Eco-Thug: Helen Chenoweth
by Paul Rauber
Most of the anti-environmental zealots spotlighted as "eco-thugs" in this column thus far have objected, claiming that they are, in fact, misunderstood nature lovers. No such quibble is likely to come from Idaho Representative Helen Chenoweth (R), who takes the rhetoric of the "War on the Environment" literally.
"We are in a battle today that is far more insidious and dangerous as far as conquering our people and our soul than we have ever faced before," she told an Idaho church group. "Our land has been taken. It's time we reclaim our land."
For the Idaho congressman (as Chenoweth insists on being called), this is a religious war. "There is increasing evidence of a government-sponsored religion in America," she declared on the House floor. "This religion, a cloudy mixture of New Age mysticism, Native American folklore, and primitive Earth worship, is being promoted and enforced by the Clinton administration in violation of our rights and freedoms." Critics scoffed that Chenoweth had finally gone off the deep end, but deep-enders are her core constituency. She rose up through the ranks of the Republican Party in Idaho by representing the John Birch Society, the so-called Wise Users, and the militia movement (for whom the Idaho Statesman calls her the "poster child").
Chenoweth plays to the paranoia of far-rightists by fanning their delusions about mysterious black helicopters supposedly used by federal Fish and Wildlife agents to enforce environmental laws in Idaho. "I have never seen them," Chenoweth admitted to The New York Times. "But enough people in my district have become concerned that I can't just ignore it. We do have some proof."
