January 06, 2005
1/6 - Ted Williams in Audubon Magazine: "Alliances depend on communication"
The actual quote is, "... as the NRA has figured out, alliances depend on communication." It's from a very good essay by hunting and fishing writer Ted Williams this month in Audubon Magazine titled, "Guns and Greens." Very relevant to ocean conservation, and in fact opens by pointing to the California Channel Islands MPA as a case study in failed communication. He does a good job of trying to pull people into the middle ground for the sake of more effective communication.
And his reference to the NRA is not new -- the Turning the Tides report, funded by Packard, also chose the NRA as an example of an organization that knows how to get what it wants.
I'll tell you one thing, after trading posts with fishermen on three of their websites over the past week, they are a lot more focused, motivated and eager to communicate than are environmentalists. Right or wrong, they're really good at just getting in there and discussing the issues. I'm afraid it kind of matches the Republican vs. Democrat divide in communications ability.
Ted Williams writes about "Guns and Greens" in Audubon Magazine, mentioning the conflicts over MPAs.