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Conservative Radio Host Burning Green Swastika for Earth Day
CNSNEWS ^ | 4/19/02 | Michael L. Betsch

Posted on 04/19/2002 10:48:20 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection

In advance of Earth Day 2002, the day when environmentalists celebrate their efforts to preserve the planet from what they consider human destruction, working-class Americans in one rural Montana city plan to condemn the "green left" for allegedly killing their livelihood.

KGEZ Radio, an AM station broadcasting out of Kalispell, Mont., is celebrating Earth Day on Friday, three days early, by burning a twelve-foot green swastika in front of the station.

John Stokes, the owner and host of KGEZ's morning talk show, will strike the match to ignite the green swastika and, he hopes, educate the public about the liberal environmentalists whom he accuses of ruining rural America. He calls them "green Nazis," and he hopes to make them angry, too.

Stokes said that by burning the swastika, he's making a bold statement that every industry in America has been adversely affected by dictates to preserve the environment.

"We've lost our natural resource industry; we can't mine, we can't log," Stokes said. Such losses, he said, have resulted in a 70 percent unemployment rate in America's natural resource industries.

If environmentalism had produced worthwhile results, "We probably all would agree with it, but the results have been disastrous," Stokes said.

And it's not just the miners and the loggers who are struggling because of laws passed at the behest of environmentalists, Stokes said. "Everybody's on the list. They just don't know it yet."

Unsuspecting industries targeted by environmentalists include farming and agriculture, paper mills and truckers and transporters of manufactured goods, Stokes said.

Stokes is especially angered by the Endangered Species Act, which was enacted at the insistence of environmentalists.

"It's destroyed rural America," he said. "If you live in the city, you probably don't understand that. But when you get out here in rural America, you know, the great fly-over country, it's had a devastating effect."

Critics of the Endangered Species Act say it mostly endangers humans. They say environmentalists have become experts at deliberately misusing the act to destroy people's livelihoods and culture, by depriving them of various opportunities to earn a living from the land.

The Montana Human Rights Network (MHRN), which seeks to protect environmentalists from physical harm, has been in a war of words with KGEZ's Stokes since 1994, though they've never met to discuss their differences of opinion.

Ken Toole, a program director at the MHRN, said his organization tangled with Stokes after witnessing a rise in "the use of violence and intimidation around political disputes around resource development."

Toole, also a Democratic state Senator from Helena, said Stokes has - in the past -- urged people to call in to his radio talk show to reveal the telephone numbers and home addresses of environmental activists on the air.

"What we concluded is that in this community, people were being singled out for harassment because of their political views in an effort to get them to shut-up," Toole said.

Toole said Stokes blames the failure of the "traditional resource-extractive economy" on environmentalists "who want to save trees." And, he said, Stokes encourages listeners to "go beat the hell out of them (environmentalists)."

Stokes called Toole's accusations an "absolute lie."

But according to Toole, "Our belief is that John Stokes very much feeds into that by reinforcing all of the kind of scape-goating, the mythology, the fear and anger felt by some people in the community around these conservation disputes."

In fact, Toole said Stokes' form of scape-goating resembles that of those who "want to blame the international Jewish banking conspiracy" for the world's economic woes.

As for Stokes' symbolic burning of a green swastika, Toole said Stokes is "trying to symbolize his idea that conservationists are uncompromising, are bad, are evil. But we're very clear that the swastika is a symbol for his perception of the conservation movement."

"Those guys are misguided," Stokes said of Toole and the Montana Human Rights Coalition's efforts against him.

"They've found the perfect issue to co-opt everybody's principles," Stokes said of environmentalism. "Think about it. Religion's never been able to do it; political philosophies have never been able to do it.

"These green extremists have found the one thing that everybody can agree with, and that's clean air and clean water," Stokes said. "And, once you've established that's the principle, then everything's permissible under obtaining that," he said.


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: earthday; environment; greennazis

1 posted on 04/19/2002 10:48:20 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
"And it's not just the miners and the loggers who are struggling because of laws passed at the behest of environmentalists, Stokes said. "Everybody's on the list. They just don't know it yet.""

If everyone were a FReeper, they KNOW IT!

Any way to put a 'FreeRepublic link' in the 'mean, green machine'?

2 posted on 04/19/2002 10:52:06 AM PDT by d14truth
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
Whether or not people agree with the environmentalists, burning a large swastika out in public is a rude, offensive thing to do, and will probably turn out to be counter-productive.
3 posted on 04/19/2002 11:00:34 AM PDT by Stone Mountain
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To: Stone Mountain;Tumbleweed_Connection
yes you are right.. they should be burning a green Hammer-and-Sickle for Lenin's birthday.
4 posted on 04/19/2002 11:07:15 AM PDT by wafflehouse
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
Actually, if you disregard the brown uniforms and silly goose step, a careful reading of what the Nazis actually believed will find some frightening paralells with what the greens actually believe.
5 posted on 04/19/2002 11:33:27 AM PDT by Stefan Stackhouse
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
Im passing out ciggs for a smoke-a-thon.
6 posted on 04/19/2002 11:35:11 AM PDT by FreeTally
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To: Stone Mountain
It's very offensive, isn't it? And being polite to this cadre of irrational lunatics will get you nowhere.

Bring on the offensive smears. It couldn't happen to a more deserving crowd of fascists.

7 posted on 04/19/2002 11:48:35 AM PDT by Reactionary
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To: Reactionary
It's very offensive, isn't it? And being polite to this cadre of irrational lunatics will get you nowhere.

Actually, I didn't mean it was offensive to the environmentalists - I have no problem at all with offending them. However, there are many people out there who suffered both directly and indirectly because of the Nazis, and I still believe that this diplay is extremely disrespectful to them. Also, when everyone gets frivolously compared to Nazis, the horror of the real atrocities the Nazis committed get diluted. As much as any of us may hate the radical environmental movement, they are not in favor of rounding up a bunch of people and slaughtering them.
8 posted on 04/19/2002 2:39:51 PM PDT by Stone Mountain
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To: Reactionary
Bring on the offensive smears. It couldn't happen to a more deserving crowd of fascists.

This may well be true. If the purpose of the protest was just to insult the environmentalists, then mission accomplished.

However, if as Stokes said, that the purpose was to "educate the public about the liberal environmentalists whom he accuses of ruining rural America," I don't think he will be getting a lot of support from the public for lighting a swastika out in public.

Of course, more likely is that his purpose was neither of the above, but to garner publicity for him and his show. Mission accomplished there.
9 posted on 04/19/2002 2:46:09 PM PDT by Stone Mountain
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