Category Archives: Week 12: Conservatism, II

The environmental movement was raging in the 70s and momentum was chugging along with the creation of the EPA and increased environmental protections being passed in the congressional halls. The environmental movement was a non-partisan issue with both Republicans and Democrats supporting the first Earth Day in 1970. Enter the New Right, who painted environmentalContinue reading “Burning Sage”

In 1964, the Wilderness Act was passed, allowing the federal government to set aside certain lands and designate them as protected wilderness. This and the wilderness movement initially received fairly bipartisan support from both Democrats and Republicans, in large part due to its moderate approach (Turner 126). Many compromises were made, such as mainly onlyContinue reading “The Opposition to the Environmental Movement”

In the late 1900s, two movements sparkled especially in the western part of the U.S—the Sagebrush Rebellion and the Wise Use movement—They both fought against the control of these lands by the U.S. federal government. They believed that it is up to the local people to decide how the land is used.  First, The SagebrushContinue reading “The Rise of Conservatism: Who Owns the Land?”

The Sagebrush Rebellion was “a populist protest against public land reform supported by western citizens, the natural resource industries, and local and state governments in the West” (131). The movement was one of the first populist environmental movements after WWII, and often, its opposition to environmental reform was primarily framed in the language of state’sContinue reading “War on The West”

 THis article talks about the sagebrush rebellion adn how it was successful and it opinion that helped shape the mind of the senators of western states of United States and the political leaders as well an dthe howoyt became such an impact that we show thank the environmental activist that help chnage what we shouldContinue reading “The Sagebrush Rebellion and the Wise Use Movement.”

In the 1980s and 1990s, many people in western America were angry about how the government managed public lands. They believed that local people should have more control. This anger helped start the Sagebrush Rebellion and later the Wise Use movement. These fights about land and who should control it helped bring new attention toContinue reading “The New Right”

The history of environmentalism is like a swinging pendulum, going from an active manipulation of the environment approach to a hands-off one and back again. The New Right took environmental activists as extremists who were taking part in a culture war (123). The Sagebrush Rebellion and Wise Use Movements were actions of opposition to theContinue reading “The Environment and the New Right”

Beginning in the early 1980s, environmentalists were demonized by conservative Republicans, particularly under the Reagan administration, as “extremists” who posed a growing threat to the orderly development of the nation’s resources (Turner). While environmentalists enjoyed a great deal of legislative success in the 1960s and 1970s, their efforts were challenged by westerners in the 1980sContinue reading “Happy Earth Day! =)”

There is this idea that environmentalism is neutral. That wanting to protect the land is separate from politics and preserving wilderness is about loving nature, not about controlling people. But reading about the Sagebrush Rebellion and the Wise Use movement makes it clear that land has always been political, and that the fights over whoContinue reading “Rebels, Profits, and Lies, Oh My!”