while our series overall has examined several sides of the topic, this particular column was not properly balanced and failed to represent contrary points of view. We have reached out to people on every side of the issue and reported their points of view -- if they chose to respond -- throughout the series, but failed to do so in this specific column.
This series started in October and has included several updates on how the creation of the task force and its actions could impact recreational anglers. ESPNOutdoors.com should have made it clear to all readers that this was part of a larger series, and -- even though this was Montgomery's opinion, and those of the sources quoted in the column -- we should have taken more care to fairly represent opposing arguments.
We do feel it is our duty to cover issues surrounding outdoor sports to the best of our abilities, and given the nature of this task force and the potential impact on all fisherman, this was an appropriate topic to address for our audience. We take seriously the tenets of journalism that require we take an unbiased approach, and when we make mistakes in the presentation of a story or a column, it is our responsibility to admit them.
Any confusion on that part rests entirely on my shoulders as the executive editor of this site.
We have appended the original column to note that it was in fact a commentary, and we will institute more rigorous editing safeguards in order to prevent such issues in the future.
http://sports.espn.go.com/...
Things like this happen over and over again and it is not by accident.
Before the days of E-mail and the Internet, folks would hand out and post copied fliers in public places. Like this one that circulated around Dallas, Texas on November 21, 1963.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/...
Richard Hofstadter wrote about this particular phenomenon a year later in November of 1964
"American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wind. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression "paranoid style" I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics., In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant."
http://www.kenrahn.com/...
He goes on to say that insane conspiracy theories that have been propagated by otherwise sane individuals have been with us since before this nation was founded and shows some great examples from 1951, 1895 and 1855.
The reason that these insane conspiracy theories are constantly circulated, even today in our relatively educated nation, is because they are actively spread by propagandists. And the master of this tactic is radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh is more than just a corporate-funded propagandist, he is manipulator of words and ideas. He uses a fascist tactic invented by Benito Mussolini and perfected by Adolph Hitler. Limbaugh calls himself a conservative Republican but upon closer examination, he is closer aligned with mid-20th century fascism.
Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An exegesis by David Neiwert posted on August 30, 2003
"Rush Limbaugh likes to call himself "the most dangerous man in America." He offers this epithet tongue in cheek on his radio program, but the truth is, he isn't kidding. Over the decade and more that Limbaugh has ruled America's talk-radio landscape, it has become inescapably clear that he is, if nothing else, certainly the most dangerous demagogue in America, maybe in history."
http://cursor.org/...
But before we go about accusing people of being fascists, we should understand what fascism really is. Luckily, we have a first-hand account from which we can draw from, Umberto Eco. Mr. Eco is an Italian academic who experienced life in Fascist Italy. He describes it in a paper called Ur-Fascism in June of 1995. He describes 14 conditions in the zeitgeist that allow fascism to take hold:
The cult of tradition, rejection of modernism, action for action's sake, disagreement is treason, fear of difference, appeal to a frustrated middle class, obsession with conspiracy theories, humiliated by the ostentatiousness of their enemies, pacifism is trafficking with the enemy because life is permanent warfare, contempt for the weak, heroism is the norm, disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of homosexuality, selective populism and most importantly - newspeak.
http://www.pegc.us/...