Posted on 04/28/2003 1:55:45 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
It is no exaggeration to say that the twentieth century has probably been the most momentous of any other. It gave birth to the greatest technological marvels in human history. It also fought the bloodiest and most extensive wars in history, simultaneously fighting virtually over the globe.
It was also been the century that saw the rise and fall of totalitarianism or did it? Ideology is the foundation stone of every totalitarian structure, whether it be Communism, Nazism or Fascism. Not any ideology, of course, but one that justifies the subjection and destruction of one's fellow man.
Totalitarianism means what it says: total control. The ideology rationalises that control and the use of the power needed to enforce it. Totalitarianism brings home with bloody force Lord Acton's dictum that absolute power not only tends to corrupt but absolute power corrupts absolutely.
One only has to read Lord Liverpool's account of Nazi atrocities or other books like Victor Kravchenko's I Chose Freedom, Nikoli Tolstoy's Stalin's Secret War, Robert Conquest's The Harvest of Sorrow, Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago to realise the savage horrors of totalitarianism.
The appalling role that Western intellectuals played in supporting totalitarianism has been amply documented by genuine scholars. (See, for example, Paul Hollander's Political Pilgrims). That many, if not most, of these intellectuals are irredeemable is borne out by the depressing fact that in Australia we still have university lecturers who have never apologised for supporting Mao Tse Tung or Pol Pot. Instead, these same intellectuals still use every opportunity to attack what they deem capitalist countries.
The delusion that a humane totalitarianism is possible was exploded by Hayek's brilliant book The Road to Serfdom which lucidly explained why the worst will always get to the top in any totalitarian state.
All of this brings us to the greens. Not because most of them are obviously anti-capitalist and therefore socialists, but because of their contempt for human welfare, except their own. One thing that marks out a totalitarian movement is its contempt for human life. In this respect the greens stand shoulder to shoulder with the Nazis and the Reds. It was green ideologues that forced through the totally unjustified ban on DDT. A ban that killed over 20 million Third-World peasants and is still killing about 2 million a year.
A ban that causes immense misery and pain to those who are least able to defend themselves. Yet greens refuse to acknowledge this misery. Why? Because they despise the victims; the untermenschen whose aspirations for a better life challenge the comfortable existence of the Herrenvolk. That is why Greens still support the ban. That is why they violently oppose economic growth; that is why they oppose cheap energy, genetic engineering, man-made pesticides, intensive agriculture, etc.
Why else do you think prominent greens could callously advocate a policy of denying starving peasants aid in food. And this is why Dr Charles Wurster defended the ban on DDT, because in his own words, "this is as good away to get rid of them [people] as any". And this was while he was still chief scientist for the Environmental Defence Fund. As expected, the EDF did not repudiate his views.
No, our totalitarian greens do not use gas chambers, death camps, firing squads or torture chambers to rid themselves of the lesser people. What they try to do is deny them life-saving chemicals and technology. Green policies are killing millions of peasants. This is mass murder and those responsible should be held to account.
Not humans. It's toxic to some species of birds. When the banning campaign was ongoing, it was said to be toxic to all species and to humans. Later, it turned out that the effect on humans is negligable, but birds ARE still affected.
The part about the DDT ban causing so much starvation is true. Mostly locusts. On the other hand, extremely beneficial birds were becoming extinct, because their eggshells were soft, and the embryos killed due to squishing. The birds are safe now, and I for one hate to lose them....BUT there has been no other effective pesticide to replace it, and research is greatly hampered due to the insane, ever growning blob of worldwide regulations which sprang from that one successful battle.
The article could have been better written.
But the Green Nazis will not even support this practice. They arm twisted the last country in Africa (can't remember which one) into stopping this a few years ago, and now malaria rates are skyrocketing there.
Greens don't care about the fact that DDT used this way cannot harm the environment whatsoever. They just want people dead. This is not hype. Its true.
I've read that this "fragile egg shell" effect was from a single study in the early 60's where they were testing DDT toxicity on birds by feeding DDT laced feed to ducks. The ducks didn't have any toxic reaction to reasonable levels of DDT, but their eggs were fragile.
It turns out that the analysis methods available in that day required the researchers to feed them calcium free feed, while the control group had normal calcium feed. Naturaly, their eggs were fragile, but initially this wasn't the object of the study, so the difference calcium in feed was not noticed.
Observation of broken raptor egg shells in the wild were seen as proof (go looking for something, and you'll probably find it). However, there is a normal rate of egg breakage, and apparently there were no studies that proved the egg breakage rate was any higher than "normal". They did find DDT in the eggs, if I remember right, but that is hardly surprising, and not proof that it was the cause of the fragility.
Some bird populations did decline in areas of high farm DDT use. But this is undoubtedly because DDT killed their food source, not because of DDT toxicity in the birds themselves.
I hope the article I read on this was accurate. It does none of us any good to spout controversial stuff like this, if it is not factual. However, this seems right in line with the what I've observed of the Green movement. They don't give a tinkers D@mn about people, or even about the environment. They just use it for power, and for a profession, except for the majority "useful idiot" crowd that supports them.
I'm just going from memory, but not only ducks were affected. The hardest hit species were apparently predatory birds. The numbers of raptors are recovering at a very comforting pace - unless you're an envirnazi, because then no matter how prolific a species is, it's 'endangered'.
Most people just figure that the lack of insects were starving the animals that prey on the insects, which then caused starvation in animals that preyed on them.
NOW...because the study results are worthless, I must make the point that we'll never know whether raptors were really affected by the DDT, or some other, entirely unrelated factor. The Greenies and their useful idiots are proof: science and politics NEVER mix. Also, as I pointed out, we have no effective substitute, because ALL pesticides are more and more and more and more closely regulated and then later banned - not because of SCIENCE - but because of pseudoscience, the bastard child of politics and science, which borrows heavily from late '70's, early '80's 'wisdom'.
Well, no. I think her logic is fine. She's saying she wouldn't kill one living "being" to save another.
That said, she's an idiot.
Another reason is that Borlaug's mission -- to cause the environment to produce significantly more food -- has come to be seen, at least by some securely affluent commentators, as perhaps better left undone. More food sustains human population growth, which they see as antithetical to the natural world.
They successfully pressured the major foundations who originally funded his work in the early days (Rockefeller, Ford, etc.) to stop funding him. Makes your blood boil!!
Oh they're affected all righty, but not the way you think. DDT kills parasites (such as lice) that are a threat to birds. The parasites spread disease and induce pneumonia.
Here are Audubon society bird counts before and after the mass production and use of huge amounts of DDT.
The problem is that when there is so much money to be made controlling access to resources, those with the money to invest will use the power to regulate the economy in the name of protecting the environment to make a very tidy profit. As long as the opinion of a democratic majority is capable of controlling the use of private property, those investors will invest heavily in controlling that public opinion. They will find and publicize purveyors of opinion friendly to their interests. Enter Rachel Carlson, whose lies were used to foist the largest single act of mass murder in the twentieth century.
Audubon Society
Christmas Bird Count Data
1941 (2,331 Observers)
vs. 1960 (8,928 Observers)
Species
Count
Count/Observer
Ratio/Observer
1941
1960
1941
1960
1960/1941
Eagle
197
891
0.08
0.10
1.18
Gull
124,470
635,642
53.40
71.20
1.33
Raven
667
2,669
0.29
0.30
1.04
Crow
185,519
250,307
79.59
28.04
0.35
Quail
2,060
10,276
0.88
1.15
1.30
Pheasant
6,839
19,731
2.93
2.21
0.75
Mounring Dove
7,411
72,958
3.18
8.17
2.57
Swallow
14,347
242,303
6.15
27.14
4.41
Grebe
2,501
27,826
1.07
3.12
2.90
Pelican
4,450
10,562
1.91
1.18
0.62
Cormorant
3,246
27,162
1.39
3.04
2.18
Heron
2,254
16,253
0.97
1.82
1.88
Egret
1,469
16,800
0.63
1.88
2.99
Swan
18,554
33,994
7.96
3.81
0.48
Goose
182,820
696,777
78.43
78.04
1.00
Ducks
2,137,093
2,739,517
916.81
306.85
0.33
Balckbird
137,502
20,552,375
58.99
2,302.01
39.02
Grackle
24,937
12,570,458
10.70
1,407.98
131.61
Cowbird
40,019
3,286,314
17.17
368.09
21.44
Chickadee
21,330
55,906
9.15
6.26
0.68
Titmouse
5,038
18,268
2.16
2.05
0.95
Nuthatch
4,214
13,439
1.81
1.51
0.83
Robin
19,616
928,639
8.42
104.01
12.36
English Sparrow
53,335
358,769
22.88
40.18
1.76
Bluebird
3,742
6,903
1.61
0.77
0.48
Starling
211,836
8,673,095
90.88
971.45
10.69
Sources:
42nd Christmas Bird Count
Audubon Magazine
, 1942
61st Christmas Bird Count
Audubon Field Notes
, 15, 1961Thanks to Dr. J. Gordon Edwards, Professor Emeritus of Entomology at San Jose State University, for providing this information.
Wouldn't you prefer an honest way to manage the environment?
OK.
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