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Leonard Who?

Location: Blogs The Green Zone an environmental blog
Posted by: Dave Rhea	6/19/2007 4:32 AM
When I see some faceless guy show up in my hometown paper claiming to represent people in my community, I want to know who else he represents. (see list of gigantic corporations below) Leonard Who? Some guy named Leonard Gilroy wrote an op-ed in our paper Sunday. Who? Never met the guy. He’s not at the Appleton After Hours. I have never seen him down having lunch at Reno’s either. Who the heck is this guy? But he sure has a lot of opinions about a lot of people who care deeply about Marion County, whom he calls “zealots.” He rails against a group called “Hometown Democracy,” and calls them a “direct frontal assault on private property rights.” Well, if private property rights means I should be able to go outside and dump motor oil into my yard without anyone being able to do anything about it, I guess he is right. Leonard Gilroy is, in fact, not from Ocala or Marion County or Central Florida. He’s a think-tank scholar hired to write op-eds on behalf of Big Industries – coal, builders, oil, pharmaceuticals, et al. Guys like Gilroy are pro-growth, climate change denying, out-of-towners who are basically propagandists paid by special interests to spread their political ideology via local papers like ours - while sheepishly hiding behind a veil of so-called “non-partisan, non-profit think tanks” like (now, don’t laugh!) “The Reason Foundation.” In fact, The Reason Foundation does have a “reason” to have a fellow like Gilroy on staff - The Reason Foundation has, in fact, received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Exxon/Mobil to fund climate change skeptics and pro-growth “scholars” who churn out rebukes of grassroots organizations like Hometown Democracy, which threaten their bottom lines. They are like industry lobbyists of the hearts and minds of the common man. Here are some other of “The Reason Foundation’s” past and present corporate donors: American Forest and Paper Association American Petroleum Institute American Plastics Council ARCO Foundation, BP Amoco Chemical Manufacturers Association Chevron Corporation Chlorine Chemistry Council Clorox Dow Chemical Eastman Chemical Edison Electric Institute ENRON (RIP) Kimberly-Clark, Eli Lilly Pfizer, Inc Philip Morris Shell Oil Union Carbide Corporation Western States Petroleum Just to name a few. Boy, talk about grassroots and non-partisan. I don’t have a beef with Leonard Gilroy as a guy. I am sure he’s a swell fellow. I bet he can really smear me at a game of golf, but I bet we’d have fun in the process. I’ll bet we could share some laughs over some beers down at the local tavern – if he was a local. But he’s NOT a local, and my point is, when I see some faceless guy like Leonard Gilroy show up in my hometown paper, claiming that he represents “private property owners,” I just want to point out who else he represents. (see above list of gigantic corporations) When he frames you and me and anyone else who disagrees with the agenda of Shell, Exxon and ENRON (RIP) - and other various privatization superconglomerations - as anti-growth zealots and environmental whackos, it just stinks to high heaven. So when you read this, at least now you know for whom he really stands. (again, see above list of gigantic corporations) Gilroy is everywhere, when you start looking. Portland. San Jose. Virginia. Pensacola. Blacksburg. When I read this editorial, I was thinking maybe he’s FROM here. Nope. I don’t know that he’s ever even been to Central Florida. Gilroy is also a scholar at the “non-partisan policy center” known as the James Madison Institute, which forwards wholly conservative framing issues as “limited government,” “Federalism,” “privatization” and “free trade.” Non-partisan? Feel free to make your case against the people of Marion County from afar, but please don’t hide behind the term “non-partisan.” It’s just not honest. In this op-ed about the fate of our community, Gilroy said, “most voters can’t possibly do the research necessary to cast an informed ballot…” Excuse me? So instead, we should just bow out and trust the status quo of “informed” think-tankers who will use the smoke-and-mirrors argument of “private property rights” and such frivolous hyperbole as calling people who disagree with him “BANANAs: build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone?” Give me a break. The people of this community are not quite as dumb as you think they are.

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Comments (4) Add Comment

Re: Leonard Who?	By Allie on 6/20/2007 12:09 PM
Hey Dave, I know it's not easy, but thanks for being green.

Re: Leonard Who?	By dr on 6/23/2007 6:28 AM
Yes they are, your rambling blog only accentuates it.

Re: Leonard Who?	By Dave Rhea on 6/23/2007 8:28 AM
Allie, thank you for reading. Being green isn't as difficult as you think - except you have to suffer a lot of fools -- see my blog entry "Why not be a good steward of your world?" on why this may be... dr, whoever you are, you can opine that the people of Ocala/Marion County are not smart (I assume you live here too?), and we can simply agree to disagree.

Re: Leonard Who?

By Scott on 5/19/2008 8:48 AM

This might be a late comment. In attacking Gilroy, you had nothing concrete. What ideas of his are misguided and why? Please don't use ad hominem fallacies if you wish you to make to make a valid point. In other words you are attacking the person & make implications about his motives, which are untrue anyway. You also gave a wild extreme example of dumping oil in the ground. BTW, for those companies you mentioned, you don't use any of the type of products that they have available for consumers?

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