Blood: Sarah Palin Kicks the Leftist Ant Hill and Goes for Gaia’s Throat

Conservationsists? Well, not really.
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The premiere of TLC's "Sarah Palin’s Alaska" has provoked a psychotic reaction on the political left, which is railing against not just Gov. Palin herself, observes Loran Blood at David Horowitz's NewsReal Blog, but against what they think she represents:

The criticism has only snowballed since Nov. 14. and has begun appearing in more specific guises. The Huffington Post reports that a “local Alaskan conservationist” has criticized her for violating “wildlife guidelines” during the show’s filming. The critic, one John Toppenberg, says the brief encounter with two dueling Grizzlies may not “send an appropriate message to large numbers of people that are not experienced at fishing in bear country.” An honest, non-political criticism? Just who is John Toppenberg and what is The Alaska Wildlife Alliance, the group he represents?

Conservationsists? Well, not really. The Alaskan Wildlife Alliance is, as a working knowledge of their website and issue positions will make clear in no time, a leftist environmental activist group who’s primary concern is the ending of the culling of wolves and other predators to preserve prey species populations and to support the reintroduction of large predators to areas in which they have been long absent. There may or may not be good scientific arguments for further limitations on such culling by state biologists and private hunters, but the Alaska Wildlife Alliance claims in its mission statement that its purpose is to “protect Alaska’s natural wildlife for its intrinsic value as well as for the benefit of present and future generations.”

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Sarah Palin is accused of fomenting a “massacre” of wolves and their pups while in thrall to “the corporation and special interests”. Palin, Pablo Escobar-like, runs a “wildlife cartel” that represents the “greatest circumnavigation of ethics, truth, science and morality ever perpetrated on the people of Alaska by their government”.

Not to be outdone, the AWA newsletter Echos speaks of a “war on wolves and bears” in which “barbaric cruelty” describes the motives and methods of those with whom the group disagrees. Field Marshal Palin is responsible, we learn in an Audubon Magazine.org article for “surprise air strikes” against wolves (no doubt John Kerry was in the area at the time, and now has this incident “seared — seared — in me.” Toppenberg himself is quoted in the same article in reference to Palin’s “war”.

Wolves are described in one article as “one of Earth’s pinnacles of intelligence, sentience, and sociality” Perhaps so, but one suspects that local moose, who have little symbolic political value, were not consulted regarding this observation.

[More]

Blood will get no argument from us. We've expressed similar opinions on this subject a number of times, including here, here, here, here and here.

- JP