Posted on 09/15/2001 12:48:34 PM PDT by LarryLied
Hot to present themselves as staunch flag-waggers, some of America's premier environmental organizations have disgracefully ditched their principles.
The Sierra Club, America's oldest green group has abruptly turned off its campaign against the anti-environmental program of the Bush administration. CounterPunch has secured an internal memo in which the club's high command explains to its staff why it suspending its campaigns.
"In response to the attacks on America," the memo goes, "we are shifting our communications strategy for the immediate future. We have taken all of our ads off of the air; halted our phone banks; removed any material from the web that people could perceive as anti-Bush, and we are taking other steps to prevent the Sierra Club from being perceived as controversial during this crisis. For now we are going to stop aggressively pushing our agenda and will cease bashing President Bush."
The memo then instructs club staffers on how to respond to the press: "If you are asked about what this terrorism does to the Sierra Club's agenda, please respond simply by saying that right now the public needs to focus on comforting each other and strengthening our national security to deal with the crisis at hand."
Imagine if this craven posture spreads across the public interest movement. We could expect First Amendment defenders to say that they were abandoning efforts to protect the Bill of Rights. We could expect groups defending immigrants to say that henceforth the INS should be given free rein. Fortunately First Amendment defenders and defenders of immigrants have stronger spines and principles than the supposed defenders of the environment at the Sierra Club.
Are we now to expect the Club to endorse drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve as necessary "for national security"?
Even groups that we here at CounterPunch have admired are now in pellmell cowardly retreat.
The Berkeley-based International Rivers Network, which has been the main bulwark against the Three Gorges dam in China, now announces that it is suspending its planned nationwide protest against Morgan Stanley, one of the dam's principle financiers. Morgan Stanley had 50 floors of offices in the World Trade Center. IRN has also announced that "out of respect for the victims of this disaster, with understanding of the strategic difficulties in conveying to a shocked media and public our messages regarding the World Bank and IMF, with concern for the integrity of security systems in Washington DC, and for the safety of all, we will refrain from participating in activities surrounding the planned World Bank / IMF this month. We are also sharing our concerns with the leading organizations responsible for planning and coordinating these activities."
The Ruckus Society, the direct action training group involved in many demonstrations at the World Trade Organization has simultaneously announced that it is canceling its training camp, to be held in Middleburgh, Virginia, scheduled as preparation for the next World Bank meeting.
This camp was to be cosponsored by the Institute for Policy Studies, Jobs with Justice and Global Exchange. All these organizations have now backed out, saying that now is not the time for such activity.
The Rainforest Action Network, based in San Francisco, describes itself as being in a "wait-and-see mode."
"Things are definitely on hold," said RAN's Patrick Reinsborough.
Let's get this straight. If all resisters to the Bush political program were to follow this shameful exhibition by these green groups, we would see peace groups declining to protest against nuclear attacks on Iraq and armed invasion of Afghanistan. We would see civil rights sitting on their hands as racial and religious profiling is used to persecute people of Middle Eastern descent. Defenders of Palestinian rights would say that for the time being they wouldn't protest the use of US Apache helicopters against civilians in West Bank towns and villages.
What nonsense! Principles are never more important than when it is inconvenient or dangerous to stand up for them.
Are we now to expect the Club to endorse drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve as necessary "for national security"?
NO, because they are too stupid to understand that.
John Kerry was asked this very question about drilling in ANWR and he immediately went to the standard talking points as to why there was so little oil and we shouldn't disturb the pristine ANWR!(barf)
Sounds great for now, doesn't it? Just wait, though, today as I was skipping to the "recycle center" through the Whitewater Rafting Kindom of the Sierra Nevada, I passed the entrance of "ENVIRONMENTAL TRAVELING COMPANIONS" rafting campground and launch site!
These are "Fellow Travelers" to the end and the "ends" justifiy any of their "means." These are very patient and determined Pagan fanatics. You'll see. It won't take long!!!
To them it's a religious way of life, just like the muslim terrorists. They will never let you live freely the way you see fit, cause they know they know what's best for everyone!!! They take very brief respites from subversion!!!
Kerry had a new answer to the footprint argument. We must have won on the fact that very little land will be used. The new lie is the amount of "Global Warming Gases" which will be released. As much as the entire city of Washington DC releases. So sez Kerry.
(rather an unfortunate choice of city for an analogy, isn't it?)
This deserves to be said again.
I like that idea!
"...The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are. And it is important to the rest of the world to make sure that they don't suffer economically by virtue of our stopping them." - Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund
"Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs." - John Davis, editor of Earth First Journal
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." - H.L. Mencken
"Cannibalism is a radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation." - Lyall Watson, The Financial Times - July 15, 1995
"Protecting the environment is a ruse. The goal is the political and economic subjugation of most men by the few, under the guise of preserving nature." - J.H. Robbins
"Global sustainability requires: the deliberate quest of poverty....reduced resource consumption...and set levels of mortality control." - Professor Maurice King
"The environmentalist's dream is an Egalitarian society based on rejection of economic growth, a smaller population, eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally." - Aaron Wildavsky
"A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the greenhouse effect." - Richard Benedict, State Dept./Conservation Foundation
"Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." - Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
"The secret to David McTaggart's(early officer in Greenpeace) success is the secret to Greenpeace's success: It doesn't matter what is true...it only matters what people believe is true...You are what the media define you to be. Greenpeace became a myth, and a myth-generating machine." - Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace.
"Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover the source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it." - Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute
"We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing--in terms of economic policy and environmental policy." - Timothy Wirth, former U.S. Senator(D-Colorado)
"We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects....We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled land." - David Foreman, Earth First
"The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans." - Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project
"As radical environmentalists, we can see AIDS not as a problem, but as a necessary solution." - Miss Ann Thropy(pseudonym), Earth First Journal
"The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing....This is to say that the rise of human civilization is insignificant, but there is no way of showing that it will be much help to the world in the long run." - Economist editorial
"I suspect that the politicians and businessmen who are jumping on the environmental bandwagon don't have the slightest idea of what they are getting into. They are talking about emission control devices on automobiles, while we are talking about bans on automobiles." - Dennis Hayes, Eart Day Agenda
"The invention of the concept of sustainable human development and that of so-called human security, as opposed to territorial security of nation-states, and its promotion by the UN is in clear contradiction to all that we, the Group of 77, and the UN Charter itself consider inalienable, namely national sovereignty and security." - Pranab Mukherjee, India's Minister Of Commerce- Earth Times, Oct.15,1994
"It's(the prospect of cheap fusion energy) the worst thing that could happen to the planet." - Jeremy Rifkin
"If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels." - Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund
"Christianity is our foe. If animal rights is to succeed, we must destroy the Judeo-Christian Religious tradition." - Peter Singer, the father of Animal Rights
"In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 per day." - Dr. Jacques Cousteau
"I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems." - John Davis, editor of Earth First Journal
"We reject the idea of private property." - Peter Berle, President of National Audubon Society
"People are the cause of all the problems, we have too many of them; we need to get rid of some of them, and this(ban of DDT) is as good a way as any." - Charles Wurster, Environmental Defense Fund
"This is a political game. It has nothing to do with science. It has nothing to do with health and safety." - Sherry Neddick, Greenpeace
If they are willing to sacrifice my freedom for the caraboo in alaska they had better be willing to sacrifice their way of living. I have no intentions of giving up my use of oil in order to fuel anyones limousine including John Kerry's.
I have a backyard full of oil, electricity, game and trees. I say let the liberals use what they can drill, hunt, chop, etc. and we'll do the same.
I don't have much patience with the 'do as I say not as I do' bunch.
And how about a federal government program we can all get behind and support?
I'd like to see a rapid ramping up of the CMP. Start teaching gun safety in schools, and not only safety, but marksmanship too. The Civilian Marksmanship Program has an honorable place in American history, but history is still being written.
Let's see some of that $40,000,000,000 go to revitalizing the CMP, and moving it to the forefront. Our troops will be very well served by a knowledge of the safe, effective use of their personal weapons, and a lifetime of familiarity with those weapons -- under the tutelage of real experts -- will not only help save their lives, but will also help preserve the entire nation.
I noticed the leftists in the article quoted above wringing their hands about the First Amendment. Without seeking to diminish that treasured clause in the least, we can also promote the Second Amendment, to help preserve our nation (and by extention, the free world).
If those vermin were active during WWII, they'd have been filing lawsuits to prohibit sending ammunition to the infantry because of "toxic lead content".
Is that comparison based on measurements taken when their lips are moving, or closed?
Breathtaking! Environmentalism is equated in importance with the Bill of Rights! I am (nearly) speechless.
Stay Safe !
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